The Heart of Humanism

If you haven’t been keeping up here, last Thursday Oct. 26 the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and the student group we sponsor, the Harvard Secular Society, brought actress/writer Julia Sweeney to Harvard to perform her new one-woman play, Letting Go of God. The event was a wonderful success, not only because Julia more than lived up to the New York Times’ rave review, entitled “Questioning Religious Faith and Yet Finding Inspiration,” but also because it was evidence of just how much our Humanist community here at Harvard is building great momentum. I can’t say thank you enough to all the Humanist undergraduate and graduate students who helped put it all together. Julia’s performance amounted to our biggest event ever– and also to Julia’s largest crowd ever for a performance of the full version of the show. So, read the unprecedented Harvard Gazette article, and/or just enjoy the photos below! All photos by the wonderful Rick Friedman unless noted.

One audience member checks out the program as the audience flows in. Inside the program was a beautiful invitation to this event.

A huge crowd (or the part of it that fit inside at this point) lines up in the Cathedral-like environs of Memorial Hall/Sanders Theater.

Total attendance: approximately 750.

Harvard Secular Society President Amanda Shapiro helps introduce Julia. (Photo by Andy Connor.)

After all our hard work preparing: the show finally begins…

How does the mind work?

Biblical scene.

Harvard Kennedy School of Govt. alumna Sunny Schwartz at a table promoting local Humanistic Jewish Congregation Kahal B’raira, during intermission. Several Humanist-related local organizations and Unitarian Universalist Churches helped spread the word about the show.

A standing–no, jumping– ovation.

Humanist Chaplains Greg Epstein and Tom Ferrick greet Julia as the applause continues.

A fascinating Q & A with the audience followed the show.

Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, congratulating Julia and thinking: “I love my job.”

Wasn’t that great?! Epstein, Ferrick, and Shapiro gathering onstage after the show, along with Peter Blake HGSE, Sean Bala ’09, Matt Valente ’08, and Will Nygard ’08.

Some members of the Harvard Secular Society, the Humanistgrads, and the Humanist Association of Massachusetts got together afterwards for photos.

This great shot of us by graduate student Andy Connor. Thanks, Andy!

You can purchase the CD now at www.juliasweeney.com…

But you can only get the autograph & “hi mom!” cameraphone shot right here.

Julia with Amanda as Greg explains, “this show might not even have happened if it wasn’t for her…”

Julia and Julie Duncan ’09 making the “Pat face.”

A longing parting glance at the famous Sanders Theater chandelier. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have our own beautiful space in which to hold Humanist events?

Below, in full, is the wonderful New York Times review of Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God, which she will perform at Harvard this Thursday, in her only New England performance this year. Tickets are still available at the Harvard Box Office, 617-496-2222, or here. Poster available here.

October 24, 2006
THEATER REVIEW | ‘LETTING GO OF GOD’
Questioning Religious Faith and Yet Finding Inspiration

By ROB KENDT
Can an atheist lift the spirit? In her searing and bracingly funny solo show “Letting Go of God,” Julia Sweeney traces her bumpy journey away from religious faith in an accessible, no-frills format that suggests the kind of inspirational self-help lecture you might see around PBS pledge time.

But where Deepak Chopra or Wayne W. Dyer, say, come bearing warm broth, distilled from revered spiritual traditions, Ms. Sweeney arrives with a bucket of cold water for all supernatural belief systems, from her family’s old-school Roman Catholicism to the New Age alternatives (including Mr. Chopra) embraced by many of her peers.

In her fluent, friendly and offhandedly riveting account, what started with a visit from two young Mormon missionaries soon became a fitful but unrelenting quest for an adult understanding of the deity she always sincerely sensed was at her side. Ms. Sweeney felt God’s presence, sure — but what did she really believe about him?

She’s almost sorry she asked: upon examination, the Bible horrifies her, and so, ultimately, does the implicit determinism of every spiritual approach she tries, from Buddhism to the Deist notion of God in nature. Once she loses the Christian plot she’d never before questioned, the idea that everything happens for a reason in a universe where someone, or something, is minding the store increasingly rings hollow.

Ms. Sweeney, in other words, has come a long way from the snickering androgyny of the film “It’s Pat!” and gone deeper than her previous solo show, “God Said ‘Ha!’,” about her brother’s fatal lymphoma. Without breaking her affably conversational tone, in “Letting Go of God” she inhabits the emotional memory of each step on her path, from the cozy warmth of her erstwhile prayerful faith to the confusion and terror, and finally the hard-earned peace of mind, that attend her gradual un-conversion.

