Posts with the tag humanism

Rudyard Kipling's describing my kind of president

Alp Icoz, M.A. @ JOURNALTA — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:59:42 EST

I think President Obama has all the humanistic qualities in the description of a true MAN by Rudyard Kipling in his poem "IF". I am so proud to be able to say that my president is the MAN of virtues to lift up the standards of humanistic values in our country and the world from now on... I dedicate this poem to President Barack Obama...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

An Open Letter to Senators Obama & Clinton

Unknown user — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:14:37 EDT

PROFESSOR HOVHANNESS I. PILIKIAN, B.A. in Eng. Lit. (American Uni of Beirut),

B.Sc. Hons. in Psych. (Open Uni), M.A. in Soc. Anth. (Sch of Oriental & African Studies),

Gulbenkian Foundation Scholar in Econ. (LSE) (London Uni),D.A.A.D-Fellow (Uni of Munich),

D.G.G.B, Dip. Th. Pr. (R A D A), Cert. Hum (Open),

Adamian Award (Ministry of Culture – Armenian S.S.R.), F.R.A.I.,

Contributor to Encyclopaedia Britannica

10th August 2008

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

Dear Senators Clinton and Obama,

You may like to know that my personal letter (dated 1st July, copy below) to your good selves is now an Open Letter published on the Web on

http://www.gibrahayer.com/index.php5?&page_id=21&path=29,21

My letter contains (1) A new Theory of History – that History advances by mindset-shifts,

(2) A radical historical interpretation of Warmongering – that it manifests masculinist obsessions contingent on the rape of women and the murder of ‘their’ children, and finally

(3) A proposition for a new socio-economic paradigm – universal CHILD-WELFARE, for all, to achieve global peace... with the sound-bite;

All For Child-Welfare and Child-Welfare For All

Yours truly

Professor Hovhanness Israel Pilikian.

***

Initially Exclusive to the Addressees 1st July 2008

Entirely Private and Totally Confidential

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

713 Hart Senate Office Building

District of Columbia 20510-1305, Washington DC

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

780 Third Avenue Suite 2601

New York, NY 10017

Dear Senators Clinton and Obama,

If only the two of you would join hands, there can be no reasonable doubt that you two shall win the forthcoming presidential election, from that moment onwards ... and assuming that you shall resist all electoral fraud from the Republicans – for the very good reason that, with baited breath, the whole world expects America to change. The horrendous neo-Cons succeeded not only destroying Iraq, with Depleted Uranium bomb-winds blowing towards the Israeli nation they pretended to defend ... the inhuman neo-Cons destroyed as much America’s good name, dragging it into the sewage of History. The American people deserve desperately your healing powers to pull them out of History’s murderous mires of genocidal sludge.

Senator Obama is absolutely right that America is ready for change – and Senator Clinton has the right idea for that change – hence this letter to provide the clinching philosophical argument and deep conceptual grounding of your cause to make it irresistible for the whole world to adopt.

I think Human civilization evolves by paradigmatic shifts in Mindset – by which I mean that a nation’s mind – meaning the communitarian-brain – is re-wired through the processes of social relations and modern communications-media into certain ways and patterns of communal thinking.

Mankind’s History hitherto, alas, has manifested the Primates’ barbaric survivalist mindset of crude brutal power for its own sake. It took millennia for the parochial Italian Renaissance humanism to follow, and several centuries for the French Revolution to reflect and universalize by then the re-wired mindset of the Renaissance humanism. The American Revolution earlier for the first time in history had affected an ethical mindset shift by exemplifying the concept of Power-To-do-Good, and not for its own crude sake. Unfortunately the neo-Con Bushites wished to revert to the Malthusean-Hobbsean Jungle Law, demeaning the principles of the American Revolution. Thus, overall, human history hitherto (even at its best with the American Revolution, never mind now in the genocidal dumps with the Bushists) has manifested the humanoid Darwinist mindset of the proto-fascist (and Nazi) masculinist brain-wiring, set on the oppression and rape of women and children, and the elimination of ‘useless people’...

