Category Archives: Humanist Calendar

Calendar Project: Undated

UN Proclamations for years and decades

2015 Year and Decades

2015
International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies A/RES/68/221 Draft: A/68/440/Add.2
2015
International Year of Soils A/RES/68/232 Draft:  A/68/444
2015–2024
International Decade for People of African Descent A/RES/68/237
2014–2024
United Nations Decade of Sustainable Energy for All A/RES/67/215
2011–2020
Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism A/RES/65/119
United Nations Decade on Biodiversity A/RES/65/161
Decade of Action for Road Safety A/RES/64/255
2010–2020
United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification A/RES/62/195
2008–2017
Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty A/RES/62/205
2006–2016
Decade of Recovery and Sustainable Development of the Affected Regions (third decade after the Chernobyl disaster) A/RES/62/9
2005–2015
International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” A/RES/58/217

Undated BAH recommendations

This just means I was unable to pick a month.

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique) is also the title of a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau on this topic.   “The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754 In moral and political philosophy, the social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.[1] Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique) is also the title of a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau on this topic. Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, as well as in the Biblical idea of the covenant, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is a heuristic examination of the human condition absent from any political order that Thomas Hobbes termed the “state of nature”.[2] In this condition, individuals’ actions are bound only by their personal power andconscience. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate, in different ways, why a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up his or her natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order. Hugo Grotius (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762), and Immanuel Kant (1797) are among the most prominent of 17th- and 18th-century theorists of social contract and natural rights. Each solved the problem of political authority in a different way. Grotius posited that individual human beings had natural rights; Hobbes asserted that humans consent to abdicate their rights in favor of the absolute authority of government (whether monarchial or parliamentary); Pufendorf disputed Hobbes’s equation of a state of nature with war.[3] Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and that the rule of God therefore superseded government authority; and Rousseau believed that democracy (self-rule) was the best way of ensuring the general welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence. Social contract theories were eclipsed in the 19th century in favor of utilitarianism, Hegelianism, and Marxism, and were revived in the 20th century, notably in the form of a thought experiment byJohn Rawls.[3] Theory of Natural Human[edit]

 
Hard to pick a month for social contract theoyr   Also hobbes, Grotius, locke, kant and pufendof The statue of Rousseau on the Île Rousseau, Geneva.
David Hume Epistemology   A Treatise of Human Nature is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published at the end of 1738. The full title of the Treatise is ‘A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects’. It contains the following sections: The is–ought problem in meta-ethics as articulated by Scottish philosopher and historianDavid Hume (1711–76) is that many writers make claims about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. However, Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between descriptive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and it is not obvious how one can get from making descriptive statements to prescriptive. The is–ought problem is also known as Hume’s law and Hume’s Guillotine.   ?
Epicurus http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/ ?
Percy Bysshe Shelley & Baruch Spinoza The Necessity of Atheism/ the birth of deism Ethics 1811 / 1667  
Da vinci. Gallileo Copernicus Libnitz Newton    
     
     
C S Lewis    
Paul Tillich    
savings and loans, coop banking    
zukov beats hitler    
John muir. bob marshall    
     
Goddard    
     
Ralph waldo emerson.    
Gandi    
Jesus and budda    
hamurabi    
fibbanochi    
Margaret Sanger    
Jonas Salk, Pasteur,    
     
Panama canal Engineering?            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Panama_Canal#Dealing_with_disease  
William Shakespeare Merchant of Venice  
     
     
     
Felix Adler Adler talked about “deed, not creed”; his belief was that good works were the basis of ethical culture. In 1877 the Society founded the District Nursing Department, which organized a team of nurses who visited the homebound sick in poor districts.[4] A year later, in 1878, the Society established a Free Kindergarten for working people’s children. Because it served the working poor, the kindergarten provided basic necessities for the children when needed, such as clothing and hot meals.[6] It evolved over time into the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Well known as a lecturer and writer, Adler served as rector for the Ethical Culture School until his death in 1933. Throughout his life, he always looked beyond the immediate concerns of family, labor, and race to the long-term challenge of reconstructing institutions, such as schools and government, to promote greater justice in human relations. Cooperation rather than competition was the higher social value. He gave a series of six lectures on “The Ethics of Marriage” for the Lowell Institute‘s 1896–97 season. Adler was the founding chairman of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. Lewis Hine was hired as the committee’s photographer in 1908. In 1917 Adler served on the Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Bureau and then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In 1928 he became president of the Eastern division of the American Philosophical Association. He served on the first Executive Board of the National Urban League.   May deed without creed February EC started   in 1876, Adler at age 26 was invited to give a lecture expanding upon his themes first presented in the sermon at Temple Emanu-El. On May 15, 1876 [5] he reiterated the need for a religion, without the trappings of ritual or creed, that united all of mankind in moral social action. To do away with theology and to unite theists, atheists, agnostics and deists, all in the same religious cause, was a revolutionary idea at the time. A few weeks after the sermon, Adler started a series of weekly Sunday lectures. Aided by Joseph Seligman, president of Temple Emanu-El, in February 1877, Adler incorporated the Society of Ethical Culture.[4]
442 RCT   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)  

 

Calendar Project: February 2015

Here are the suggestions for January.  We are trying to avoid birthdays and focus an important event.