At a time when religious faith is either the subject of shrill controversy, with prejudice and misunderstanding on both sides (Mel Gibson, meet Christopher Hitchens), or of a lukewarm tolerance that’s fundamentally uncurious about what people actually believe, “Letting Go of God” is refreshingly unrancorous, lucid and, yes, inspirational. Ms. Sweeney may not believe her audience has spirits to be moved, but that’s certainly how it feels.

Richard Dawkins had some very nice things to say in his blog about his recent visit with the Humanist Chaplaincy and many of our students. (Photos in the entry below.) Here is a link to his write-up.

Last night was a wonderful, special night for our growing Harvard Humanist community. And before I even say why, I want to say thank you to Humanist Grads Peter Blake, Jananda Hill, and Tom Gessel, and Harvard Secular Society members Julie Duncan, Will Nygard, and Zoe Kawaller, and others. You all really gave of your talents, heart, and effort and it showed.

And finally, I want to thank Professor Richard Dawkins, for taking more than an hour out of his exhausting schedule to attend our monthly Humanist Grads social gathering at Phillips Brooks House, after both his powerful and passionate reading for a huge crowd and a book-signing for an impossibly long queue (the latter gave some students mentioned above ample time to do wonderful publicity work for Julia Sweeney). Richard, the fact that you were willing to sit and get to know us and hear our thoughts, questions and extended discussion about Humanism when we would have been all too ready to hear another lecture from you, says so much. It shows you truly care about your work and the people you affect– apparently you have more than a few unselfish genes.

Yes, Dr. Dawkins joined several dozen of us at Phillips Brooks House for what I hope is becoming a regular tradition of Humanist Grads getting together monthly just to eat and drink a little and be social, argumentative, contemplative…just to be ourselves and actually experience that rare and mysterious bird we might call “Humanist Community.” For more, join the Humanistgrads listserv: http://lists.hcs.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/humanistgrads.

Below is a fantastic email from Amanda of the Harvard Secular Society. Please take the one or two minutes to read it all, then help any way you can. And as it’s written with a great sense of humor, one serious comment from me:

Humanists don’t pray to a higher power for support or success. We don’t expect others to stand up for us without ourselves taking action. If you want your community to shine as the diverse, inspiring global movement of service to humanity it truly is, instead of being shunned as America’s least trusted minority, this week is the time to help as though it depends on YOU.  With us putting on a show this big (and this good!) it really does. Thanks in advance.

POSTERING
Postering is a great way to meet those fabled people you hear about who are “early to bed, early to rise”.  If nothing else, Thursday morning will be a prime time to mock them.

Thursday, October 19th
7:05 am (!)
meet at John Harvard Statue

FLYERING
If you can make it,  starting Thursday afternoon, we will be flyering outside of the science center to advertise for “Letting Go of God” (blurb below – which you should send to your friends).  Julie Duncan has enthusiastically agreed to dress up in “It’s Pat!” garb and mimic the character for our enjoyment.  However, androgyny can only sustain her for so long, and we will need some other Pats to rise up and wear her costume – starting on Friday, *e-mail me if you are interested*.

*E-mail me if you can flyer during any of these times*:
Thursday, Oct. 19th
10:00 am
11:00 am
12:00 pm
1:00 pm
Friday, Oct 20th
10:00 am
11:00 am
12:00 pm
1:00 pm

CONSIGNMENT TICKETS
Have friends that are DYING to go see Julia Sweeney but are just too lazy to go over to the Harvard Box Office?  Problem solved.  Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein will supply Secular Society students with tickets to sell.  If you sell 10 tickets, you get 1 ticket FREE; if you sell 20 tickets, you get 2 tickets FREE.  Stop by his office during normal business hours – in the basement of Memorial Church in Harvard Yard where the University Chaplains are (his e-mail is gepstein@hds.harvard.edu).

FACEBOOK EVENT
RSVP to the event on Facebook “Julia Sweeney’s ‘Letting Go of God'”.  Then, invite all of your friends to come.