I shall propose to you a new paradigm to wire-up a new mindset to evolve in our post-modern human brain, if only the United States of America, as the dominant world-power, would agree through yourselves to pioneer its globalization ... Like a panacea, it shall solve all socio-economic problems, including all dangers from Climate change, which must be turned into the single most important issue of international politics. And it is this, and where Mrs Clinton already possesses the inkling by virtue of her maternal instinct – CHILD-WELFARE – pure and simple, it must be made the single slogan, the cornerstone of ALL complex policies held together in consistency. In the immortal words of Britain’s Silver Poet, Alexander Pope – “The Child is the Father of Man”.

History hitherto has been the ruthless product of bi-gender competitiveness, the male always oppressing, dominating and ultimately raping the female – well-proven by antique myths – females, be they divine or mortal, are always ‘ravished’ against their will – and endless modern warfare – even today, now, women are being raped in ... Zimbabwe, and everywhere else where genocidal wars are active, stretching back in time to Herodotus – the first Historian who lived in the 5th c. BC, and whose very first paragraphs record the gang-bang by Phoenician sailors of the free ‘feminist’ women of Argos – thus, according to the Herodotusean historical record, the very first of the countless series of world wars have begun with a ... gang-bang, literally, a group rape by foolish men of a group of innocent women!

The only way this awful bi-polar human stupidity can be eliminated once and for all from the disturbed human psyche and sexualized Freudian mindset is by creating a focus on a deeper perspectival third-dimension ; the child-and-its-welfare.

Both genders must focus all life-force on tending a healthy child, literally and metaphorically, in a healthy geophysical and social environment – it can become the measuring stick and guideline for all ethical human behaviour and action, individually, on the micro-, and politically on the macro-levels.

Marriage throughout history and in all cultures is played out as a power-game for the benefit of the adults in the game – Divorce in the West consequently, has been riddled with adult partners’ power-obsessive narcissism – their children as mere inconvenient extensions of their egos. In Britain, child-welfare is a byword for corrupt legal practices, and serving equally as political football for governmental publicity stunts.

A new categorical imperative in the style of Emmanuel Kant, one of the great thinkers of all time, in my proposed new paradigm would be – Do nothing that will shame your children, and you in their eyes - Adopting this as the cornerstone of all social and couple relations – it may reduce Divorce, one of the great Western social ills hitherto based on parental narcissism and gratification rather than the needs of child-welfare. And Hollywood film-industry shall produce less public nudity, if actors considered the shame of their children felt at their parental pornographic exposure.

Thou shalt not do anything that harms a child – which ensures that paedophilia for example, never takes hold of society – there are serious high-powered post-modern attempts in Anglo-America to render it acceptable ... And the British American Tobacco (BAT) company would be stopped immediately from the crime of selling tobacco to African children!

Thou shalt not kill children, or their mothers, can serve as grounds for all wars all over the world to be stopped – a good reason to dismantle globally the military-industrial complexes, against the inhuman dangers of which President Eisenhower first of all so wisely warned the American nation back in the 1950’s. A very simple undeniable post-modern historical fact is that America is armed to its teeth and ... toes with thousands of nuclear bombs - it simply does not need more of any ordenance! You need not waste a cent more on further armaments - instead, release all those trillions onto societal health and well-being!!! According to the Bible, Peacemakers are the children of God – I can never understand how and why an American Christian can ever be a warmonger.

Child-welfare must force the realization of Mrs Clinton’s humanitarian policies of universal health-insurance for the people of America – the first and only one of its kind (overdue) in American History. And according to the new paradigm I am proposing, Thou shalt not kill children and their mothers, now add to it – and their fathers, and grandparents – We all are the children of God!

