In April, several secular organizations founded a campaign called Openly Secular, designed to buttress the community of nonbelievers by letting people share their stories, both written and on video, with others. Bill Maher’s contribution was put up yesterday:
You can share your own stories and videos by going to this site, and you can see all the videos at the Openly Secular YouTube channel. There’s a whole spectrum of people, and it’ll do your heart good to see a few. We know about the secularism of people like Maher, Michael Nugent, Penn and Teller, Jerry DeWitt, Dave Silverman, and Bart Ehrman (all of whom have videos), but check out the videos of the “regular” non-famous people. There are lots of us! Here’s Ashley Kirsner, chosen at random:
I wish they’d come around and film lots more of us. I, for one, have no way to make a video.
They urgently need a better logo!
I love the logo. Tastes vary.
Bill Maher kicks ass! 🙂
I’m openly heterosecular.
Jerry…
the “on this site” link goes to a “Anti-Discrimination Support Network Narrative Collection Form”, not where you think it does!
yay!
PCC: I can make a video for you. But it might cost you a lunch in Chinatown.
You have a very nice digital camera – doesn’t it let you take video? Buy a passable tripod, mount the camera on it, set the delay and sit down in front of it and you’ve got a video.
Or use PhotoBooth on your Mac!
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Yeah I use my mac for backwards pictures sometimes…okay once. I also used it to put my signature into Preview so I can sign PDFs.
You can check Edit » Auto Flip New Items to get “natural” pictures … but it doesn’t seem to work with video. You can flip videos in QuickTime though.
(This is still easier than theology, Jerry!)
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I bet the University of Chicago has some sort of educational technology center that is designed to help faculty film classes. You might be able to sit in a booth and record your bit under nice sound-controlled conditions.
You would also probably want a staff of writers just like Bill Maher.
I am not as “nice” as Ashley Kirsner. I really do think that being secular is the choice for everyone and people who have chosen otherwise have chosen incorrectly. Of course, they may still be very good people – better than many atheists, but when they are it more often than not in spite of religious.
…in spite of being religious. (sigh)
This campaign, following the Charlie Hebdo shooting, made me thinking. Why would anybody care about offending someone else? Harassment is one thing.
Think about it: wouldn’t be Hitler offended by being called a raving lunatic? He was doing something good. He was building a race of arians. So what he was living good when everybody else had a problem finding bread? Hitler was a man with a positive vision.
The smallest white fanatic in South Africa was helping the blacks find their place in this big nasty world. He was not a bad person. Quite the opposite: white children were supposed to be happy to live in such a world.
So why should anybody bother not to offend imaginary friends? Do a picture search for Jesus F*ucking Christ.
Ashley Kirsner mentions that being an atheist isn’t the “choice” for everyone. Really, it’s not a choice at all.
Leaving aside questions of free will, I think it can be a choice. Or, put another way, one can ‘choose to believe’ in a religion – or not. I know that’s logically impossible – one believes or not and it’s not voluntary. But I think that, if one ‘goes through the motions’ of believing for long enough, it’s habit-forming, ways of thought get set in the patterns of belief, and eventually the habit becomes indistinguishable from true belief.
Or, of course, one can choose not to – one could even _choose_ to constantly question the credibility of the stories associated with ones religion – and very likely end up an atheist, as many have done.
Not a choice- well said!
I can think of three distinct interpretations of the phrase “Really, it’s not a choice at all”.
1. Not a choice because there’s no such thing as ‘free will.’
2. Not a choice because you can’t, logically, decide to believe something or not, you either believe it or you don’t. (I blathered on about that in my comment above).
3. Not a choice because the other alternative, religion, is untenable. (Or from the other side of the fence, not a choice because atheism is so ridiculous/wicked/reviled, though I’m sure Greg didn’t mean it that way).
I guess Greg meant #3.
Surely you have some nice colleague who has a camera who could pop in to your office?
Being secular and “good” should be our meme.
“We” are good/moral/etc because we see it as a positive, from a purely rational position.
Even if we think of “altruism as just intelligent selfishness” it is still a morally superior position to someone who is “good” because they want eternal life: presumably they would just be bastards, if the didn’t have their god hovering over their shoulder.
If you needs threats to make you behave well you are not a good person.
I am Peter Harbison of Darwin Australia and I am openly secular.
It is CRITICAL for the success of this campaign that more people do like Bill, and argue for secular decision making snd governance, vs. doing what Ashley did…which is to declare she is openly atheist.
I know…there is MASSIVE overlap in the positions, but as a PR campaign, the focus is essential: if not, then why mot continue the Dawkins “Out Campaign”? Why have two identical campaigns?
Being openly secular means, at very least, that you support the idea of governing based on ideas and reason, regardless whether you are a religious believer, and I believe one of the aims of this program IS to get more religious people actively expressing their secular stance.
It is common ground we can share with some believers, and not have to isolate ourselves to te smaller constituency of “openly atheist”
I wonder how many videos they have by people who say, I am a practicing/observant Christian/Jew/Muslim/Hindu/Wiccan and I am openly secular.
Too many non-secular folks conflate secularism with atheism.
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The word does have multiple meanings.
Not to them!
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