This is a cartoon from a fundie book written by Tim LaHaye in 1982. It is clearly a work of prophecy.
But do people still have such a bizarre and hateful opinion of humanism today? They sure do.
Watch this fellow declare that humanism is demonic, a nest of wanton debauchery, etc., etc. But especially watch Andrew Copson of the British Humanist Association reply — how can anyone compare these two views and not decide that humanism is a better way of living and thinking?
Such a wonderfully generic cartoon. You can put practically anything in that label!
Back in the 1990s a friend that was not all that rightwing or religious (or so I thought) asked me if I would call myself a “secular humanist.” That sounded like a pretty good thing to me, so I said, “Well, yeah, I guess so.”
So endeth a friendship.
I didn’t know that by accepting the label I was confessing to being a debauched, family-destroying instrument of Satan.
Conclusive proof that The Cult Of PZ exists!
Someone must let Todd Starnes know about this!
This way, once again the atheists of the pit can link to the rambling of a christianist fantasy writer,
Giant squid-to-pus or not, I am not renewing my AHA membership due to this fuckup: http://conference.americanhumanist.org/awardees2015/
Krauss. Humanist of the year. Does not bode well for the rest of us.
Umm. The proper label for that there tentacley thing is ‘society.’ (Also, why do right wingers have this strange need to put a fucking national flag on everything?)
OMG toward the end the humanist guy is talking and you hear the Christian dude mumbles something unintelligible. The humanist guys stops in mid sentence and asks incredulously “Did you just say Pol Pot?!” Brilliant.
I swear my membership card is up to date so how did I slip off the wanton debauchery mailing list?
In Japan most girls will disagree with such depiction of their beloved octopus.
…Does the UK recognize religious weddings as legally valid? I suppose it makes sense from having an established church…
The dreaded binocular octopus strikes again!
I for one feel quite cheated.
One of the definitions of debauchery is “seduction from duty, allegiance, or virtue”
I’d like to thank humanism for seducing me from “duty” and “allegiance” to my christian upbringing and its questionable definition of “virtue”.
I’m pretty sure Pol Pot was not a humanist.
Well, yes. Most weddings in the UK are conducted by a religious authority, and the state is happy to accept such weddings as valid, so long as they’re conducted in accordance with the law. I’m pretty sure the same is true in America.
The point here is that there’s currently no way for someone to be certified to conduct weddings in England without either being a religious authority, or being a civil servant. And as Humanism isn’t a religion, it’s difficult for humanists to have the rituals they want.
Yeah, I’ve got the same lack of debauchery, too. Can we sue for false advertising?
The octopus of secular humanism has three free tentacles. THREE!!!
What’s it going to grab next?
Oh I want this on a T-shirt!
Hmm… Probably frozen rock and roll, movie theaters and fast food chains.
And that was an amusing typo. Just plain old rock and roll, not frozen rock and roll.
Hopefully Bill Donahue… By the neck.
Me, I’m wondering what the connection is between secular humanism and pornographic literature.
except for the glareing look who can help how their face looks the octopus of humanism looks to me like he is wrapping everything in its protecting arms, fending off the domineering and judgmental religious leaders.
as the christian so perfectly demonstrates
uncle frogy
Tony
You have it on your desk (or nowadays have it open in another tab) while writing screeds against secular humanism.
+++
I loved how the audience basically laughed the guy out of the room. He can’t even complain about mieeeen wördz. That guy is bitter, bitter, bitter, because his ship is sinking while he’s defiantly screaming “it’s not trueeeeeeeee!!!!”
Now we know why PZ has a thing for cephalopods.
AS soon as I saw that cartoon I couldn’t help but to think
I’ve Seen Enough Hentai To Know Where This Is Going
rq #15
It’s going to need two of them, just to hold pornographic-literature sources.
Well, since the last one is probably NOT holding hands with god…
Still don’t understand why just anyone can’t conduct a wedding. Why does having religious credentials give you the right to say , “Yup, these two people said they wanted to get married!”?
