President’s Message

by Heatherly Hodges

I voted last week. Lines were long at early voting, which hopefully indicates higher voter turnout. I would like that to be true, because I believe, regardless of party or political values, Americans have a duty to participate in the democratic process. Democracy is not one of the Humanist Ten Commitments of the American Humanist Association. But service and participation, peace and social justice, global awareness, and responsibility are, which leads to my belief that participating in democracy is a

Regardless of who is elected in November, Religious Trauma – Part V 12 the world is constantly changing. We have signs to SASH Book Club 14 indicate America is moving in a more secular direction, but at the same time there are many Seculares 14 indications that younger men and women in Chapter Reports 15 particular are moving back to more traditional Chapter Contact Information 18 conservative values. WASH hosted a meeting recently with Fish Stark, the new American WASH Contact Information 18 Humanist Association executive director. Stark brought up a concerning point for those with secular values: the rise of “tradcaths” (traditional Catholics) and “tradwives” (traditional wives). Tradwives are women that eschew feminist values and instead aspire to be strictly wives, mothers and homemakers. Tradcaths are men who are moving away from progressive ideas and embracing traditional catholic values. There are even some non-religious individuals that are moving toward the conservative values of tradcaths and then

In This Issue:

President’s Message
Women’s March in DC
Editor’s Corner
Celebrating New AHA Leadership 3
AHACON24 – Christian Nationalism 4
Book of Zombies 6
AHA AHACON24 Sunday Awardees7
Far Future Optimism? 8
Christian Nationalism Re Abortion10
Virginia Call to Action 11 humanist value. Robert G Ingersoll Tours 11

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Gratitude

Please go to https://wash.org/donate/ If you have not already joined.

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The views expressed should in all cases be considered those of the author unless explicitly endorsed by the WASH Board of Directors.

The entire WASH community conveys our gratitude to those who renewed their membership, signed up as a new member or just made a contribution because you appreciate the service our community is providing. Thank you.

slowly losing their secular values along the way.

So what happens next? And how do we respond? If the country begins moving away from the current secular trend, what can we do? One way, obviously, is engaging with and revitalizing organizations such as WASH. Become more involved in your chapters, and become more involved in your local community. One of the Ten Commitments is global awareness. We can adjust

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that value to local awareness. Are there violations of separation of church and state happening in your town, county or state? Are there opportunities in your local area to spread awareness of secular values?

Service and participation is another humanist commitment, and we can enact this value by expanding community service opportunities and participating in events in your community. If you have the ability, perhaps being an election judge is a way to participate in the democratic process in your community. The League of Women Voters and voter registration drives are two other ways to participate in local democracy regardless of party.

By no means all, but many young people are committed to the principles of peace and social justice. They are taking responsibility, another humanist value, for their communities and for the world. Can you embrace those values in your community?

I’ve spoken in previous messages about the importance of maintaining hope in the future of our country and the world. I’ve spoken about the stress that living in “interesting times” brings, and how even doing small things to create positive change can help alleviate some of that stress. It is also true that participating in larger acts of service, responsibility, compassion and democracy can help one cope with our sometimes terrifying world.

As former WASH president and current National Field Director of American Atheists, Samantha McGuire frequently says: “Do the things.” I echo that today. Participate, engage, take responsibility. Do the things!

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Women’s March in DC

On November 2nd, members of secularist organizations such as WASH, the American Humanist Association (AHA), and American Atheists will join Women’s March D.C. in their rally and march from Freedom Plaza to the White House. The AHA will have a table at the rally at which WASH will participate. The day will begin with a vibrant rally and community festival, where activists can listen to inspiring speakers, enjoy live music, and connect with partner organizations

committed to this fight to be followed by the march. We’ll have signs, buttons, and stickers for you to proudly display your humanism.
RSVP here.