*please forward widely*

what’s that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~
I T ‘ S    P A T  !
~~~~~~~~~~~~

and  IT’S COMING…

Julia Sweeney’s one-woman comedy, “Letting Go of God”
Thursday, October 26th
8:00 PM
Sanders Theater
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
$7 for Undergrads
Tickets on sale NOW at the Harvard Box Office
www.boxoffice.harvard.edu

JULIA SWEENEY

*former Saturday Night Live (SNL) star
*Desperate Housewives producer, writer, consultant
*Sex and the City creative consultant, writer

“LETTING GO OF GOD”

Preview: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CT5c3-k4uRE

Sweeney’s play comically chronicles her religious search, her struggle with doubts, and her final consideration of “Letting Go of God”.

“An excerpt of this show, ‘Letting Go of God’ is the single most popular story we’ve ever put on our show in over ten years on the air.  We were deluged with email.  Flooded.  Overwhelmed.  Somewhere, against all common sense, Julia is making something funny that has no business being funny.”
-Ira Glass, “This American Life”

presented by:

——————————

—–

Harvard Secular Society
———————————–
&
—————————————————–
The Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard
—————————————————–

I am delighted to announce that the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University has a beautiful new website: http://www.harvardhumanist.org/!

(Please help us forward this announcement as widely as possible nationally and internationally, to spread the word that Harvard University is to date the only university in the world with a permanent, endowed Humanist Chaplaincy.)

Our students at Harvard have been using the site since September and based on their extremely enthusiastic feedback, I am confident the site will help answer many of your questions about Humanism at Harvard and beyond, and about my work as Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain.

Here are just a few of the site’s highlights:

1) Start with this 30-second introductory video:
http://wms3.streamhoster.com/faq/clients/epsteingreg/GregoryMEpsteinMiniFAQ2.wmv
(the site will direct you to our “test” URL, which we left in September, but that URL now forwards automatically to our permanent site:
http://www.harvardhumanist.org/ .

2) Enjoy our “Humanist Profiles,” an online magazine-like feature providing an in-depth look at 5 of the world’s most important and renowned Humanist thinkers (all of whom have a strong Harvard connection) and 5 of our many Humanist students on Harvard’s campus today. I can’t say enough about all ten of these amazing individuals; together their profiles paint a picture of Humanism as the diverse, inspiring global movement of service to humanity that it truly is.

3) Check out our Calendar of Events, where you’ll see that on Oct. 26, the HCH presents Julia Sweeney, the critically beloved and Grammy-nominated former star of Saturday Night Live, performing an exclusive preview of her new one-woman play, Letting Go of God. Sweeney’s virtuostic combination of hysterical comedy, heart-rending poignancy, and razor sharp intelligence has her fast becoming one of the most important literary and dramatic voices in America; Ira Glass, the influential producer and host of National Public Radio’s This American Life describes the new show as follows: “An excerpt of this show, ‘Letting Go of God,’ is the single most popular story we’ve ever put on our show in over ten years on the air. We were deluged with email. Flooded. Overwhelmed. Somewhere, against all common sense, Julia is making something funny that has no business being funny. So see this show…if you dare.” (If you are in the area, after viewing our site be sure to purchase your tickets at www.boxoffice.harvard.edu)

4) Be sure to mark your calendar for our 30th Anniversary Gala and Symposium, on April 20-21, 2007. This past summer we announced an amazing lineup of famous Humanists who will help us celebrate our 30th Anniversary this April. So you’ve already heard about Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen; 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson; Professor Steven Pinker (One of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, 2004); Harvard’s head of Chinese Studies and the world’s leading Confucian Humanist, Tu Weiming; Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr.; Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of Humanistic Judaism; and others. But now the time has come to announce that many others will be joining us, including novelist Salman Rushdie, who will receive the first annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, and will then grace us with not only a literary reading but also a discussion of “Humanistic Islam:” Rushdie’s first time ever addressing this groundbreakingly important subject! (The discussion will be part of a panel on “Abrahamic Humanism?” moderated by Rabbi Sherwin Wine who will also discuss Humanistic Judaism; this will be part of our anniversary Symposium on “The Dialogue Among Religions, Cultures, and Civilizations.”)

5) A “Giving” page, where you can make a secure, fully tax-deductible contribution to the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, online, using Visa or Mastercard!
All of the many, ambitious events and programs described on the site are expensive. While the Humanist Chaplaincy does have a modest endowment ensuring its status as a permanent part of Harvard University, the terms of our endowment unfortunately prevent us from receiving almost any funding from Harvard until the deaths of the children of our donor. We hope all the children will live in good health many decades, but in the meantime we need your help to achieve our goal of making a major difference for the Humanism’s next generation. Thank you so much, in advance, for your generosity!

There is much more to say, but please just enjoy the site. Details and more announcements including registration information for our April events will come in December or January.

There are a number of very exciting events coming up at Harvard, of interest to Humanists, agnostics, atheists, the non-religious, and anyone curious/interested.

For Undergraduates:

• Tuesday, Oct. 10th

[HSS] Harvard Secular Society Dinner Discussion
“Sensitivity to religious doctrine & violence motivated by a higher power”
