Monthly Archives: March 2022

Disaffection with HAI aired in Newstalk interview

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IN an interview with Andrea Gilligan on Lunchtime Live on Newstalk, Wednesday 23 March, 2022, I aired my personal disaffection with the Humanist Association of Ireland.

No Church has a monopoly on Christian weddings

I said: ‘Just as, for example, within the Christian community, there are loads of different churches and denominations, and the Catholic Church isn’t going to say no the Lutheran Church can’t do a legal wedding and Baptists can’t do a legal wedding. It would be outrageous.’

No Humanist body should have a monopoly on Humanist weddings

‘And in the same way the Humanists should also welcome other Humanist groups to have the same legal authority to legalize weddings.’

‘They shouldn’t seek to have it as a monopoly for themselves because that would be really against the values of equality and inclusiveness and reason.’

‘It should be an open thing. More groups should be allowed to do it.’

‘It shouldn’t be something that’s a monopoly of the Humanist Association of Ireland. And it would be a shame for Humanism if they were to grasp and hold on to that for themselves.’

The General Register Office should recognize other Humanist bodies, since the rich tradition of Humanism stretches over continents, cultures and millennia and cannot be the exclusive right of just one registered company in Ireland.

If and when the GRO recognizes other Humanist bodies, as I hope they will, it will be good not only for Humanism but also for the Humanist Association of Ireland.

Difficulties with direction of HAI

Interviewer Andrea Gilligan asked: ‘How is business, Joe, for you?’

I said: ‘To be honest, Andrea, I’m kind of on my way out of ceremonies.’

‘I’ve been doing it a long time. I was nine years studying for the priesthood (and as long as a Humanist celebrant) and the longer you’re at it, you see different things.’

‘I feel it’s gone too commercial’

‘So, to be honest with you, I would have difficulties with the direction being taken by the Humanist Association of Ireland. I feel it’s gone too commercial.’

‘For example, if I were do a free ceremony – every so often I would do a free ceremony – and the HAI want their cut. And I just think that’s ridiculous.’

Need for other GRO-approved Humanist bodies

‘So I feel increasingly uncomfortable within the Humanist Association of Ireland, which is why I would like there to be other Humanist bodies which were authorized by the General Register Office to conduct legal marriages.’

Trust your Doubt

Speaking of my indoctrination into religion from childhood, I said that I wished that someone had said to me to ‘Trust your doubt’.

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom, not faith in an imaginary god.

Beast from the East

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There has arisen in the East a brutal tyrant

There has arisen in the East a brutal tyrant. Humanity quakes – not because Putrid Putin is a great and powerful man because he is not. Far from great, he is an ogre, a cancerous growth that must be excised. Nor is he powerful since the great threat he poses to humanity has nothing to do with true human power.

Puny Putin is inadequate

Like any tyrant, he is dangerous because he is so inadequate as a person. Puny Putin inflicts pain on millions only because of his inhumanity.

Hitler and Putin

Puke Putin is far from terrifying. Far more frightening is our repeated capacity as a species to allow Hitler and Putin to attain and retain political and military power.

And in the decades between the two to forget what humanity had to learn the hard way.

Humanity on trial

This story ends only with the decimation of human values and humanity or in a bunker in Moscow.

There is no room for moral ambiguity. Here, there is no neutral space between good and evil.

Hitler Youth restored

He has his Hitler Youth. He has his criminal apologists. He has his bombs. He has his deluded supporters who cannot or will not see the truth.

His legacy: death and destruction

As you read this, millions are fleeing from his tyranny, his delusions, his lies, his bombs. Women and children are dying. Lives are being wrecked, ruined, ended.

Wake up humanity!

Wake up! We are at war and humans of goodwill cannot rest in Russia or in the world until this cancer of humanity has been excised.

What are you prepared to do?

And there has arisen in the East a brutal tyrant. What are you prepared to do?

Pariah Putin

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How can any Russians in the West support Putin?

We can understand that Russians in Russia are being lied to by Putin and his cronies. But what are we to make of Russians in the West who defend him?

I cannot understand it. Is it that identity clouds reason? I should know. For years I believed in Catholicism. I identified with Catholicism. I maintained that sense even when reason undermined my childish beliefs.

It took me so long to see the light of reason.

Is that how it is with national identity too? In a crazy world, do Russians cling to Putin and his mythology rather than face the unfathomable reality of the catastrophe he has unleashed on Ukraine and in the world?

How long did it take Germans to recognise the twisted logic of Hitler? Will it take Russians as long?

School Yard Bully

I used to be a teacher. I’m trying to imagine a school yard bully with such power that even teachers wouldn’t intervene to stop him beating up a smaller pupil.

That is the dilemma facing the West right now. A bully so powerful that people of reason are afraid to defend the bullied pupil. Why? Because the bully has threatened to massacre the family of any teachers who intervene to save the pupil who is being beaten to a pulp.

What can the teachers do? Nobody wants their families to be treated like this battered child is being pummelled. And we know that this psychopath would carry out his threats on the families of any and all teachers who intervened.

NATO’s cop out

NATO says: ‘You are not a member. I am not obliged to fight for you. If I fight for you, our cities will be laid waste by this madman.’

It is an understandable response. Our first duty is to protect our wives and children, our homes, preserve peace in our streets. We do not want war to spread to our homelands.

We watch the child being beaten to a pulp, almost to the point of death.

We feel impotent. We cannot make love to our wives. We are limp when we try.

We let the bully continue his unprovoked assault, his rape of the child.

But is our peaceful neighbourhood, our sanitised life, worth living, if we stand by and let this child be bullied, beaten, crushed, raped, killed?

What humanity do we preserve by saying ‘I can do no more’?

Heroic Bullied Child

We watch as the child heroically fights his aggressor, his enemy, the Arch Bully of Humanity. We watch.

Limp-organed, we do things from the sidelines. Radical things, like reducing the bully’s social welfare income. We won’t sell him sweets. We won’t play with him or let our children play with him. We ask him to stop.

But the Arch Bully, the mafia boss, the untouchable, goes on beating the life out of the pupil. The pupil begs for us to help. We say sorry. We can’t. Because if we do, he will do that to our wives and children too. And he will wreck our lovely homes and our happy lives.

The child has been pummelled almost to death. The pummelling continues. The child can barely breathe now.

‘Please, please, please help me,’ he manages, in stuttered gasps, almost inaudible now.

‘I cannot,’ says Boris the Brave. I cannot allow my brave British boys to be beaten like you are being beaten. I’m sorry, child, you must die.’

#Ukraine #NATO #Bully #Humanist #Russia #PariaPutin