From: Steve Parrott (luxvivens@mindspring.com)
Date: Tue Mar 26 2002 - 21:55:13 MST
Heard Mr. Smith on an interview from WNYU (New York University) radio today.
An interesting man who describes himself as a "non-theist", rather than an
atheist, in theory, to avoid some of the stigma the "believers" place on a
person who dares to disbelieve in angels strumming harps above our heads and
of "god's loved children" burning in torment in some place hidden within the
Earth's core.
Here is an excerpt from his website:
[copy]
How Are We?
All the world's a stage; and all the men and women merely players. But
whereas Shakespeare wrote more than one play, in our Western world the
majority of men are enacting but one monotonous play: that successfully
marketed by astute Judeo-Christian-Muslim producers. Church and State have
become inextricably entwined, resulting in the play's continuity.
Had the Ancient Greeks not lost, however, the play men and women today would
be enacting would be far different, far more rational, far more scientific.
I have, for example, taught in schools where the science teachers taught
Darwin for five days, then spent their Sundays involved in theophagistic
ceremonies and begging-appeals to the supernatural. Children in Iowa before
they were 10 years old, knew in my youth that angels fly in Heaven, that
Christ died but is still alive, that Mary had a baby without having had sex
with her husband, that sinners go to Hell, and so forth. In short, except
for a minority of us, life involves enacting a script that is pure fantasy.
Relativist that I am, I recognize I am a player on Earth's stage. The script
I follow, however, is attuned to the rationalism illustrated by the
Rationalist Press Association in England. A nominal Unitarian, I am a
naturalist in philosophy, a freethinker, and a non-theist who holds that
there is no life after death. How I have been able to develop my
individualistic outlook is explained throughout my homepage. The two
statements which particularly have inspired me over the years are as
follows:
"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge." Bertrand
Russell
"Laughter at the fools does not completely fill my days, though it occupies
many of my idle moments&endash;accompanied by tolerant tears as befits a man
of my predilections." William Carlos Williams in a 1956 letter to me
At some point, perhaps when I learned that empathy is preferable to sympathy
, I decided that "success" in life is measurable not in dollars or acres or
doodads but, rather, by my personal feelings and whether what I do makes me
content. My feelings of success are entirely related to how I evaluate using
my wits, my education, my time, my relationships with others.
Ergo . . .
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the humanhood of every one of
its members. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. A foolish
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and
philosophers and divines.
If I could choose one person to have dinner with tomorrow night, in order to
discuss all this, I quite likely would choose Ralph Waldo Emerson. . . .
[end copy]
He also has a book entitled "Who's Who In Hell" which should be an eye
opener to some of the religious zealots. I do not yet have the book, (VERY
EXPENSIVE), but it would sure be fun to have the huge list of names Mr.
Smith has accumulated that are surely now suffering "fire and brimstone" for
their acts on Earth. {LARGE sarcasm sign up there}
Following is some info on the book:
[copy]
Smith, Warren Allen
Who's Who in Hell
NY: Barricade Books, 150 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10011
Publishing Date: April or May 2000
¶ is an encyclopedic A to Z listing of several thousand individuals who have
been agnostics, atheists, deists, humanists, non-theists, rationalists,
secularists, or unbelievers. The term theologians invented, Hell, is
ridiculed. Instead, and in keeping with Mark Twain's view, it's now Heaven
for the climate, Hell for the company. The 2-volume set is the first such of
its kind since Pierre Sylvain Maréchal's Dictionnaire des athées (1798).
¶ To help counter centuries of successful preaching about how terrible
unbelievers are, the present work, subtitled Handbook and International
Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Rationalists, and Non-Theists , makes
a case not only for their respectability but also for their more positive
and creative outlooks. The listing includes individuals
--from ancient times (e.g., Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Protagoras )
--through Renaissance Humanism (e.g., Erasmus )
--through the French Enlightenment (e.g., Diderot, Voltaire )
--and up to the present (e.g., Ayer, Dewey, Flew, Hume, Nietzsche, Russell,
Rorty )
--including eminent individuals whose freethinking usually has gone
unnoticed
(e.g.; cartoonists; novelists; poets; dramatists; sculptors; historians;
rock stars; movie stars; musicians; journalists; the several Unitarian
presidents; over 50 Nobel Prize winners; several dozen individuals pictured
on postage stamps; etc.)
--and including celebrity agnostics and non-believers (e.g., Woody Allen;
Ingmar Bergman; Pierre Boulez; Marlon Brando; Warren Buffett, Noam Chomsky;
Sir Arthur C. Clarke; Michael Crichton; Francis Crick; Richard Dawkins; Paul
Edwards; Albert Ellis; Harlan Ellison; Harvey Fierstein; Larry Flynt; Jodie
Foster; Bill Gates; Sir John Gielgud; Katharine Hepburn; Jillette and
Teller; Neil Kinnock; Paul Krassner; Stanley Kubrick; Ring Lardner Jr.;
Richard Leakey; Tom Lehrer; Sir Ian McKellen; Marvin Minsky; Taslima Nasrin;
Jack Nicholson; Camille Paglia; Roman Polanski; Katha Pollitt; Jean-Pierre
Rampal; James Randi; Ron Reagan Jr.; Christopher Reeve; Salman Rushdie;
George Soros; Gore Vidal; Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ; etc.)
¶ It includes entries that explain philosophic terms related to freethinking
(e.g., agnosticism, anthropomorphism; belief; causality; deism, empiricism,
Ethical Culture, fideism, logical positivism, naturalism, pragmatism,
secular humanism, transcendentalism, unitarianism). It lists all known
international atheist, freethought, and humanist groups, their officers, and
their World Wide Web and e-mail addresses.
¶ It includes examples of interviews with or of correspondence pertaining to
humanism that has been collected over a period of five decades (e.g., James
Truslow Adams, Conrad Aiken, Van Meter Ames, Maxwell Anderson, George
Axtelle, John Cage, Arthur C. Clarke, George Counts, Norman Cousins, E. E.
Cummings, John Dewey, Royston Ellis, Ian Franckenstein, Robert Frost, George
Raymond Geiger, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Graves, Nat Henthoff, Sinclair Lewis,
Walter Lippmann, Archibald MacLeish, Thomas Mann, Kenneth Pobo, Allen Walker
Read, Ned Rorem, Lord Bertrand Russell, George Santayana, Albert Schweitzer,
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and William Carlos Williams )
[end copy]
Think the folks here at Virus will find Mr. Smith interesting.
Web site:
http://wasm.ws
Steve Parrott
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