https://in-sightjournal.com/2020/04/22/free-of-charge-1-the-free-in-freethought-with-dr-herb-silverman/
 
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Herb, how is freethought represented in the secular communities now?
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Dr. Herb Silverman: Freethought is represented in different ways in different freethought communities. When I first became engaged with freethought communities, I learned about several national atheist and humanist organizations. I joined them all because each was involved in issues I supported. But each group was doing its own thing and ignoring like-minded organizations, while competing for funds from what they viewed as a fixed pie of donors. I knew we needed to grow the pie to benefit all these organizations and the freethought movement as a whole. They were spending too much time arguing about labels (atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker, etc.) and too little time showing our strength in numbers and cooperating on issues that affect all freethinkers. Here’s an interesting distinction between Christians and freethinkers: Christians have the same unifying word but fight over theology; freethinkers have the same unifying theology, but fight over words. At least our wars are only verbal. So in 2002, I helped form the Secular Coalition for America, whose mission is to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheistic viewpoints, and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government. Our 19 national member organizations cover the full spectrum of freethought. 

https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-20-newtons-sight-came-from-the-hind-a-send-off-d203212c33bb

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Legacies don't come from one person, usually. They come from a collective mass of unknowns and the forgotten, where one person or representation gets the collective credit. But the vast majority of our benefit comes from the dead even before them. I can understand the ancestor worship, the praying for the dead, and the making divine of ordinary human beings who persisted and had some talents. I can see this as a source of reverence. Those we never knew gave us a bit of a better shot, bit by bit, then died. What do you owe to freethought pioneers?
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Dr. Herb Silverman: Isaac Newton in 1675 said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton produced a mathematical understanding of motion, making the workings of the cosmos intelligible without any reference to supernatural belief. Yet he misguidedly said, “This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” Religious or not, scientists like Newton and Galileo contributed an enormous amount to the freethought movement before the Enlightenment. As Galileo learned, scientists often diverge from scripture at their peril. Scientific contributions have spread disbelief throughout the world because scientific arguments are settled through experimentation and evidence, not through authority or unproved claims of miracles found in so-called holy books. Scientists may not directly attack religious creeds, but they have undermined religious foundations. Nobody anymore believes that the earth is the center of the universe or that a deity made stars as an afterthought after creating the sun and the moon. 

https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-19-archimedean-pivot-to-take-a-stand-and-to-move-the-earth-549ca22ea795
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In life, our wills, characters, and true stances will be tested. This seems like an inevitability. I've had several myself. Many cost me, dearly. Some, I'm still paying the costs in different ways. Nonetheless, I don't regret them, taking the stands. I doubt I ever will. You need to take a stand. It may cost you. No one does anything alone, though. However, you can make a change and an influence as an example for others. So, instead of avoidance of the issue, we best deal with them headfirst. What are the meanings of trials and tests in life, in hindsight?

Dr. Herb Silverman: Regarding trials and tests in life, here’s a paragraph from the preface of my book, Candidate Without A Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt: “When I was a graduate student in the 1960s, I occasionally took breaks from mathematics to write what I thought were clever stories. Then my roommate showed me a quote from Henry David Thoreau, ‘How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.’ So, prodded by Thoreau, I stopped my creative writing and focused on completing my PhD in mathematics. Now more than forty years later, I’ve written about a few of the times I stood up to live, about the times I couldn’t or wouldn’t, and about the times I stood up and should have remained seated.” Life consists of trials and tests, and we need to learn from them. Before committing to an action, we should think about whether it will make a difference and to whom. For most of my life, I was a mathematics professor. I think I made a positive difference with some students, and though my research was respectable, it was not significant enough to make much difference to the mathematical community, nor did it have an impact on people outside the world of mathematics.

https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-18-platos-demon-and-platonic-friends-or-a-mathematician-who-can-64a14cefd9ec

