World Humanist Day 2018 Inter-Belief Panels (Summary + Video)

One may have heard of secular organisations taking part in Interfaith conferences, but an organisation championing secularism running an interfaith forum may be likened to a philistine judging an arts competition, or a tone deaf person judging American Idol.

Quite the contrary, in fact. First of all, the word “interfaith” presumes it’s only between people of faith, and so people without faith should just sit by the sidelines of society. A belief system, however, can be one based on reason and evidence, and therefore InterBelief can be seen as an “inter-faith-and-non-faith”. It is obvious why the Humanist Society of Singapore (HSS) chose this nomenclature.

Celebrating the international World Humanist Day (occurring on 21 June to coincide with the summer solstice), Humanist Society Singapore (HSS) held the InterBelief session with the aim of creating a common space for mutual understanding among people of different faiths & nones. Dr. Catherine Lim, of writing and debating politicians’ fame was the keynote speaker, and she pulled no punches. Channeling her own distaste for the belief systems in her life, she said she finally arrived at the third and final belief system she embraces – humanism. It sounded a lot like ‘I found my perfect religion the last place I looked’. But the reality is : humanism is not a religion – it is a life stance.

Next up, founding HSS president Paul Tobin’s dissection into the different types of nones, gave people the impression it is very easy to misconstrue the nones. Speaking passionately about science and evidence, while debating down religious claims, is not militant atheism, but one that goes purely on the merits of reason and evidence. Atheism needs not to trample on any faith, in so much as reason is the common denominator for discussion.

The moderated panels were where the action was to be found. The first panel, moderated by Dr. Matthia Lee , tried to highlight the differences in belief systems. The panel was cordial, and instead of a comparative analysis, they were mostly into their own corners of “unique propositions”, without antagonising other belief systems. Actions were stirred from the floor, when the audience raised questions or shared personal experiences. It was no surprise this was going to run overtime, and the organisers allowed the momentum to rule over the need for the scheduled timing tea break.

After a delayed tea break, a second and new panel convened. The main agenda of ‘commonalities’ was sacrificed for the airing and venting of comments and opinions. While never out of control, the session became what is akin to a “truth and reconciliation commission”, with candid and pointed questions from the floor, and a little reluctance and lack of time in answering by the panel. Many didn’t want to leave beyond the 5pm cutoff, and were willing to help rearrange furniture in the hope of getting more time with the panel, as a group or individually.

Moderator for the second panel, Mr Tan Tatt Si, president of HSS, explained : “Faith is emotional, and logical people can be passionate about rationality as well. InterBelief is only as good as the degree of freedom we permit for questioning. It can be messy, but from chaos comes a pattern, and a grounds-up understanding that talking openly is the only way forward, not sweeping dirt under the carpet. We are glad we did not try to steamroll our agenda , to seemingly arrive at a pretentious consensus.”

There are many interfaith out there. To this reporter, this HSS ‘messy truth’ version needs to be a permanent fixture.

You can catch the panel discussions at our Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/KZ-V62McIxc

World Humanist Day – Inter-Belief in a Secular Society

Celebrating World Humanist Day, the Humanist Society (Singapore) is organising a panel discussion on Sunday, 24th June 2018, 1-5pm, at OnePeople.sg.

Register here!

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Coconuts: Concern over the meaning of Christmas

Online news website Coconuts wrote about Humanist Society’s statement expressing ‘concern’ over the meaning of Christmas.

Last week, the National Council of Churches (NCCS) have expressed deep concern that the Orchard Road Christmas celebrations are all about Disney properties rather than the Christian meaning of the season itself.

Now, Humanist Society Singapore (HSS) is deeply concerned about the NCCS’s concern through a parodic letter of concern to all Singaporeans, deconstructing the very nature of Christmas to its pre-Christian meaning. It’s by no means an attack on the NCCS, but a droll message of unity that calls for everyone to celebrate the season any way they choose to — in an ethical, humanist manner of course.

In case you’re not up to speed, the NCCS aren’t that happy that Orchard Road’s Christmas light-up has become super commercialized, especially so for this year in the Singapore Tourism Board’s collaboration with the House of Mouse. “The original meaning of Christmas has been effectively buried under the thick layer of this extensive and sophisticated brand promotion exercise,” noted Reverend Dr. Ngoei Foong Nghian, the general secretary of NCCS.

Finding the funny side of the complaint, HSS expressed their own concern by providing a history lesson of sorts about the “deeper meaning” of Christmas. “Do not monopolize December for yourself, NCCS,” the caption accompanying the letter urged on the HSS website.

