Table of Contents
Foreword Amanda Poppei xi
How to Play the Bloody Mary Game 1
1 Who Are These Humanists? 3
Stories, Stories 5
Off to See the Wizard 6
What's Your Universe Like? 8
Religion American Style (and the Church of Crazy) 9
The Myth of Science versus Religion 11
Moses, Jesus, Paul, and Sacred Soundbites 14
The Neighbors Are Zombies Living in Maslow's Basement! 16
Porous, Buffered, and the Search for Authenticity 18
Religion: It's Time for the Grown-Ups to Talk 21
The Open and Shut (?) Case on Religious Thinking and Cognitive Closure 24
Selma: Death of a Metanarrative 26
Lies, Noble Lies, and Big Lies 28
2 What Do Humanists Believe? 31
What Are the Goals of Humanism? 33
Hate and Homo Sapiens 34
Roadmaps for the Soul (or: Hunting, Gathering, Singing) 37
A Semi-Private Idaho and Life in the Goldilocks Zone 39
Let's Agree to Agree on Subjectivity 42
Wounds and Healers 45
Tinfoil Hats and the Examined Life 49
Humanism and Theology 52
Reason Is Dead; Long Live … Advanced Hindsight 54
Soapy Cilantro and Tasty Gods 56
Subjectivity, Existence, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves 58
Where Is the I in Me? 61
B-liefs, A-liefs, and Seeing the Way Things Are 64
White Privilege: "Kumbaya" Won't Cut It 66
Beyond Mansplaining 68
Seriously-Who Said We Can Choose Our Own Mysteries? 73
Love Thy Neighbor as … 77
Language, Love, and Capability 80
Fallen Angels, Rising Apes, and the Knowledge of the Serpent 83
3 Where Does Humanism Come From? 87
Humanism, Like Mushrooms 89
Three Decorating Ideas for the Mind (or Making Sense of Life) 93
What Do Death Cults Really Want? 95
Buffering for Fun and Profit 97
Blinding and Beheading: One Path, Many Mountains 100
Greenery without People: The Future of Post-Religious Community 102
The Transient, the Permanent, and the Stitching Horse: Heresy and Razors 104
What's in the Way Is the Way: Stoicism and the Spaces Between 106
4 The Varieties of Humanism 109
Religious Humanism: What Was Old Is New Again 111
Humanism: A Way Forward 114
Spiritual but Not … Keep Talking 116
Congregational Humanist Liturgy: Creating a Religion-Neutral Zone 120
The "Trinsics": Where Are You Com in From? 123
The Proof's in the Pudding (or What's Churchy about Church?) 125
Nature, Nurture, Murder: The Lesson of Eugenics 127
Building Better Primates 131
The Spiritual Practice of Agnosticism 133
Use Your Words, Earn Your Words 136
Spiritual but Not Superstitious 137
Woo without the Woo-Woo 139
Why Does a Super-Nice Word Like "Spiritual" Make Humanists All Itchy? 142
The Rise of the Totally Awesome "Whatever" God 144
That's Why They Call It "Practice" 146
You Might Be a Religious Naturalist 148
Religion: It's What You Do 156
5 What's the Humanist Mission? 159
The Wrath of Pew 160
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of … What? 162
Welcome to the Age of Practice 169
Martian Sleeper Cells and the Spiritual Practice of Science 171
Philosophers Know What They Need 172
The Bigness of Our Littleness 174
On Chopping Wood and Getting Unstuck 176
The Olympics of a Reflective Life 177
The Ol Heave-Ho-Ho 180
Going All Thoreau: Doing Social Justice 182
Conscience and Choosing the Hill to Die On 185
Eleanor Rigby's Selfie 187
A final Summary of Humanism: Who We Are, What We Do, Why It Matters 189
Again Play the Bloody Mary Game 192
Sources and further Reading 193
About the Author 199