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We talked some sessions ago about the death of Paul Krassner. A cultural elephant in the countercultural room, or, more properly, the plural alternative cultures room. Friends come from many different areas. What makes a friendship?
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Dr. Herb Silverman: There are all kinds of friends. I recently met someone I had never seen before, and she informed me that she was a friend of mine—a Facebook friend. When I first got on Facebook I agreed to be friends with anyone who requested it, and now I think I have too many such “friends.” I’m also friends with some charities I support, as in “Friends of the Library.” I am not a Quaker (the Society of Friends), though among religions I think it is one of the best because of its emphasis on peace, social justice, and finding the light within. Surprisingly, there is also a group called Nontheistic Quakers (nontheistic Friends). A more traditional notion of friends would be people not related to you whom you know well, and whose company you enjoy. This might include professional colleagues, fellow supporters in a cause, or someone you are intimate with. Friends are the family you choose. No matter how down you are, good friends should be able to make you laugh. I think the best kind of friend is someone you love and who loves you, someone you respect and who respects you, someone you trust and who trusts you, someone with whom you can be honest and who is honest with you, and someone you are loyal to and who is loyal to you. (We are fortunate in life if we have two such friends.) My wife, Sharon, is my best friend.

https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-17-family-the-united-nations-and-conservatism-8088a3283480
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Conservatives take the family as the fundamental unit of societies, the building block. It becomes a divine mandate in many theologies and religious social commentaries. The United Nations is fundamentally allied with this vision in its foundational and associated documents with the description of the family as the fundamental group unit in the society.  An almost unacknowledged unifying vision between a nationalist and a globalist vision view of the world. So, why is family fundamental? They both seem right from different view of the world.
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Dr. Herb Silverman: A family is usually viewed as people connected by blood, adoption, or marriage. The question then becomes how we should treat family members. Surprisingly, I like what Jesus said about blood relatives, though with some objections and a different perspective. This is from Mark 3:32-35: A crowd was sitting around Jesus and said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and my mother.” Of course, I disagree with defining family in terms of faith. On the other hand, there is something to be said about counting friends we choose after we are born as more important than people we are related to through no personal decisions. I would say that family is fundamental if we include those we are close to, whether or not we are related to them. 

https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-16-take-some-time-virtues-and-virtuous-habits-e615750991f5

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Virtue seems mostly like a habit. Then we call long trends in behaviour in someone a character trait. It seems like this to me. So, virtue starts with the habituation of ethical conduct. There are consequences to a certain behaviour. Good results become consequentially good, tautologically. Bad results become consequentially bad, but come from antecedent behaviour, inescapably. The possible good and bad have a range of known and unknown consequences. So, I am noting some virtue ethics and consequentialism mixed together here, where limits get placed on personal responsibility based on cognitive-predictive limits.  What virtues should be encouraged/vices should be discouraged every day?
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Dr. Herb Silverman: Let’s first describe what we mean by “virtue.” To me, virtue is behavior that shows high moral standards, which means good behavior. Humans have evolved to be social animals with patterns of behavior to live harmoniously and productively together. Without cooperative behavior, humans would not have survived. Ideas of right and wrong that we call morality arise from human nature. We all have the ability to think in moral terms, except perhaps for psychopaths. Of course, being moral or good means different thing to different folks. Some religious people would say that to act morally is to act in obedience to God’s commandments. Many Christians view virtue as having faith, hope, and charity, described in 1 Corinthians 13:13. Islamic virtue requires submission to Allah. Muhammad said, "Virtue is good manner, and sin is that which creates doubt." As a secular humanist, I certainly don’t tie any virtues to god beliefs. I think that ethical values are derived from human needs and interests, tested and refined by experience. Morality should be based on how our actions affect others. Our deeds are more important than our creeds, and dogmas should never override compassion for others. 

https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-15-all-things-bright-and-wonderful-and-unknown-what-do-we-know-34476c70a775
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Of all possible mathematical knowledge, what do we really know? You were a distinguished professor in the past. We have written a text on this. 
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Herb Silverman: Here is what we know about mathematics. Mathematicians start with axioms (assumptions) and see what conclusion may logically be deduced (proved) from these axioms. The nineteenth century mathematician Leopold Kronecker once said, “God created the integers, all else is the work of man.” I interpret this statement to be more about the axiomatic approach than about theology. Mathematicians often begin with axioms that seem “self-evident,” because they are more likely to lead to real-world truths, including scientific discoveries and accurate predictions of physical phenomena. But if at least one axiom is false, then the conclusion may not be scientifically applicable. Unlike with applied mathematicians, theoretical mathematicians are not so concerned with whether their axioms are true. Axioms in some branches are contradictory to axioms in others. In non-Euclidean geometry, we replace Euclid’s parallel axiom with a different axiom. The axioms in Euclidean geometry have led to discoveries on planet Earth; results from the axioms in non-Euclidean geometry were applied many years later by Einstein for his general theory of relativity, when he showed we live in a non-Euclidean four-dimensional universe, consisting of three-dimensional space and one-dimensional time. 

