Two English Humanists in America<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

A visit (before September 11) to friends in Indiana led Eddie and Marie Bush to meetings with Humanists in Minneapolis and Boston. Their experiences range from visiting the unique Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in Minneapolis, to meeting believers in Indiana who had never heard of Humanism, to joining in a celebration at a Unitarian Universalist church.

 

Minneapolis

Our meeting with representatives of the Humanists of Minnesota and Minnesota Atheists, each of which has about 200 members, was particularly instructive, and we learnt that American Humanism has as many, if not more, factions than our own in the UK. There are the University of Minnesota Atheists and Humanists, the Humanist Centre, the Secular Student Alliance, the Society for Humanistic Judaism, Friends Free of Theism, the Red River and Lake Superior Freethinkers, and the First Unitarian Society, making up a further membership of some 800. However, the Humanists and Atheists do have regular joint meetings (in fact they share a president) and make common cause whenever possible. One of the issues uniting all the various factions is the current attempt by the Evangelical Christians to breach the separation of Church and State, as laid down in the American constitution, by attempting to bring prayers into state schools and even into football games. So far, the Humanists, acting together with the Society for the Separation of Church and State, have succeeded in squashing these attempts. The Minnesota Atheists have, however, been unsuccessful in their suit against the Federal Government’s funding of religious non-medical care, e.g. Christian Science nursing.

 

Humanists maintain a profile on Minneapolis cable TV with two half hour programmes a month, at 7.30 pm, at an annual cost of about £2000, with Atheists using a further two half hour slots. In addition there is the monthly edition of Humanist News & Views; The Minnesota Atheist is the atheist counterpart, a slightly smaller bi-monthly publication.

 

Jesse Ventura, the present Governor of Minnesota, although not officially connected with the Atheists, has some quite strong views on religion himself. He has been quoted as saying “Organised religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers”. This is pretty tough stuff for a region which takes in the Bible-belt, and one can only assume that he kept these views to himself until after his election! In fact, Sunday morning’s TV channels were bristling with Evangelical fervour and salesmanship, a reminder of the far greater percentage of believers in the USA - some 70% compared with 30% in Britain.

 

The writer Sinclair Lewis, another famous Minnesotan, once proclaimed in Church that he was a non-believer, and challenged God to strike him dead within ten minutes. He survived, but had to ride the storm of public outrage. In his novel Main Street, he interpreted America not only for Americans but also the rest of us, and gave it, dare I say it, a soul!

 

Columbus and Louisville

Our visit to Columbus, Indiana, a small company town (Cummins Diesel Engines) gave us access to middle America with a capital M. It is endowed by the wealth of the philanthropic founder of the company, and can boast public buildings, including 4 churches, designed by some of the worlds most prominent architects, but surprisingly not a single theatre or concert hall.

 

Humanists are not in evidence in Indiana. Certainly there are no organisations affiliated to the American Humanist Association. At a Women’s Society Group meeting Marie was asked which church she belonged to. On informing the questioner that she was a Humanist, she was asked, with genuine interest and no trace of malice, “does that mean you don’t care about other people?”

 

In spite of the American Supreme Court ruling that praying in public schools must be private, the local press reports that student-led prayers and Bible studies occur in Columbus High Schools. On a cautionary note, the religious pages ask “is financial success always a sign of God’s favour” - a question quite frightening to us simply for being asked. Social life is dominated by the churches, and even business life is infiltrated by religion. In many shopping malls the Christian Business phone book for central Indiana, circulation 40,000, which has Jesus Christ listed on its editorial board, was in evidence. Most of the businesses listed carry a cross or fish symbol, and many have testified that “.... I am a Christian who loves and serves Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Lord of my life, and I affirm that I conduct my business, to the best of my ability, according to Biblical principles”.

 

Our next investigative visit took us to the Southeast Christian Church outside Louisville. This circular glass and steel construction holds a congregation of 9000, with two balconies and associated escalators, and a gigantic monitor screen which projects an image of the speaker to all parts of the auditorium. Only a few days before it had hosted more than 8000 women for a two day bible study and worship event addressed by revivalist preacher Beth More.

 

The Southeast Outlook Newspaper (19000 circulation), which contains at least 50% advertising, reported that the Southern Baptist Convention refuted charges made by the Chicago Interfaith Commission that the Southern Baptists plan to send 100,000 missionaries into the city in the summer would undo progress made toward interfaith dialogue, and could even lead to violence against members of minority religions.