February 2015 – BAH Suggestions

Publication of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.” ― Mark TwainThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” ― Mark TwainThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony completed in February 1824.

The Symphony No. 9 in D minorOp. 125 (sometimes known simply as “the Choral”), is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best-known works of the repertoire of classical music.[1] Among critics, it is almost universally considered to be among Beethoven’s greatest works, and is considered by some to be the greatest piece of music ever written.

  • Publication of article identifying DNA as the hereditary material of biology. Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty

In their paper “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Deoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III”, published in the February 1944 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Avery and his colleagues suggest that DNA, rather than protein as widely believed at the time, may be the hereditary material of bacteria, and could be analogous to genes and/or viruses in higher organisms.[1][2] Please comment below if you prefer one of these or suggest someone or an event for January.  Below are some places to look. Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 02 February Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 02 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 02 February3

February Full BAH Research Listing

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Samuel Clements “Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.” ― Mark TwainThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” ― Mark TwainThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer   The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy’s belief in the right thing to do though most believed that it was wrong. Hemingway also wrote in the same essay: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”[64]   February Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885
Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty The Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment was an experimental demonstration, reported in 1944 by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty, that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation, in an era when it had been widely believed that it was proteins that served the function of carrying genetic information (with the very word protein itself coined to indicate a belief that its function was primary). It was the culmination of research in the 1930s and early 1940s at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research to purify and characterize the “transforming principle” responsible for the transformation phenomenon first described in Griffith’s experiment of 1928: killed Streptococcus pneumoniae of the virulent strain type III-S, when injected along with living but non-virulent type II-R pneumococci, resulted in a deadly infection of type III-S pneumococci.   In their paper “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Deoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III“, published in the February 1944 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Avery and his colleagues suggest that DNA, rather than protein as widely believed at the time, may be the hereditary material of bacteria, and could be analogous to genes and/or viruses in higher organisms.[1][2] February 1944   Publication date
Beethoven Composition of Ninth Symphony completed [edit] The Philharmonic Society of London originally commissioned the symphony in 1817.[5] The main composition work was done between autumn 1822 and the completion of the autograph in February 1824.[6] The symphony emerged from other pieces by Beethoven that, while completed works in their own right, are also in some sense sketches for the future symphony. The Choral Fantasy Opus. 80 (1808), basically a piano concerto movement, brings in a chorus and vocal soloists near the end to form the climax. As in the Ninth Symphony, the vocal forces sing a theme first played instrumentally, and this theme is highly reminiscent of the corresponding theme in the Ninth Symphony (for a detailed comparison, see Choral Fantasy). Going further back, an earlier version of the Choral Fantasy theme is found in the song “Gegenliebe” (“Returned Love”), for piano and high voice, which dates from before 1795.[7] According to Robert W. Gutman, Mozart’s K. 222 Offertory in D minor, “Misericordias Domini”, written in 1775, contains a melody that foreshadows “Ode to Joy”.[8] Premiere[edit] Although his major works had primarily been premiered in Vienna, Beethoven was eager to have his latest composition performed in Berlin as soon as possible after finishing it, since he thought that musical taste in Vienna had become dominated by Italian composers such as Rossini.[9] When his friends and financiers heard this, they urged him to premiere the symphony in Vienna in the form of a petition signed by a number of prominent Viennese music patrons and performers.[9] Beethoven was flattered by the adoration of Vienna, so the Ninth Symphony was premiered on 7 May 1824 in the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna, along with the overture The Consecration of the House (Die Weihe des Hauses) and three parts of the Missa solemnis (the Kyrie, Credo, and the Agnus Dei).   February 1824 finished   Premiered in May    
Upton Sinclair The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelistUpton Sinclair (1878–1968).[1] Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the lives ofimmigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. Many readers were most concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper. The book depicts working class poverty, the absence of social programs, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, “the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage slavery.”[2] Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[3] He first published the novel in serial form in 1905 in the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905. In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. It was published as a book on 26 February 1906 by Doubleday and in a subscribers’ edition.[4] A film version of the novel was made in 1914, but it has since become lost.   February   Publication of the Jungle was in the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905.

 

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 10 October

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 11 November

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 12 December

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 02 February3

Calendar Project: Overview

Some general reminders about the project. First, we decided to limit the nominees this time to people who have passed on.  This was for two reasons, one is to limit the scope.  The other was to limit our likelihood of copyright issues over images used.  I would add, that by delving into history, we show the depth and breathe of the movement and how critical humanists have been to getting us to where we are today. Second, what you are seeing are names and people nominated by other BAH members.  These are the names or events in the actual post. Third, I have focused on events and achievements for picking the months.  There are a lot of ways we can go and a lot of different calendars we can do.  I just personally think that it is what you do that counts and by focusing on events and not something random like a birthday. Finally, there are a lot of calendars we can do as we move this project forward.  The focus right now is to be able to tell a story for each month.  I am willing to listen to other nominees for any month, but we need a story with the nominees at this point.  So if you have a nominee, please provide information about the nominee or event or achievement and why it is relevant to the month.  

ADL 2015 02 February

ADL 2015 03 March

ADL 2015 04 April