Women’s March logo for Nov 2, 2024 3-6pm. ______________________

Editor’s Corner

By Don Wharton

I am so happy to bring you an edition of our newsletter focused on voting. We have a President’s Message appropriately centered on voting. AHA and WASH are participating in the Women’s March, Saturday, November 2nd. AHA says of this march, “This year’s election isn’t just about choosing between candidates; it’s about choosing between freedom and fascism. Now, we have the opportunity to center feminist values essential for preserving our freedoms.”

Obviously, women’s humanity is being revoked as their roles are being stripped down to being reproductive livestock in a Christian nationalist dystopia. To all men out there, if we allow this travesty to happen to women, they will be coming for your rights also. No one is safe unless all of us are safe. Please RSVP here or here.

The AHA is headquartered in DC and quite wonderfully for us, they have actively embraced our local community. They have dramatically revamped their senior leadership and held an excellent on-line convention. I have review articles of the new leadership and many of the sessions at the convention. I am very pleased to have the single most superstar freethinking representative, Jamie Raskin, as my representative in congress. He, Jared Huffmann and Amy Goodman were among the awardees at the AHA conference. I have an article highlighting the views these wonderful people shared at their presentations.

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As usual, I am both honored and extremely pleased with the outpouring of creative writing talent that people are bringing to WASHline. Bill Creasy has a very philosophical essay of optimism about the future. Mr. Heffron has another of his analysis pieces on religious trauma. Both of them are disclosing books that they have published.

Elm Lessah has a very humorous piece on Biblical storytelling, titled Book of Zombies. Steve Lowe has been our tour guide highlighting Robert G. Ingersoll, the “Great Agnostic.” He has a piece highlighting these tours and offering to train someone to retain this as a WASH tradition. Martha Heisel has been fabulous in organizing our Shenandoah chapter, SASH. She has a note talking about her book club and promising to start providing reviews of some of the many books read by her chapter.

WASH is so fortunate to have some of our Virginia members organizing visible and effective political action. Virginia has some of the most regressive legislation considered in our region. I love sharing the articles for this wonderful group in Virginia.

One of my personal pleasures since our last newsletter is meeting WASH members who are volunteering for Atheists Helping the Homeless, DC. I am happy that my DC Atheists chapter has been able to support this charity over recent years. For others who might like to help, email to atheistshelping@gmail.com.

Another pleasure that I have as Editor here is meeting new secular people and being able to offer them a forum to introduce themselves. Celia San Felipe is a multi-talented artist, who recently moved here from Bueno Aires, Argentina. She has published poetry in Spanish, but does not feel herself limited to that art form. We have one of her poems, translated into English, with this issue.

Normally I will be providing updates on both artificial intelligence and climate change. Those will be deferred to a later issue, due to lack of time. There are also significant changes in the evolution of the NONES, those with no religious affiliation. I expect to have an update on major changes in that area.

Appropriately for this issue, I do have an update on the attack on women’s rights in other states. The increasing cases of death, injury and plainly needless horror is quite astonishing. Do not forget to RSVP for the Women’s March in DC, this Saturday, November 2, 3-6pm.

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Celebrating New AHA Leadership

by Don Wharton

AHA recently elected Candace Gorman as the President of its Board of Directors. She and her board recently hired Fish Stark as the AHA Executive Director. I am quite fortunate to have met Fish Stark in local DC meetings and viewed his many contributions to the recent AHA zoom conference. He is an extremely energetic and intelligent new national leader for humanism. He is the son of Pete Stark, the first out humanist in Congress. He was with his father when he received the AHA Humanist of the year award in 2008.

His academic credentials are excellent with his BA from Yale and a Master’s in Education from Harvard. He served on the secular student group leadership teams while getting those degrees.

He worked as the Director of Programs at Peace First, a global nonprofit training and funding youth social activism in many countries. With his expertise in child psychology, he headed teams developing curriculum for an educational technology startup. When that startup was acquired, he declined to accept the big paycheck because he saw toxic Silicon Valley bro values in the acquiring entity. This says a lot about the integrity that Fish sees as central to who he is.