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm (may be pushed back an hour to avoid conflict with Michael Shermer– details TBA)
Memorial Hall/Loker Commons 302

For Graduate Students:

Thursday, Oct. 19th
[Humanistgrads] Social Gathering for Humanist, Agnostic, Atheist & Non-Religious Grad Students
More wine, cheese, other snacks, and getting to know each other.
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Leighton Room, Phillips Brooks House, Harvard Yard

For Everyone:

Famous Humanists Michael Shermer and Katha Pollitt are speaking at Harvard this coming week.

Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine: 6PM, Tuesday Oct. 9, Harvard Science, Center Hall D (Sponsored by the New England Skeptical Society & Humanist Association of Massachusetts;

Pollitt,writer/columnist for The New Yorker and The Nation: Weds. Oct. 10, Harvard Hall, room 201 (Sponsored by Harvard Students for Choice, RUS and the Harvard Dems)

Thursday, Oct. 26th
Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God @ Harvard
The award-winning and critically beloved former Saturday Night Live star’s new one woman play may just be one of the most compelling, touching, and funny statements for Humanism, and philosophical naturalism…ever!
8 pm
The Sanders Theatre, Memorial Hall
Tickets on sale now at the Harvard Box Office, for more info see www.boxoffice.harvard.edu

For much more information and even more great upcoming events, see: www.harvardhumanist.org!

Here is the new url for the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard website: www.harvardhumanist.org !

Please enjoy this site, which has wonderful resources for Harvard undergrad and grad students, faculty and alumni, as well as anyone anywhere around the world interested in learning more about Humanism. Don’t forget to click on the logo in the upper-left corner to refresh the screen and see/read all of our 10 wonderful “Humanist Profiles” of Humanist students, faculty, and an alumnus.

Again, a number of you have suggested that the site could be a great tool for explaining Humanism and building a worldwide community of Humanists, agnostics, atheists, and the non religious, but please give us another week or two to add additional special features for this purpose before we give you the “green light” to forward it to your friends and family beyond campus.

If you have comments about the site, this is a great place to leave them!

You may have noticed that there have been a few occasions over the past week in which our new Humanist Chaplaincy (http://hcs.harvard.edu/humanist) has been down/unavailable. In fact, it is down as I write this and will be unavailable until sometime Monday morning, September 25. This isn’t our site’s fault (I promise) but rather is due to the fact that our server, Harvard Computer Services (HCS), keeps crashing. Unfortunately we had to go with HCS, a student run group, for the time-being because it is free and the Humanist Chaplaincy’s budget is still so small. We’re working on fundraising, but we need your help to avoid such problems in the future!

In the meantime, here is a statement from Matt Fasman, a student at Harvard HCS, written Sunday morning:

“Yes, it is down. You certainly have a right to be frustrated by the instability,
especially as it occurs over such long periods of time and with such frequency. We are planning to scrap that machine this week and install a new one which will be more reliable. As for getting this one back online, we only have M-F, 9-5 access to the machines, so that won’t be an option until tomorrow morning. I’m really sorry about this, and we are going to fix it as soon as we can, but that will not be for another 20 hours.”

Of course, the above was written on Sunday and as of Wednesday we now know that those 20 hours were not at all sufficient. The site has been down most of the week! Here are some more comments from HCS about this latest “development:”

Greg,

Believe me when i tell you that we deserver the anger. I’m as upset
about this as any ones is. The problem is that our hardware is outdated
and being overused. We’re moving to new, much more powerful hardware
and the end of the week. Until then, access to hcs websites will be
intermittent as the machine is unstable.

I’m very sorry for the trouble and we’re working as qucikly as possible
to remedy the problem,

Grant Dasher
HCS Systems

We can’t wait to serve you, however, and aren’t willing to risk this happening again. So help us with your vote: do you prefer www.harvardhumanist.org or www.humanistchaplaincy.org as our new URL? Or something else? Leave a comment with your opinion!

And for the time being, don’t forget you can still access all of our upcoming events here, and if you’re looking for more information about Humanism right away, check back to my June 2006 post on “summer reading.”

Welcome back, everyone, and a hearty greetings to those either new to Harvard, new to my blog, or both. I hope this site will provide us with an excellent opportunity to learn from each other about Humanism over the coming year.

For my first post of the new school year, I wanted to provide something a little bit “extra,” and so I’m very pleased to present an exclusive (and perhaps temporary?) video link.

Did you know that Humanists, agnostics, atheists, and the non-religious have a professional Congressional lobbying office, called the Secular Coalition?

This, along with the other connected teams of Humanist lawyers being assembled around the US today, could end up being significant for some of you readers out there. For example, just last week I met with a Harvard student who is interested in becoming a Humanist activist and getting involved in our growing Graduate Humanist Community. She was enthusiastic, but worried because she knows she is going to spend at least a few years after school working in a very large, powerful corporation, where there might be some pressure to conform to traditional religious standards– ie, to be “in the closet” as a Humanist. Well, I was happy to tell her, that would be discrimination on the basis of religion, (or lack thereof) and with our new legal experts, there is no way any company would ever want to touch the issue.

Anyway, enough from me. Click the screen below to watch Lori Lipman Brown, the new Secular/Humanist/Atheist Lobbyist on Capitol Hill, in two Fox News interviews from last year.