And now to the ultimate problem of all global problems – Climate Change, which is a deceptive turn of phrase to camouflage the horrendous evil truth of destroying the very Oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere we need to breathe second-by-second ... Never mind polar ice-caps melting, oceans rising, we are (like the foolish individuals who smoke cigarettes on the micro-level) as nations destroying on the macro-level by-the-second the very Oxygen we need to survive and live by! Such destruction is evidence of sheer human cultural stupidity – dumping each year 7 billion tonnes of pollutants in the atmosphere of this sweet little child-planet.

Even the Nobel-prize winning Mr. Al Gore won’t dare speak the truth – the global car and aviation industries are satanic evils that need be controlled, transformed and absolutely rationalized, not-expanded. There can be no stupid glee and Big Business hand-rubbing in the lunatic economic predictions that China shall be helped to have ... 900 million cars in the next decade.

Hitherto, the planet Earth was conceived as a ‘mature woman’ – Mother Earth/ Mother Nature – and messed about, abused and finally ‘proudly’ raped by the Macho-male-warmonger-idiot. At the odd occasion in history when a Woman had acquired such power – Queen Elizabeth the First of Britain, and Catherine the Great of Russia – they have strangely morphed into the macho-male paradigm – with Ms Madeleine Albright, the elder Bushite lacking any female nurturing instincts, declaring infamously to the world that the death of half a million Iraqi ... children is a price worth paying for the discomfiture of one male idiot – the banana-tyrant Saddam Hussein, ex CIA operative and ordained murderer of Abdul Karim Kassem, his predecessor.

If one conceives of this planet – a grain of dust in the vastness of the universe – as yet another little child of the great Creator – then the politicians must do EVERYTHING to save it from the violent stupidities of bi-gender power-obsessed politics, as my noble wife Clarice puts it, “child-planet is precious, in need of care and protection, like all children”.

All for child-welfare – and Child-welfare for all should be the hub of the new neural network out of which the new mindset of the future mankind can and must be wired before we destroy ourselves through sheer stupidity – narcissistic greed and waste of our planet’s resources.

Only thus, dear ... President Obama, and Vice-President Clinton, can you change America, and the rest of the world, into a new order and Pax Americana, not by genocidal warmongering all over the world that is reducing day-by-day the very Oxygen we need to breathe merely to live as God’s little children!

Yours truly

Professor Hovhanness Israel Pilikian.

8th July 2008.

P.S. Please forgive me for the awkward lay-out, as I do not know enough computers to have done a better job ...

Call to Renewal Analysis

mrboma — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 05:34:12 EDT

This is the second essay I have written on Obama's public religiosity. This is an in depth analysis of Senator Obama's keynote speech at the Call to Renewal Conference in 2006, and was written about a week following the speech at the request of Pastor Dan on the blog Street Prophets. If you select [Issues] on Obama's website, and then choose [Faith] from the drop down menu, you can watch the speech this essay addresses. At the time, Senator Obama told Pastor Dan that many of the criticisms of his speech had come from people who had not read or heard the entire speech. So I went back and watched the speech a few times and read the full text to see what critics were missing. Taken as a whole, I found it to be a self-contradictory mess, and a worry that Senator Obama's religiosity may threaten the wall of separation between Church and State. I am especially concerned given his recent proposal on so-called faith-based initiatives.

Senator Obama, Please Sign The Declaration Of INTERdependence

mrboma — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:27:18 EDT

In 1944, two leaders of the Jewish and Christian communities approached Pulitzer Prize winning philosopher Will Durant about creating a movement to raise moral standards. What emerged from this meeting was a decision to create a movement to fight intolerance, instead. Durant created the seminal document of this new movement, the "Declaration of INTERdependence." The movement started with a bang, featuring gala events in Hollywood, and reached its apex when the Declaration was read into the Congressional Record on October 1, 1945 by the Honorable Ellis E. Patterson. However, the INTERdependence movement soon faded and was replaced by the civil rights movement. But the Declaration of Interdependence is as relevant now as it was then.