He is richly informed about the history of secular thought with many heroes that he looks up to including John Dewey, A. Philip Randolph, Bill Nye, Barney Frank, Neil deGrass Tyson, James Frey Croft, Jamie Raskin, and Jared Huffman. He put his personal stamp on the AHA’s current push against Christian nationalism. He approaches that fight with joyful relish. He highly values the fact that humanists arrive at 90% agreement across a wide range progressive values. He sees those values as supported by the evidence.

He also seems to be astonishingly informed about the nature of secularism in the wider society.

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For example, Fish knew that Gen Z women are now leaving religion more than men. This is a very recent change that few in our secular community would know about. I have not yet written about this for WASHline and historically all varieties of atheism more reflected men leaving religion.

I asked Fish about why men are going to be wildly divergent from women in the upcoming election? He cited JD Vance and his “tradcath” views as a template for what is happening with men. Our pluralistic society is moving on from white male leadership. Tradcath is short for traditional Catholic. Too many men are now seeing this traditional religious role as preserving their privilege. Young women are not impressed and are moving away from religion in greater numbers because they no longer appreciate the traditional male role as in the past. They now see traditional patriarchy as confining and unacceptable. I respect Fish’s analysis of the Catholic contribution to this phenomenon. But my information is that Protestant religions deserve equal blame for this surprising new spin in evolving secularism.

I would very much hate for AHA to lose his skills to the world of politics, but his skills would be awesome in that arena. He is connected to Maryland political leaders and I see zero chance that they will not actively approach him to run for office. Fish can own a stage in a way that reminds me of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Will AHA be able to retain Fish Stark as its Executive Director? Obviously, he wants to make a mark on this world. It is not by accident that the AHA announcement of his appointment included the words “‘Game On’ to Christian Nationalists.” Mr. Stark is a man of courage and he wants to fight this fight. He sees community as needed for this fight. He wants to invest in that fight. WASH has supported many national efforts, including national secular conventions and nationally led rallies on the Mall. We now have a very capable national leader. Washington DC is the political power center for our nation. That means we need to come together as THE local community that is most there to support the fight against Christian nationalists. Fish Stark correctly says that we need to lose our fears and find joy in the fight ahead of us. He is extremely articulate about how and why we should expect to win that fight. Let us form the vibrant community that both serves our needs and is passionately committed to preserving our freedoms to think and act on secular principles. I

am so glad that AHA, under Candace Gorman’s leadership, has found such a talented leader to help make that happen.

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AHACON24 – Christian Nationalism

By Don Wharton

There were many sessions in the recent AHA Convention, AHACON24, September 14-15, that spoke on humanist values and the fight with Christian Nationalist on those values.

There was a session early on Saturday that highlighted humanist values and how they might be supported or attacked by AI systems. Some in WASH do not fully understand how important AI will be going forward. I hope to use WASHline to continue our attention on this issue.

I was quite amused by the session on

Reimagining Relationships and Destigmatizing Non-Monogamy. Humanists have much empathy and understanding for our LGBTQ+ friends. They break with the archaic demands of theocrats to stay with heteronormative relationships. We are less informed about the vast possibilities for non-monogamy. One of the best attended sessions I ever organized was on polyamory. I am so glad to see it included with this conference. Obviously, all such non-traditional relationships will be at risk if Christian theocracy achieves its desired dominance.

There was an excellent session on

Conservative Threats to Public Education: Safeguarding the Future of Our Schools, by Kevin Bolling, Executive Director, Secular Student Alliance. We know that Christian nationalists want to suppress many varieties of compassion, teaching, bathroom usage and availability of books in our public schools. In addition, in many cases they want to voucherize public school education so that people can force their children to endure a hyper-religious upbringing in religious schools at the expense of taxpayers. Thank you, Kevin, for highlighting these many risks.

There were excellent sessions on progressive parenting, elected officials fighting

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Christian nationalism in government, the work of humanist professionals, and humanist values in science. Unfortunately, I did not take enough notes to more thoroughly convey what was said in these sessions.

