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Equal Time for Freethought
Progressive Humanism for Social Change and the WBAI Mission
We on Equal Time for Freethought feel the very
goals and aspirations for our program, and the community it serves, is indeed at the core of WBAI’s mission and what
this station needs to be as it moves deeper into the 21st century. Underneath all the partisan politics, economic misadventures,
racial inequalities, warmongering policies, and reactionary pseudo-philosophies of today's America, is the need to care for
and nurture the HUMAN within us all. The human potential is besieged and dismantled in the current atmosphere of this country
… an atmosphere where competition is king and cooperation is belittled. The attitudes and ideas spread by faith-based
"reacting" (as opposed to evidence-based "thinking"), have damaged the very sprit of America, and threatens to create a country
for our children which our parents would never recognize ... A country soon WE may not recognize.
ETFF’s target
audience is primarily those people who identity themselves with the Freethought movement; that is, humanists, scientific skeptics,
rationalists, atheists, agnostics and scientific naturalists. We reach that small minority of Americans who do not identify
with either a religious worldview or with a non-scientific, supernatural epistemology. Therefore, ETFF fills a need for a
group of individuals who are poorly represented, disrespectfully represented, and/or just plain ignored in the mainstream
media, AS WELL AS in many forms of independent media including WBAI! Indeed, whereas religion, New Age spirituality, alternative
medicines and other forms of pseudo-science can find a place within the WBAI mission, perhaps only Michio Kaku’s program
comes close to addressing some of our concerns.
Though ETFF is primarily concerned with the issues in the last paragraph,
we are also addressing those issues in the first. We represent a point of view based on the philosophy of humanism, which
we see as the basis of, and the result of, all the other aforementioned interests. Indeed, secular humanism is the philosophy
by which to measure ETFF. Edward Said once said that "humanism is the only, and I would go so far as saying, the final resistance
we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history." We in the progressive freethinking community
understand the moral and political responsibility which that sentiment implies. Humanism represents the binding social, political
and cultural thread that can unite people of different cultures, beliefs and values into a common framework of respectful
co-inhabitance, while at the same time, articulating a vision of a shared humanity in which all the peoples of the world can
prosper and function in an environment where their humanity is valued more than profit, power, or pure self-interest.
Contrary
to popular stereotypes of the atheistic, humanist lifestyle (one of anger, cynicism, and immorality—so say the religious
and political fundamentalists), progressive secular humanists share a well-rounded and passionate commitment to many of the
ideals that the Left also embraces ... both politically and socially. For example, humanists understand the need for media
reform and that cooperate control of information is a threat to democracy-the only political system humanity has produced
which can support humanistic ideals.
Also, humanists share a common thread with the Left on globalization. We deplore
the effects of Neo-liberal privatization as manifested though undemocratic organizations such as the WTO, the IMF and the
World Bank. These entities are creating a tremendous amount of suffering, poverty, and unfettered exploitation of peoples
which is vehemently opposed in the several Humanist Manifestos. The unethical practice of visceral self-interest of the few
at the expense of the many is anti-humanistic at best. And other issues such as the environment, nuclear disarmament, and
civil liberties, humanists have always fought on the frontline for the hearts and minds of committed liberals, radicals, and
revolutionaries.
The destiny of human kind is currently in the hands of faith-based ideologues that may very well
destroy us. By faith-based, we do not only mean religion and the breaking down of the wall between church and state, but
this administration's faith in crony, mega-capitalism, neoconservative economics and social policies, the notion that 'might
makes right', the idea of American Exceptionalism, and the notion that war is the best means by which to settle conflicts.
Secular Humanists, on the other hand, understand the virtues of love, happiness, justice, reason, and cooperation
that an interconnected species lives for and depends on. Time is too precious to be wasted on divisiveness and our opponents
and adversaries know this. To borrow a famous quotation, let us not put ourselves into the dustbin of history. Let us instead
affirm humanity, shape it, and create the means to reach the goals we all share ... The goals of a classless, democratic,
egalitarian world that gives us, and allows us the means to be better than we are. That is, after all, what makes us human.
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