Bob Lane

Just what do we mean by "Journey to Humanism" I guess it is an obvious and straightforward statement. But each of our journeys is unique, similar in some ways but unique. Some of you were lucky enough to grow up in secular or nonreligious families and some like me grew up in religious families.

As I have been thinking about what to say tonight, I wondered if there was something I left out the last time I spoke about my "Journey to humanism" a few years back. Or perhaps, if something needed more emphasis. Here is my revision.

I was born to Mormon parents, and was raised by my mother and stepfather. I attended Church every Sunday until I went to a military school for my junior year in high school.

First signs of my skepticism were early doubts about the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Santa. No Tinker Bell with coins for your teeth, no giant bunnies with eggs and candy and no Santa (Down the chimney? Give me a break)

Probably one of the earliest things that happened to start me on the path that would take me away from the path of religion was when I received for Christmas a small microscope with a small lab kit to go with it. I enjoyed it immensely; I remember that it had this packet of some kind of eggs something like brine shrimp or something similar. On the low magnifying setting you could add a little water to some of them on a slide and then come back a while later and watch them hatch and begin to grow. It had other things to do and some polarizing lenses and stuff for a few projects.

But in my family, church came first, always. My interest in science was never recognized much less encouraged. My first inklings that the grown ups in my life didn't know as much as I thought they did came at about age fourteen. I remember asking an adult after priesthood meeting the question, "If God created everything, who created God". His answer wasn't as memorable as his attitude. He was not happy that I had asked the question. I also remember asking about the "war in Heaven" which is essential too most if not all of the religions of the Bible, for it establishes the existence of the devil. But it seemed illogical that anyone, in the presence of God the creator, knowing that he was God the creator could, to his face defy him. I mean how stupid can you be? I believe this is when I was beginning to think for myself. In those teen years I was becoming more and more rebellious, which is why I was sent to a military school. But if my parents had known how that year away from happy Valley would affect me, I'm sure they never would have sent me.

Military school was a big wake up. I went from being around almost all Mormons to being one of only two or three Mormon students. This was also when I started to enjoy Learning. I especially enjoyed gaining scientific knowledge. Science became so much more interesting to me than the static unchangeable nature of religious teachings. At this school, the most memorable class was "Advanced biology and physiology." The class was held two hours a day, three days a week for the entire year. It had a college like setting with a good lab. I remember that the professor had a human arm that was striped of its skin. He also had a juvenile Dolphin he acquired somewhere and dissected it in class over several class and lab periods. We also did team dissections of lab rats and a couple of different reptiles in order to compare the physiology of warm and cold-blooded animals. We also did our own blood typing and Rh factor. We studied evolution, and had a section on sex education, and this was in the mid 60's.

Also at this Military school, my roommate introduced me to certain Science fiction books. Most notably Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, One of the characters while discussing religion with other characters mentions an incident in the bible as instructive of how nasty God is. The story in second kings is about Elijah and how when some kids make fun of his bald head, he calls on God and God sends a she bear out of the woods which tears up these kids. This is an act of God?

The next big change in my life came when I spent four years in the United States Air Force. The year in Thailand was quite an experience. When you spend a year somewhere you get more than just a "vacation like glimpse" of a place and its people. You have time to explore the culture, the Buddhist religion, and the food. (That's where I learned to love rice.)

But my final break with organized religion came when I was on leave during the holidays of 1970. I was given a book for Christmas from the stake presidency called The Miracle of Forgiveness, by Spencer W. Kimball. While thumbing through this book, I came across a passage in a chapter called "The Sin Next to Murder." The passage, attributed to Heber J. Grant, is part of a larger discourse about chastity, and ties the Word of Wisdom to chastity. In part it is as follows. (Speaking of young people)

"Partaking of Tobacco and Liquor is calculated to make them a prey to those things which, if indulged in, are worse than death itself. There is no true Latter-day Saint who would not rather bury a son or a daughter than have him or her lose his or her chastity --realizing that chastity is of more value than anything else in all the world."

When I read that passage I knew that I had nothing left in common with Mormonism.

When I got out of the Air Force I started attending the University of Utah and became a Geography major and eventually graduated with a B.Sc. in physical Geography. It was here that all the science classes in Geography, Geology, Anthropology, helped hone my knowledge of evolution, Earth history, and the processes that make the physical world what it is.

I consider myself a humanist, an agnostic, and an evolutionist. I feel that they are all grounded in my knowledge of and enjoyment of Science.

Now I would like to mention the names of some of the people both past and present that have had an influence on me by what they did or what they wrote.

Galileo, Kepler, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Crick and Watson, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, E. O. Wilson, Professor Donald Currey, Professor Frank Brown, Robert Ingersoll, Jacob Bronowski, Steve Allen, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, George Orwell, H.G. Wells, and Robert A. Heinlein.

I would like to end by reading one of the quotes of a fictional character of Robert A. Heinleins named Lazarus Long. I believe it speaks to the essence of science.

"What are the facts? Again and again and again--What are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the 'unguessable' verdict of history"--What are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"

--Robert Lane