http://southernhumanist.wordpress.com/about-2/

In the throes of a GOP debate blitzkrieg, I found myself more and more appalled. Not just at what some of the candidates were proudly saying, but at how their audiences were reacting, and how so many of my friends were agreeing!  I found myself hiding friend after friend on Facebook because I couldn’t deal with the garbage they were parroting.

Was this a politically inspired resurgence of anti-intellectualism in America or something more?  I expected some of the anti-intellectual rhetoric from Fox News or talk radio, but not so brazenly from the people I knew, many of whom I adored and considered close friends.  I was both shocked and disappointed.

This blog is my voice added to the slowly rising chorus of rational thinkers.; reasonable people who are deciding daily, that enough is enough.

Why the Southern Humanist?

It’s no secret that the Southern United States has a history of lagging behind: in economics, in education, and in tolerance.  But in spite of its shortcomings, and there are plenty, the South is where I was born and raised. I love it.

So in a nutshell, the Southern Humanist is a writing project dedicated to overturning the South’s legacy of ignorance by sharing and spreading the virtues of secular humanism and free thinking both here in Dixie and beyond.  The cure for ignorance is knowledge. By shining the light of human knowledge in every dark corner where junk-thought and junk-science are taking root, we will hold those who wear their ignorance as a badge of honor, accountable to their ideas. We need to make people feel ashamed of their ignorance, not proud of it.

From politicians to preachers, from entertainers to journalists; all who promote conspiracy theory over evidence, who cite junk-science over real science, who stand behind philosophies of hate, divisiveness, misogyny, and bigotry, particularly those who feel a moral authority for such philosophies by way of their religion, must be marginalized.  How? By exposing them and their ideas to the facts, to the evidence, to reason, to logic, and to compassion.

The importance of living compassionately cannot be overstated. We must live by example, and prove daily that kindness and tolerance do not magically appear from someone’s divine overseer, but instead spring from a deeply rooted altruism inherent in our human species.

Peace, Love, and Harmony, y’all