I did take more notes from the session titled, Unmasking Christian Nationalism’s Ties to the Anti-Abortion Movement. Isabella Russian of AHA led the session with three regional activists.

Aubrey Sparks is the Legal Director of ACLU West Virginia. Obviously, she has her work cut out for her. She called the WV legislature a “bad idea factory.” The state has a near total ban on abortion. She reported on the abusive hoops that people must jump through if there is rape, incest, the victim is a minor or a not viable fetus. She decried the global gag rule and the astonishing effort required just to work in the universe of facts. She asserts that WV activists against abortion lie about nearly everything. For those in West Virginia who need high end expertise with a problem pregnancy, you are out of luck. There is only one such expert in the state and he is a well known anti-abotion activist. Thus, for certain care, the state is a complete health care desert.

Crisis pregnancy centers trick people by promising free pregnancy tests or free ultrasounds and then lying about state law or the state of your pregnancy. They are not bound by HIPPA. They can forward your information in any way they might want. They are often connected to well-funded but shady adoption organizations.

Jakeya Johnson is the very impressive Executive Director of Reproductive Justice Maryland and Program manager for American Society for Emergency Contraception. She got House bill 477 passed. It expanded contraceptive options on college campuses, including comprehensive abortion referral services. A prior problem was that if a Texan visited Maryland and had any medical service it would be visible back in Texas. She got a law passed to prevent certain reproductive medical services in Maryland from being reported to another state. She noted that the protection of the most vulnerable means protecting real people who are at risk. She elegantly conveyed her message that the economic health

and mental health of the mother is more important than the vulnerability of the fetus. To all women, “pro-life” does not mean your life.

Dr. Layla Houshmand is a Medical Device Commercial Strategist. Her Ph.D. is in the engineering of medical devices. She notes that fundamentalists might feel very positive about bringing a pregnancy to term but that does not protect them if they need an abortion to save their lives. She noted how the positive motivation of such Christian nationalist women was assumed by them to be sufficient to allow them to get the medical care they need while pregnant. They were sadly mistaken in far too many cases.

Dr. Housmand had a problem pregnancy because being pregnant reduces the body’s immune system. She got a viral eye infection and needed an abortion to recover her immune system functioning. When she tried to talk to a doctor about the problem the front office of her OB doctor refused to put her call through. She then ran into another problem. 1 in 5 hospitals are managed by religious groups. They define policy that is not consistent with standard medical practice. Given the increasing geography without any OBGYN facilities at all, there may be little choice for someone living in an area only served by a religious institution. The nearest hospital would not provide the needed care and she lost much time finding another place to meet her needs. As a result she lost most of her vision in one eye. This occurred in Maryland, nominally a very progressive state.

There is a Question 1 amendment to the state constitution on the Maryland ballot this year. It will protect reproductive rights from possible rogue legislation in Maryland’s future. Some anti-abortion groups have been spewing outrageous lies about what is included in this amendment. It says nothing about gender affirming care, sterilization, or parental notification in regard to minors or taxes. So even in Maryland we have a significant fight with anti-abortion extremists.

Many thanks to AHA for organizing these wonderful AHACON24 conference sessions.

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Book of Zombies

by Eym Lessah

To many Christians, one of the most fascinating and miraculous accounts within the bible is the resurrection narrative of Jesus the Christ. Surely, the purpose of Jesus’ life was to make a blood atonement for the lives of believers. In a nutshell, God had a child with a young girl – Almah-young woman of childbearing age, not a Virgin as is commonly believed. The child lived for 30-plus years, was murdered and after a couple of days, he came back to life. Upon his return, he would usher the believers into the heavenly streets of gold. As amazing as this mythological tale may seem, a little-known and even more bizarre tale that occurred during Jesus’ death has been largely overlooked.

For those who believe that one man can return to life after death, what would be said if two men were resurrected? How about multiple resurrections? Would those be even more miraculous? According to the bible, three individuals were resurrected in the Old Testament, and five were resurrected in the New Testament. It seems as if resurrections were a dime a dozen in biblical times. What if you were told dozens, maybe hundreds of people were instantaneously resurrected within the New Testament?