It’s always fun to look up the websites of religious nuts like the one from “Dear Jesus” in that video clip. They have a pretty average looking website (discussjesus.com), mostly boilerplate Christian evangelical stuff, and most of it likely unchanged since they created the site.
They have a YouTube channel with one video and precisely zero subscribers, and the heartfelt testimony of one of the organization’s members credits C.S. Lewis’s “Dear Christianity” for leading him to salvation (must have missed that one.)
See how much of society is protected by the loving attention of secular humanism’s tender tentacles? Makes me feel all safe, secure, and cuddly.
The language pedant in me also notes:
No, no, no. As depicted, said tentacles are reaching towards those things, not from them.
I can’t tell if they should fire their writer , their illustrator, or their editor. Perhaps all three.
great picture, secular humanism doesn’t look like its harming anything held in its tentacles, it even gives a family a hug.
i wish i had a secular humanism octopus as a pet
Once you take out government, public schools, TV & the family, the only thing left in the cartoon to portray “pornographic-literature [sic] sources” is the church.
Unintended accuracy?
the history of the octopus as trope goes back a long ways…
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2014/08/clive-palmer-and-the-history-of-the-cartoon-octopus.html
…also:
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/power/text1/octopusimages.pdf
Hey! I’m a secular humanist – where’s my damn suction cups?
Bah, LaHaye ripped that off from a similarly-themed illustration published in Moody Monthly in 1925:
http://sophia.smith.edu/~maldrich/evolution/Fundamentalist%20Publications/1925moodybibinstdec.htm
P.Z., I am a humanist in good standing and am current in all my dues. How come you never invite me to any of your humanist debauchery shin digs? What gives?
Waaaay back in the day, you didn’t even need someone to conduct a ceremony, let alone require a witness.
That was then, this is now. In Australia, anyone can apply to be a marriage celebrant. There are a fair few requirements to meet. One big one, apart from checking the documents about whether people are already married or the evidence for divorce or death of a previous marriage partner, is when you refuse to conduct a ceremony … the marriage certificate is a legal document so you need to be of sound mind. Any drunk or drugged bride or groom is automatically unable to participate in the ceremony or sign the certificate just as they would be ineligible to sign a will.
As for who does these things. My husband and I were married – in 1978 – by a friend who also happened to be the president of the local Atheist Society. The UK, the USA and most of Europe have a lot of catching up to do in terms of providing options. Here we have churches, registry offices and independent celebrants, and we’ve had them for 40 years.
It’s about as cliche as one can get and has been for a *very* long time:
Damn! I keep missing out on all that wanton debauchery…
http://www.foundationsforfreedom.net/References/OT/Poetical/Psalms/_Res/Octopus.jpg
Indeed, the Octopus-as-encroaching-threat has been used many, many times.
http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/octopus-monopoly600.jpg
Seems even back in 1982 Tim LaHaye was an unoriginal hack. Who woulda thunk it?
Seriously, did no-one pay attention during high-school civics classes? (The Octopus by Frank Norris)
Still, I’m surprised by the number of relatively recent (1982 is recent, isn’t it) uses of it for secularism. That all seems so … off. And stupid.
Vulgar Army: Octopus in Propaganda and Political Cartoons
“Pornographic literature?” Please. I never knew the meaning of the word pornography before I read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Edwards, and the hellfire and brimstone child torture porn by the oh so very aptly-named Furniss. The Bible itself is porn in so many ways, almost none of the sexual (though that one verse in Ezekiel, eesh…).
Like they and their kind have any right to talk about “pornographic literature.” Ye gods. More projection than a mile of movie theaters.
#38 mildlymagnificent — Marriage as a law includes many legal obligations and consequences, so it is something that should be decided by an officer of the government. In France, only secular marriages performed by the local mayor or his representative are recognized as legal. You wouldn’t want just anyone to give someone a driver’s license according to their customs.
—-
As to the Black guy, if he had been born 300 years ago, he might have been enslaved by God-fearing Christians. But he has accepted the ideology of the oppressors. In the U.S. he could be considered an Uncle Tom.
Strange: Replace “Religion” in the octopod’s head and you see what La HeYwe wants to see.