Word: humanists
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Actually, it wasn't like Twain to choose the polite way to say anything. In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he was the authentic voice of American contrarianism, a man born to gore sacred cows and make rude noises in public, somebody whose idea of humanist piety was to say, "All I care to know is that a man is a human being--that is enough for me; he can't be any worse...
...Witness Stand." Elsewhere in the poem, he recounts that "I sang in a church choir during one war/ American TV made famous." Lee also likens his own poetry to "a mission," but he's no firebrand proselytizer. His tone throughout this collection is that of the soft-spoken, ecumenical humanist. A mini-aubade in "Become Becoming" likens dawn ("the air's first gold") to "that color of Amen." In the Emersonian "Evening Hieroglyph" he compares flitting birds to "decimals or numerals reconfiguring/ some word which, spoken, might sound the key/ that rights the tumblers in the iron lock/ that keeps...
...friends have church groups to help teach their kids values and to be able to lean on." So every week, Willey, who was raised Buddhist and says she has never believed in God, and her husband pack their four kids into their blue minivan and head to the Humanist Community Center in Palo Alto, Calif., for atheist Sunday school...
...estimated 14% of Americans profess to have no religion, and among 18-to-25-year-olds, the proportion rises to 20%, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies. The lives of these young people would be much easier, adult nonbelievers say, if they learned at an early age how to respond to the God-fearing majority in the U.S. "It's important for kids not to look weird," says Peter Bishop, who leads the preteen class at the Humanist center in Palo Alto. Others say the weekly instruction supports their position that it's O.K. to not believe...
...last name used to protect her kids' privacy, brings them to Bishop's class each week. After Jonathan, 13, and Hana, 11, were born, Kitty says she felt socially isolated and even tried taking them to church. But they're all much more comfortable having rational discussions at the Humanist center. "I'm a person that doesn't believe in myths," Hana says. "I'd rather stick to the evidence...