Subscription: $15 / year Membership: $15/year All correspondence to: Editor: Duane Bates All correspondence to: P. O. Box 1744 Greenville, SC 29602 January, 2010

The Voice of Sanity THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.uscsh.org e-mail: secularhmnst@aol.com

CALENDAR

The next brunch will be 10:30AM on Saturday, January 9th; at Denny’s restaurant; 2521 Wade Hampton Blvd, Taylors.

The next dinner/meeting will be Sunday, January 24^th; at Joyce Bates; 231 Rainey Road, Greenville. For directions call 423-0802.

HEALTH CARE 

Lee Deitz 

The ability to have excellent health care is a human aspiration. Uninsured parents fear that a child may not receive the best of care, if an illness strikes. The absence of reliable health care, could mean a continuing infirmity will only get worse whether it be a child or adult. A primary care doctor is paramount for good health. 

Some forty seven million Americas have no health care. They must rely on emergency room visits, which usually require long waits or they do without the care they need. An emergency room visit does not take the place of a family doctor -- it is a band aid. 

Yet, many in the US Congress would deny the care of those who often most need the care. Many of these congresspersons tout themselves as Christian and some of them have attended “prayer meetings” to pray for the defeat of national health care for their fellow citizens. This is proof positive how unchristian they really are. The person whom they would have us believe is the object of their religious leanings (Jesus Christ) taught quiet differently than they would have things to be. 

What would Jesus do?

Looking Back 2001-2009

In the past decade we have seen the misery of the worst recession since the great depression and it may last for a long time. Let us hope we have learned from this very unfortunate circumstance the lesson of restraint when it comes to material goods and determination when it comes to being responsible citizens. Simply being good consumers doesn’t seem to have paid off for many of us. Looking at life from a different perspective our needs should be: a job, enough to eat, a decent place to live, health and a healthy environment, freedom to learn and explore the possibilities of the future, and the companionship of those we love. None of these demands excessive acquisition of material goods.

Here is how much America’s economic growth has cost:

1) Many Americans have been going into debt because of conveniences offered by the financial sector. Credit cards, unsecured loans for home mortgages, and paycheck advance businesses have made it very easy for a person’s purchasing power to be outstripped by his actual financial worth, while at the same time burdening him with interest rates sinking him further into debt.

2) In the past few years the emphasis has not been on the economy supporting the consumer, but the consumer supporting the economy. Consumer debt rose from $525 billion in 1970 to $2225 billion in 2004, but wages were nearly level. What use is the economy if it does not benefit its participants but instead puts them in debt?

3) Corporations, in order to succeed, have to make profits, or they will close down. In the US many have survived by closing down and relocating in other countries where the labor market is cheaper. However, Americans still purchased goods made by the relocated foreign companies, mostly because they were less expensive. These purchases were made even though those companies shed American jobs, and were exploiting foreign labor.

4) Large corporations own television, radio, and newspapers. Even public broadcasting accepts some private support. This kind of ownership limits the amount and quality of information. We already know that advertising limits the length of news and programming. And it is impossible to believe that the media would feature programs contrary to their corporate sponsors interests even though those programs might be helpful to the general public.

5) We have compromised many of the environmental resources necessary for sustaining our human population worldwide. Half the world’s forests are gone. Half the world’s wetlands are gone. Resource use is unevenly disturbed among the countries of the world. Fifteen percent of world’s population (a billion people in industrialized countries) use 45 percent of these resources. The US is responsible for half that 45 percent.

Of course there are people who reaped enormous profits from these circumstances, but we can’t deny we helped them. We weren’t paying attention. This is a new decade. I hope we’ll pay attention now. J. Bates

Secular Humorist

Here are a few more of George Carlin’s reflections upon religion; what a fun way to start the New Year!

“Atheism is a non-prophet organization.”

“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.”

“I have as much authority as the Pope; I just don’t have as many people who believe it.”

“I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.”

“If God had intended us not to masturbate he would’ve made our arms shorter.”

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.”

“Instead of school busing and prayers in schools, which are both controversial, why not a joint solution? Prayer in buses. Just drive these kids around all day and let them pray their f***n’ empty little heads off.”

“The first thing they teach kids is that there’s a God – an invisible man in the sky who is watching what they do and who is displeased with some of it. There’s no mystery why they [adult authority figures] start out with kids, because if you can get someone to believe that, you can add on anything you want. [Presumably to believe other myths such as: “there is truly equal opportunity for all in the United States, regardless of social class, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.;” “Sadam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction;” our elected representatives and senators always vote “for the good of the people,” and that they are not “beholden to special interests, campaign contributors and lobbyists;” and the list goes on and on.]

“This is a little prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight’s last gleaming. Amen and Awomen.”

R. Georges Delamontagne