​https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-14-a-rational-life-includes-non-rational-parts-535498da5aa1
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’ve talked about rationality and such. You’ve commented on personal experience with love, and more. Love is a non-rational part of life, but love happens, nonetheless. A profound, significant, and, sometimes, incomprehensible and inexplicable component of human life. What do you make of making room, in life, for the non-rational? As Chris Hedges clarifies, he does not mean the irrational, but the non-rational forces of life.
Herb Silverman: For most of my professional life as a mathematician I made good use of the irrational. I speak, of course, about irrational numbers (not expressible as the quotient of two integers) like the square root of 2 and pi. Irrational numbers were discovered in Greece in the 5th century BCE, and challenged the Greek belief in a rational universe controlled by mathematical harmonies. Such numbers seemed to these Greeks so illogical and unreasonable that they called them irrational. So, sometimes things may seem irrational because we don’t understand them. Outside the world of mathematics, the main difference between rational thinking and non-rational or irrational thinking is that rational thinking is based on logic and reason, while non-rational and irrational thinking are usually based on neither. In rational decision making, choices are made through reason and facts.

​https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-12-by-soul-we-mean-psyche-the-complete-human-being-b13c0b5a5398
 
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The term soul seems ill-defined. Its original term, psyche, appears more precise. The complete makeup of a human being. Let's talk about the naturalistic soul, the psyche, what do we know and not know at present if you had recent conversations with or readings by relevant experts in a variety of relevant fields? If not, I'll take personal opinions too.
 
Dr. Herb Silverman: I’m uncomfortable using the word “soul” for the same reason I’m uncomfortable praising the Confederate flag. That flag to me is a symbol of white supremacy and slavery. But to many of my fellow South Carolinians the Confederate flag represents heritage, not hate. I think it represents both heritage and hate. And some heritage is hateful or worse, including what the Confederate flag and swastika represent to most of the world. I usually hear the word “soul” when people distinguish between our material mortal body and what they call our immaterial immortal soul. Some who fear death and want to escape its inevitability invent things like a heaven and a soul. These humans try to distinguish themselves from other animals and living things, saying that we are the only ones with souls. There are some real uses of the word “soul” that I like, including soul music, which arose from the black experience in America. I don’t like soul food like chitterlings and ham hocks. Soul food is a genre created by southern black Americans, and I know many people find it tasty. Soul (nephesh) was originally a Hebrew concept and a synonym for a living breathing creature. In this case, when the creature stops breathing, the soul is dead. In the Hebrew Bible, a person does not have a soul, but is a soul. This concept is closer to a naturalistic soul, or psyche. I prefer to use the word “mind” instead of soul or psyche, but I am comfortable with the word psyche. Our minds try to make sense of the natural world in which we live. There is no purpose in nature, but our minds come up with purposes in our own lives. Science has shown that all life is interconnected by small particles and phenomena playing off one another in subtle ways. I think natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of our natural universe, and our continuously changing universe is a product of these laws. To quote Carl Sagan, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.”
 

​https://medium.com/humanist-voices/if-youth-knew-if-age-could-11-morrows-fantasia-my-tomorrow-s-tomorrow-48ee28332312
 
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: My friend and colleague, Paul Krassner, died last year. He published The Realist with luminaries including George Carlin and Lenny Bruce published in it. In honour of his life and work, I will comment on Bruce and then Krassner for individuals who may not know them, as I believe in the renewal of their core legacies for the current crop of the young: Getting caught in what should be, as Lenny Bruce articulated, is a terrible, terrible lie given to the people long ago, there only is what is, and the rest is a fantasy. This seems true to me. How can the false selves and idealized selves of youth lead a young person astray, by their own inability or outright dismissal to take heed of the real and act on it? 
 
