Humanists - purple cow or tooth-fairy?

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Representative Pete Stark (D-CA) recently spoke at Harvard University about his experience as being the only "outed" Humanist in Congress.

The Article explains the nature of purple cow and tooth-fairy type humanists as follows:

Quote:

The contrasting attitudes of Stark and his audience, many of them from student Humanist organizations at Harvard, Brandeis, and Tufts, points to an interesting issue in the Humanist movement. For one kind of unbeliever, God is like the Tooth Fairy. Not believing in him is a mark of maturity, something to take pride in. Such people are easy to attract to Humanist events, because unbelief is part of their identity.

But other nontheists take an attitude more like the opening of the Gelett Burgess nonsense rhyme:

I've never seen a purple cow
I never hope to see one.

They harbor no resistance to the notion of a deity, they just don't anticipate running into one. If you ask them, they may admit to being atheists or agnostics, but in their own minds the question hardly ever comes up.

Pete Stark is more of a purple-cow unbeliever than a Tooth-Fairy unbeliever.

For those who think of themselves as Humanists -- are you more a purple cow or tooth-fairy?

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Cool, I like that distinction.

I'm a purple cow. <moos purply>

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Another purple mooer here.

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I have seen a purple cow!

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/300500/300704NSUr_w.jpg

yet, i would still belong in that category as well.

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I would say that I have long been a purple cow - my whole life really. Until very recently when the overwhelming surge of theists have gotten me thinking about the stuff. So, I am a purple cow with tooth fairy moments.

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oops! I just responded to my own poll and then decided I'd miscast my vote. I voted "purple cow" but I really should be an "other" and will explain.

I'm not always a humanist. On the days that I'm not a humanist, I tend to be a pantheist. There are times when I think there is something else... something wonderful and perhaps other-worldly... and in those times I see everything as spiritual (no, I don't do drugs). However, when I get up on the regular side of the bed, I'm pretty much a humanist with a purple cow mentality.

I don't really dwell on it, but sometimes I feel a sense of 'something' in everything. I once sat through a sermon on the advantages of LSD in finding one's spiritual self, but well, never mind -- it's not my thing. It was a Timothy Leary wasn't all bad kind of thing that didn't really grab me.

What I found interesting in the article was the apparent disappointment in the Tooth Fairy Humanists who wanted to dig deeper into the ramifications of a politician being an avowed Humanist. At each question, Stark gave a shrugged response -- it's no big deal.

<purply moooo>

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October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. The color is purple.

http://www.co.washington.or.us/cgi/neighbor/graphics/graf1006/domvlnc.gif

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Violet-Purple Mooer here, too...

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Those herds of purple cows (farmed by others) are blocking my local airport approach roads and having me drop or pick up family travellers hundreds of yards away.

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purple tooth cow fairy

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I first ckecked "purple cow", but after thinking it over, I think that I am more of a "leprechaun humanist". Leprechauns do not exist, but they are so interwoven in the fabric of our society, that they take on a reality of their own.

Actually, if I never came across a reference to a leprechaun again, my life would not be the worse for it.

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edgarblythe wrote:

purple tooth cow fairy

heheh, I hear you edgar.

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I'm probably 95% burger, and 5% tooth fairy.

I used to think about it a lot. These days, like others have said, I generally don't think about it until reminded.

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a yellow cow with a long neck
i'm a theist atheist, personally. i have a purplish shade, a distinguishable cow shape, and spend time now and again critcising people for using the tooth fairy as an excuse to kill and torture people that look like muslims and certain alleged political minorities.

of course, i'm no happier when (some) muslims do the same thing, but i really hate dictatorships under *all* circumstances. i guess that in itself is a tooth fairy sort of belief, but no one's perfect? for this reason, i think there should be a separation of belief in the tooth fairy and state.

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I picked purple cow cause I like purple... a purple tooth fairy sounds nice to.

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I almost chose other, explain and said I was a purple fairy, but feared it would be taken amiss.

And cow tooth sounded just wrong...