-----------------------------
Declaration of INTERdependence

Human progress having reached a high level through respect for the liberty and dignity of men, it has become desirable to re-affirm these evident truths:

· That differences of race, color, and creed are natural, and that diverse groups, institutions, and ideas are stimulating factors in the development of man;

· That to promote harmony in diversity is a responsible task of religion and statesmanship;

· That since no individual can express the whole truth, it is essential to treat with understanding and good will those whose views differ from our own;

· That by the testimony of history intolerance is the door to violence, brutality and dictatorship; and

· That the realization of human interdependence and solidarity is the best guard of civilization.

Therefore, we solemnly resolve, and invite everyone to join in united action.

· To uphold and promote human fellowship through mutual consideration and respect;

· To champion human dignity and decency, and to safeguard these without distinction of race, or color, or creed;

· To strive in concert with others to discourage all animosities arising from these differences, and to unite all groups in the fair play of civilized life.

ROOTED in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.
__________________________________

Senator Obama (and everyone else) can add their signatures to the Declaration by sending an email to feedback@willdurant.com including your full name, country and city of origin, and occupation.

Senator Obama, Please Don't Call Me The Boogeyman!

mrboma — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:01:10 EDT

I am a secular humanist. That means I am an atheist with a coherent liberal world view. It does not mean I am a person with no faith, and I wish Senator Obama would not refer to the non-theistic as "people of no faith." I simply choose to place my faith in the potential of the human species rather than in the supernatural. The bottom line is that people create their own societies; we choose what kind of society we create. We have that power. And with that power comes responsibility. I have faith that with enough effort, we can create a good and just society that allows all people to fulfill their potential. In many ways Barack Obama embodies some of the faith (or hope) that I have built my personal world view around.

However, I have a problem with Senator Obama's treatment of the non-religious in his speeches. In particular, I am thinking of his seminal speech two years ago at the Call To Renewal Conference. You know, the one Dr. Dobson has been criticising lately (not surprisingly, my criticisms are in a different universe from Dr. Dobson's). I think Senator Obama dangerously embraced a rightwing lie about the non-religious, and I would like him to reconsider the way he talks about such issues in the future.

This first essay is mostly about what a Secular Humanist is and how the right wing has attacked secular humanism, and through those attacks, attacked all liberalism. It also tells my personal story of how I became a secular humanist. I will be posting a second essay which is a very in-depth analysis of Senator Obama's Call to Renewal Conference speech.

Why vote Obama: a World Leader

Shodja Ziaian — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:48:53 EST

This is a historical moment, happening only once in generation. An opportunity not to miss, ... a chance to find a way out of the present darkness, out a worldwide Crisis, out of the immorality of our world.

Because of what is at stake, ... it is necessary to shift the focus from special interests to the general, from the noble idea of making a special friend like Hillary happy, to the good for all. ... Think about a future for the children of the world wherever they are and whatever the color of their skin, whatever their heritage! Look at the bigger picture when trillion of dollars of military expenditures ... will be redirected to improve education, build schools, pay better teachers and researchers, improve health and healthcare, and assure the well-being of all, happiness, social welfare, dialog and peace in the USA and on Earth.

Let's shift from the idea of a woman "now" as president, to the idea of a nicer woman, humbler, less personally ambitious, less divisive, more independent as President. A woman who will be elected on her own merits, not because her husband, a former President is using his unique talent and abusing 16 years of connections as President and Governor to move a fantastic political machine to have his wife elected. Let's wait, for example, for a time that a woman like the wonderful independent and courageous congresswoman from California and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, will step forward.

... Let's help have in the White House, the white and black, Christian and Muslim, religious and free-thinker, spiritual and practical, Barack Hussein Obama, the next President of the United States of America and the Leader of a new free world, prosperous, egalitarian, sustainable, peaceful, moral, ethical and loving.

Shodja Ziaian