Dr. Herb Silverman: I have fond memories of Lenny Bruce, whom I worked with on February 11, 1961, at Town Hall in Philadelphia. I never actually met Lenny, but I sold soft drinks before his performance and during intermissions. I made about six dollars that night, and Lenny made considerably more. I started my selling career in 1958, when I was 16, and continued until I graduated from Temple University in 1963. I mostly worked my way through college by selling refreshments at sporting events, and occasionally at Town Hall. Other performers I “worked” with at Town Hall include Pete Seeger, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul & Mary. Lenny Bruce’s performance was special for me. I didn’t even know who he was at the time, but I was pleasantly shocked to hear an adult, let alone a performer, use the word “fuck.” Youth today certainly aren’t surprised to hear the F-word in ordinary conversation, but the 1950s and early 1960s were a different world. Lenny Bruce’s battles against censorship, including jail time, are now mostly won, but he was a pioneer whom I am proud to have “worked” with.
 

In his performance, Lenny said, “There are no dirty words, only dirty minds.” He also criticized religion, the first time I heard such criticism from a performer. He said, “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
 
As you indicate, Lenny Bruce said this about lying, “ Let me tell you the truth: The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago.” Along those same lines, Lenny also said, “If you believe there is a God, a God that made your body, and yet you think that you can do anything with that body that’s dirty, then the fault lies with the manufacturer.”
 
In particular, young people can be led astray by believing lies they are told about God and religion. (Here I use the word “lie” loosely, meaning “untruth,” because people might not actually be lying if they accept as true their fantasies about God.) Of course, there are many ways to be led astray by lies, not just through religion. It’s important to be skeptical of claims, and you should look for evidence to back up those claims. This is especially true of claims made by politicians. It’s essential to learn how to think critically, which should be taught in school starting with kindergarten.
 
Jacobsen: When I asked Krassner in an interview with him, "What advice do you have for youth?" He replied, "Try not to take yourself as seriously as your causes." I still miss him. When a young person isn't tuned into themselves, able to feel, able to label the feelings, able to assert themselves and deal with the real world in a proactive, friendly, and realistic fashion, they're significantly handicapping their fulfillment in life and trajectory. The getting to where they want to go and the feeling of how they want to feel getting missed. When connected with oneself, you can connect to others fully and authentically - organically. Why is non-seriousness about oneself and seriousness about one's causes important as a life principle?
 
Silverman: Scott, you are very fortunate to have been a friend and colleague of Paul Krassner. I never met Krassner, but I have admired him since I was a child and read his pieces in Mad magazine. In Mad, and later in The Realist, I learned to appreciate political (and religious) satire. 
 
When Paul Krassner advised youth, “Try not to take yourself as seriously as your causes,” I think he was speaking not just about youth, but about everybody—including himself. Krassner coined the term “Yippies,” a politically-active countercultural youth group of hippies. It was an offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements in the late 1960s. The Yippies were known for street theater and politically-themed pranks, and had been called “Groucho Marxists.” 
 
After Larry Flint announced in 1978 that he was resigning as publisher of Hustler, the porn magazine, because he had become a born-again Christian, Flint said that Paul Krassner should replace him. Krassner told People Magazine, “I know it’s bizarre, but if God told him to hire me, I ain’t going to argue about it, even if I’m a born-again agnostic.” Krassner became publisher of Hustler for six months, until Larry Flint came back to his senses as an atheist.
 
I think Paul Krassner summed up his philosophy nicely when he said, “We know we are all sentenced to death. People cannot become prisoners of guilts and fears. They should cling to each moment and take what enjoyment they can.” For Krassner, joy was not merely hedonistic pleasures, but remaining active in causes dear to him while keeping a sense of humor. 
 
Jacobsen: What advice do you have for youth? 
 
Silverman: It is difficult to come up with advice that doesn’t incorporate the advice above from Lenny Bruce and Paul Krassner. But one way the three of us are different is that I don’t do drugs as they did, though I certainly favor legalizing marijuana and other drugs. Using drugs may be imprudent, but it makes no sense to arrest people for being imprudent, incarcerating them, and then giving us taxpayers the bill to keep them locked up. Unfortunately, Lenny Bruce died from a morphine overdose. One thing that Lenny, Paul, and I do have in common is that we are all Jews who don’t believe in any gods. Perhaps that ties in with the importance of having a sense of humor. 
 
So, my advice for youth is to keep a sense of humor while remaining active in causes you care about. Unless you can have fun when working on a cause, you may quickly tire of it. Yes, you need to work hard. But you need to find ways to enjoy your work, and your life. 
 
 
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman