Sean Faircloth
The Humanists of Florida Association hosted a convention yesterday that included some of the biggest names in the Freethought movement. It was the first time that presidents and directors of the largest Humanist and Freethought organizations in the country have participated in such a conference. Represented at this conference were the presidents and directors of the American Humanist Association, the Center for Inquiry, Camp Quest, the Secular Student Alliance, the Institute for Humanist Studies, the Appignani Bioethics Center, the Atheists of Florida, the Humanists of Florida, The Evolution Institute, the Secular Coalition of America and group leaders from across Florida.
Participants at the conference, which was sold out, included individuals from CA, MI, DC, NY, OH and, of course, Florida and included representatives from atheist, UU, Humanist, Secular Jewish, Secular Humanist, Free Inquiry, and Humanistic Judaism groups as well as student groups from across the state. The purpose of the conference was to discuss how to build a stronger secular coalition. Over 165 people attended this event, which meant the conference was not only sold out but that tables had to be set up in the hallway to accommodate everyone at lunch. It was an amazing site to see Humanists and other freethinkers happily eating at tables set up wherever they could fit.
The Saturday morning sessions were very exciting. The first speaker was Ron Lindsey, the executive director for the Center for Inquiry. He talked about how important it is for Freethought and Humanist groups to work together even though they don’t agree on everything. The things we do agree on, he said, should form the basis of our collaboration. Sean Faircloth, the executive director of the Secular Coalition of America, brought the crowd to its feet with a stirring talk about how lobbying for the issues we care about is not only important, it is a moral imperative. He said, yes, we need to fight against the erection of a cross on public land, but we also need to fight against religious exemptions for the neglect of children, as happens with faith healers. Yes, we need to get “under god” out of the pledge but we also need to make sure that the men and women serving in our military aren’t discriminated against for religious reasons. He made a very salient point that these issues can not only help unite our movement, but can provide us with outreach opportunities to people who might not care about the “under god” issue but who do not want to see children suffering from neglect because of religion.
The second session was about the work of the Evolution Institute, which the Humanists of Florida Association helped co-found. These talks were about how the evolutionary approach to science is changing and improving our understanding of everything from biology to psychology and sociology, to how these improved understandings can help us solve some of our biggest problems. In fact, David Sloan Wilson, the director of the Evolution Institute was quite certain that the reason some of our most intractable problems haven’t been solved yet is that the paradigm we had been using to consider those problems had been flawed and that considering them from an evolutionary perspective can give us a much better understanding of our problems and lead to better solutions. He did admit it sounds pie in the sky, but he is firmly convinced that this approach is good and further that using this approach should help us avoid unforeseeable consequences that happen when the problem you are trying to solve isn’t the problem you actually have. This approach, he says, helps us to understand the actual problem instead of just guessing about it.
Dr. Patricia Hawley walked participants through an actual example of how evolution can be applied to sociology. She said this approach is so powerful that the clarity of understand that you can get with this approach is so good that you can’t comprehend how you didn’t see it clearly before. Her research has to do with re-evaluating pro-sociability in children. The traditional “care bear” model holds that children with aggressive tendencies are anti-social because they learned to be that way and if we just teach them to be nice, everything will be better. The big problem is that children who are both nice and aggressive don’t fit into this model at all. In the evolutionary model, it becomes clear how those children fit into the model and why it benefits them to be that way. It was fascinating to see how this shift in perspective really does change everything. It is akin to the shift in perspective that happens when you realize that the sky isn’t revolving around us, it is actually the earth that is rotating. The impact on how this sort of research can change the way we solve endemic problems is clear.
The big question is how best can we organize to help spread this new approach to solving our problems and how best we can work with our local and federal governments to help promote the changes necessary to our public policy.
The afternoon sessions included breakout sessions on Critical thinking, bioethics, raising freethinkers, social media networking, reaching out to students, building communities and preparing celebrants, which are the Humanist equivalent of clergy who can perform weddings, funerals, baby namings, and other milestone celebrations.
The Sunday sessions included two roundtable discussions about how to insert our principles into public policy and how to ignite the growth of Humanism, Secularism and Freethought in Florida.
The Humanists of Florida Association, host of the conference, publishes an annual journal. This journal is one of the most fascinating journals published in the Humanist and Freethought communities. This year’s journal included articles by each of the presenters. If you weren’t able to attend this conference, join the Humanists of Florida Association and request a copy.
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