“We are concerned that the light-up, with a heavy leaning towards emphasis one religion, may detract the historical significance of the days surrounding every December,” wrote the HSS executive community in jest.

“Since Earth stabilized its wobble through the help of its oversized satellite – the moon, and maintaining a 23.5° tilt off the elliptical path around the Sun, the northern hemisphere’s been observing these shortest days of every year since time immemorial. Druids, Pagans, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Arabians, Babylonians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Persians, Indians, East-Asians etc have been observing the rebirth of the winter sun, coining it Winter Solstice, to Saturnalia, to 冬至 (‘winter has arrived’).

In pre-Christian Rome, Saturnalia involved gift giving and the associated role reversal between servants and masters; and other parts of Europe, Yule time and god Odin (雷公 Thor’s father) were celebrated at this same season. The character Santa Klaus was Sinterklaas in Europe, and uncannily based on or imbued with qualities from Odin and Old Man Winter.”

HSS, being a group for local humanists, atheists, agnostics, skeptics and generally non-religious but ethical folks here, would of course be presumed to be anti-religion, but what it noted about Christmas does have some historical truth. The annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ has pagan origins, with December 25 being the date chose to appropriate festivities by the Romans in honor of the Sun god Sol Invictus. Here, have a nicely animated explanation of Christmas’ unchristian origins.

But HSS is not having a little fun without a point. The message they’re driving is that Singaporeans should celebrate the winter solstice anyway they want to, be it through Christian-appropriate ways or Disney-sanctioned decor.

“All we ask is we all cut down on wastage, reuse wrapping paper, reduce plastics, recycle the old and used, re-gift unwanted gifts; think of, and help the needy and downtrodden; use less sugar in Yule-log cakes, puddings and egg nogs, eat less meat, and refrain from driving when drinking.”

Wise words that we all can abide to. Happy Festivus, everyone.

A heart-thumping session

Humanists value the only life we have. Sometimes just a few critical minutes can mean the difference between life and death. On Apr 28, 2018,  a group of women and men responded to our call for the Emergency Preparedness Workshop at People’s Association HQ on King George’s Avenue.

The workshop began with a theory lesson introducing us to the human anatomy and the basics of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillators (AED). The class was lively with enthusiastic questions and laughter as the trainer dispelled many TV-inspired myths about the practice of CPR and AED.

Emergency preparedness lesson

After the break, we proceeded to the practical session, breaking up into smaller groups led by individual trainers. It was a very different feeling to get our hands on the training mannequin and AED set, taking turns to perform chest compressions and ventilations (commonly known as mouth-to-mouth).

CPR and AED practical session

The course was provided free of charge by PA as part of its emergency preparedness initiative. Certified trainees are encouraged to participate in community volunteer programmes to keep their skills fresh and current. If you get the opportunity to participate in a course like this, we cannot recommend it enough. Someone’s life could depend on you one day.

Darwin Day 2018 – A Celebration of Natural History

On 22 Feb 2018, the Humanist Society (Singapore) organised a visit to the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum to commemorate the birth of Charles Darwin.

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Migrant Cultural Show – A big “Thank you !”

Migrant Cultural Show, 7 January 2018, Syed Alwi Road. Pictures courtesy of the organizers.

The Humanist Society (Singapore) was invited to the Migrant Cultural Show that took place two Sundays ago. Tatt Si, our president was one of the VIPs , along with Ms Jacqueline Loh, the chief executive of  Aidha; Mr Shivaji Das, founder of Migrant Worker Poetry Competition; and TWC2 executive committee member Debbie Fordyce.

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Interfaith Memorial Service for Rev Yap Kim Hao @FCC

(TattSi walked to centre stage, lit a candle, and turned to the mic)

“Hi everyone, I’m TattSi, and I’m from the Humanist Society.

I just want to reassure Mao that while you knew Rev Yap only for a short while, you still beat me in that department. I never met Rev Yap, and only knew him for less than a year, on Internet, on Facebook.

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Musicians of HumanistSG – Adam Quek

The Humanist Music Day event was a half a year ago, though the ripples are still radially expanding to touch distant hearts . We will pick up where we left off, writing about the musicians who performed that Saturday afternoon.

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TOC: Narrow path walked by the non-religious just got narrower

President Tatt Si wrote this column for theonlinecitizen (TOC) on Oct 13, 2017, where he talked about the difficulties faced by the non-religious in expressing their views in Singapore and other issues they face.

Link to TOC: https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2017/10/13/narrow-path-walked-by-the-non-religious-just-got-narrower/

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