Today, I circulated a press release with information about the Star Hill controversy. This concerns the Village of Holmen, Wisconsin, which decided to sell to the local Lion’s Club a small patch of public land on which a cross and a star are erected. The Lion’s Club will pay $600–despite the fact that the American Humanist Association offered $1,000 and the Freedom From Religion Foundation offered $1,200 for the land. This is because the Lion’s Club will keep the cross and star in the midst of government-owned property while the AHA and FFRF won’t. (Those of you who have followed the San Diego Mt. Soledad case should be pretty familiar with this new tactic.)

As an AHA staff member who deals with public policy, I’ve sent out quite a number of press releases during my tenure here. I’ve rarely ever received editorializing e-mails back from media people. However, today I received two of particular note:

From Daniel S. Brandenburg, Publisher/Editor of the Marion Advertiser

“Three Cheers for the Village of Holmen. I think I’ll use this as an editorial to give these leaders the credit they deserve.”

From Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of VCY America Radio Network

“Ha Ha Ha. This is great. Long live the Lions Club and kudos to the village board of Holmen, Wisconsin. God bless America.”

Clearly, we have a lot of church-state educating yet to do.

This past weekend, the Boston Globe Magazine featured an excellent article on the rise of non-theists in America. What’s even more refreshing is that the article took the time to point out the distinction between atheism and humanism.

Particularly encouraging was the article’s focus on the increasing attraction of young nontheists to organized secularism. For example, the article points out the following statistics:

The number of campus groups affiliated with the Secular Student Alliance, for example, has increased by more than 50 percent in the past two years, to more than 80 groups, says August E. Brunsman IV, executive director of the Albany, New York-based alliance.

I can certainly attest to this trend just by looking around the AHA’s offices. More than half of our staff is under the age of 30. It is certainly interesting to wonder why this might be the case. Personally, I think it has to do with the fact that this generation—the children of the Baby Boomers —have grown up seeing the perverse side of religion. This includes most notoriously the attacks on 9/11 and the rise of the Christian Right here in the U.S.

But, as the article also goes on to state, the rising tide of nontheists (or “nonbelievers” as the article uses, a term that I, personally, dislike) has drawn criticism for what others see as a bombastic and anti-religious nature. Personally, I don’t see a problem in pointing out the failures of religion, but if others feel threatened by nontheists/Humanists, then perhaps they need to look deeper into their own belief system and question it themselves.

What do you think? Should Humanists tread carefully when pointing out the flaws of the religiously-inclined or should we go full force ahead?

The Humanist movement lost a visionary this weekend. Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, the creator of Humanistic Judaism and the 2003 Humanist of the Year, was killed Saturday, July 21, in a car crash while vacationing in Morocco. He was 79.

Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association said:

“[Rabbi Wine] taught that values such as reason and compassion were humanity’s saving grace, not adherence to religious dogma. He knew that we must live our one and only lives to the fullest, and do as much good as possible in the limited time we have on this earth.”

Rabbi Wine founded several humanist organizations, such as the Center for New Thinking, the Society for Humanistic Judaism, the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, and the Humanist Institute. In addition, he lectured and debated frequently, taking on such fundies as Jerry Falwell and Meir Kahane. He will be deeply missed, but his legacy will live on.