 

Massachusetts

And so on to Boston and Concord, where we met Joe Gerstein, President of the Humanist Association of Massachusetts. A physician by profession, he had hoped to work on uniting the many humanist factions into one movement, but now spends all his spare time officiating on behalf of ÔSMARTÕ, the humanistic counterpart of Alcoholics Anonymous, but covering all forms of addiction. He told us that Tom Ferrick, the local group executive director, an ex-Catholic priest, was now acting as Chaplain to the Harvard Humanist chaplaincy which has been endowed by a wealthy patron.

 

Joe took us on a visit to Walden Pond, some 2 miles outside Concord, and to the site of the cabin where Thoreau, the 19th century pantheistic naturalist and writer, lived as a recluse for a couple of years in order to get closer to nature by having to fend for himself. The results of his observations could be seen as the founding of the science of ecology.

 

However, the story goes that whenever he became desperate for a square meal, he would leave his cabin for the hospitality of his sister ‘s table all of half a mile away!

 

A strong individualist, Thoreau was opposed to the war with Mexico, and in keeping with his principles on Civil Disobedience, refused to pay his taxes. Eventually he had to go to prison for this, and one day his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson caught sight of him there and exclaimed “What on earth are you doing in there?” only to be challenged with “What’s more to the point, what are you doing out there?”

 

The Unitarian Universalists in Boston were our last port of call, and their Summer Sing proved to be fairly universalist, the audience having been informed that all parties including atheists, gays and lesbians and any mix of these were welcome. It was certainly a happy-clappy occasion, amplified by the local choir of over 100 singers, and incorporated amongst other works a civil rights medley, although the audience was predominantly white.

 

The Universalist Church professes to be based on an amalgam of wisdom from the world’s religions incorporating Jewish, Christian and Humanist teaching with many references to Spiritual and faith. It includes worship in its programmes, and so could be classed as a religious humanist movement. In its environment it would be difficult for any non-believer to feel threatened, on the other hand those who are disinclined to worship and praise the Lord would feel out of it.

 

Not far from the Universalist church, but on a scale more reminiscent of St Peter’s in Rome, stands the First Church of Christ Scientist, founded by Mary Baker Eddy. Mark Twain once lambasted this cult as a sham, but it still has a wide following to this day. Since we were suffering from nothing worse than tourist fatigue, we decided to give this one a miss. Our American experiences left us with an overwhelming sense of the differences between our two cultures. European scepticism is now widespread, and the churches are fighting a rearguard action. Humanist teaching is increasingly available in schools as an alternative to religious instruction in several countries of the European Union. In Britain, however, where there is still no separation of church and state, Humanism is not much better understood by the general public than in America. Nevertheless, it is perhaps still more socially acceptable to be an atheist in Britain, on the basis that atheists here are regarded more as harmless eccentrics than a danger to the fabric of society.

 

One can only hope that the various American humanist factions will attempt to make more common cause to enable them to effectively combat their powerful religious establishment.

 

Eddie Bush is a retired company director, committed Humanist and inventor. He is a part-time journalist on environmental and humanist issues and has been active in the Dr. Shaikh campaign.

 

 

THE MUSEUM OF QUESTIONABLE MEDICAL DEVICES

The Museum door had a notice announcing that on Tuesdays it opened from noon which was when I had to be at the airport! We took a chance and called the curator to check if we could still have access to the Museum exhibits? It was! The genial Bob McCoy, proprietor, showed us around the impressive museum and towards the end further surprised me with the information that he was once President of the American Humanist Association!

 

Bob McCoy is a veritable encyclopedia of the world’s most inane and useless information about how to cure and/or comprehend what may ail or puzzle the human body. In this picture he is getting a phrenology reading (the machine measures the size of bumps on the head). The reading lets him know how he’s doing on any of 35 personality characteristics like intelligence, spirituality, suavity and chastity (all the bumps can be mapped). Visitors to the museum can have their bumps measured too. The Phrenology Machine is like a dentist’s chair with a helmet incorporating adjustable probes which are pressed down on to the subject’s skull and can print out their character analysis on the spot. There are machines that claim to increase virility and cure prostrate problems, there are foot powered breast enlargers, there are weight reduction glasses. All you have to do is stand in front of lights flashing prismatic colours that guarantee health and well-being.

 

As the publicity brochure says, the Museum is the world’s largest display of what the human mind has devised to cure itself without the benefit of either scientific method or common sense. It has collections on loan from The American Medical Association, The US Food and Drug Administration, The National Council for Reliable Health Information etc.

 

Visit www.mtn.org/quack and get cured!

 

Babu Gogineni