As Hitch would ask - what act has been, or could be performed by a religious person, that a non-religious person could not also do? In the photo I see hugging, done that. There's consoling, done that too. If they showed the invocation of a deity to restore the lives of at least the children, then I'd gladly say they had me there. In a world without religious beliefs that scene would look exactly the same save the funny hats, the prettily decorated robes, and the implication of moral authority by those who wore them.

"...the umbrella term for those who call themselves atheists, agnostics, secularists and freethinkers, among other terms." Sounds like he's struggling with his definitions almost as much as we do. And almost as much as he is with the concept of how one establishes a point of contention. Of course they chose religious ceremonies. Go back in time and place, and they would still be doing the same, but then to gods and spirits with names like Thor, and countless others lost in time. Perpetuation of a belief or ceremony, is not the best measure of its validity.

One paragraph mentions all of the long term, and material work of humanists, such as fund raising, and work to enact real gun control legislation, which we've never had. And then the next asks where are they for "boots on the ground" time. I won't be making a habit of it, but does he at least read his own writing? A fitting analogy "boots on the ground," since the people in those boots tend to be people who have been manipulated and conditioned to believe in theism, and that the deity behind that belief supports them in their slaughter.

If humanism, or whichever name you grab out of the barrel to describe the numerous, evidence-based belief systems, were adopted by all or most of the people of this country, then perhaps ours would be a world where we seldom need the unique, consoling qualities of a religious narrative, doled by church authority through inscrutable ceremony, in times of tragedy. Then perhaps instead, we might live in a world where we've replaced superstition with evidence, and tragedies such as this are rare, if at all.

On 12/29/2012 1:18 PM, Alan Palmer wrote:

How can we participate in helping others at times of crisis and sorrow?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/us/on-religion-where-are-the-humanists.html?_r=0

Alan B. Palmer

A bright - Elevating and Illuminating a Naturalistic World View

[address removed]

www/the-brights.org

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David P. Vallee
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"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time."
T.S. Eliot

"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
Gandhi

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