The story of Jesus’ death is very detailed, and some truly bizarre things happened in a very short period of time. According to the Bible, Jesus was placed on the cross at 9 a.m. “ It was nine in the morning when they crucified him” (Mark 15:25 NIV). In the book of Matthew, the exact time was different. “ From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land ”(Matthew 27:45 NIV). The text goes on to say, “ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split…(Matthew 27:51-52). The text below only appears in Matthew and nowhere else within the bible.

“…and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people” (Matthew 27:52-53 NIV).

If this scripture is to be believed, dozens, maybe hundreds (the true number is not given) of

the undead walked the earth and appeared to many people, after Jesus’ resurrection. This is the amazing story of the resurrection that most people have never heard during Easter Service. This story literally speaks of groups of zombies roaming Golgotha and Jerusalem and even entering the city. You would think this event would be emphasized throughout churches. Jesus’ death brought on zombies! The term Zombie is not used as a pejorative here. Truly, it epitomizes what was occurring within the text. The word Zombie originates from Haitian folklore , in which a dead body is reanimated through magic.

What is even more amazing about this tale is that not once is it mentioned that these walking undead spoke to anyone. It is assumed that they were awakened from the dead for a reason. Can we also assume that not one person dared to speak to any of these people? Are we to believe not one of these reanimated people sought out their grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, to share with them their tales of the grave? Did they go to their original homes to live with their long-lost families? Did they reintegrate into society as patriarchal leaders? Were they eternal and lived forever? There should have been numerous historians throughout the centuries from near and far longing to catalog these undead people concerning their tales from the other side. Truthfully, there is no doubt this act should have been the greatest miracle of all, throughout the Old or New Testament. Just think, this event itself requires a chapter of its own – The Book of Zombies.

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“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the

lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth vs. falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.”

— Hanna Arendt

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AHA AHACON24 Sunday Awardees

by Don Wharton

The House of Representatives Freethought Caucus was co-founded by Jamie Raskin and Jared Huffmann. They were co-recipients of this year’s Religious Liberty Award. These freethought leaders in Congress will be critical in preserving and possibly advancing freedom, with any of the outcomes that might occur with the elections. Their very warm appreciation with this award shows that AHA is recognized for its national leadership and support for intelligent and thoughtful policies. I am pleased to share some quotes from each of these important supporters of secular thinking.

Jamie Raskin: “Your free exercise of religion does not depend on your ability to impose your religion on others. It limits exercise of religion only when you want to lead a prayer with your students in your classroom and compel them to participate, or take government money and give it to churches. The First Amendment is there to prevent one church or cult religion from seizing power and preventing all other religions from exercising their religious freedom. The first Amendment is critical to a free society. Founders were rebelling against millennia of established churches, warfare between Catholics and protestants, Holy crusades, inquisitions, witchcraft trials, you name it. They wanted to break from the nightmare of theocratic rule and the imposition of religious orthodoxy on free citizens.”

Jared Huffmann: “I am proud to be the only out humanist. Jamie is not exaggerating when he says this is the modern equivalent of the Salem witch trials. In fact, some preachers are calling Taylor Swift a Satanic witch for not endorsing Donald Trump. This stuff is crazy enough when it is just madness swirling around on the Internet, but this has traction at the highest levels of the government. Christian nationalists have been seeding leaders in state legislatures, in the courts and even the Supreme Court, and in Congress as many as 100 members of Congress are Christian Dominionists, led by this New Apostolic Reformation. This is not compatible with democracy. I am in a district that will probably give me 77% of the vote. There is a political

upside. That is something that people do notice. Social media makes money by increasing hate.”

Rep. Huffmann also held up a book he was reading. The Violent Take It by Force by Mathew D. Taylor. Its subtitle is The Christian Movement That is Threatening Our Democracy.