Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge.

While the battle has become a core part of the Canadian "myth", the event still troubles my consciousness as a Humanist.

Humanism has a long strain of pacificism and anti-war activism, including thinkers and activists like Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan. The justifications for and jingoism of the First World War go against many of our deepest values.

Today those same nationalistic tendencies, as well as the dehumanizing of people deemed "our enemy" are at play once again.

We must continue to stand for reason, compassion, tolerance and peace. Lest we let another generation be sent to their deaths.

Ian Bushfield's photo of Vimy Ridge, Feb 2015.

Editor's note: On Sunday, Canada marked the 100th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge. While written from an American point of view, this article reflects on a similar line of thinking that was prevalent in Canada 100 years ago.

By Jonathan Ebel, Associate Professor of Religion, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Thursday, April 6, 2017, marks 100 years since the United States entered World War I. World War I does not occupy the same space in America’s cultural memory as the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II or the Vietnam War. 

The men and women who fought “the Great War” would likely be shocked at this relegation. For them, “the war to end all wars” was the most consequential war ever fought: a struggle between good and evil.

As an author of two books, “Faith in the Fight” and “G.I. Messiahs,” I have spent a good part of the last 15 years thinking about the place of religion in America’s experience of the Great War.

From the beginning of American involvement in the war to the construction of cemeteries in Europe for America’s war dead, Christian imagery framed and simplified a complex, violent world and encouraged soldiers and their loved ones to think of the war as a sacred endeavour.

The subway of St Petersburg was rocked today by a bomb blast, killing 11 and injuring another 40.

Two weeks ago the world watched in suspense as news came out about an attack at the Parliament building in London. That attack could have turned out equally bad had it not been for the quick actions of police.

Our allies at the International Humanist and Ethical Union took to Twitter today to highlight five stories from the past 24 hours showing the dangers of superstition around the world.

Their conclusion ties a thread between each of these stories and the urgency of Humanism.

Stories like this occur every day, usually affecting the most vulnerable people in societies across the world. We need less superstition, less nodding along to irrational beliefs, and more critical thinking, more reason, more humanism. That doesn't mean failing to empathize, or refusing to understand why people believe such. On the contrary, we must empathize, must learn.

When darkness strikes, we must rally to those candles of reason and compassion.

In August of 2011, more than 30,000 people cheered wildly as the then U.S. presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry – now secretary of energy in the Trump administration – came to the center stage at “The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis” at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Perry quoted from the Bible and preached about the need for salvation that comes from Jesus. He concluded with a prayer for a country he believed to be overwhelmed by problems: 

We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government.

He then proceeded to ask God for forgiveness for forgetting “who made us, who protects us, and who blesses us.” In response, the crowd exploded into cheers and praise to God.

We've just announced our 2017 Annual General Meeting and as part of that meeting, we - the Board of Directors and I - are going to be asking our members to adopt a new constitution and bylaws to keep up with the requirements of the new Societies Act.

These are the documents that govern how we are run as a society and should not be changed lightly. But as changes are required, we thought it prudent to take the time to reflect on what has and hasn't worked in our previous governance.

I'm personally hopeful that these new documents will help us continue to grow and professionalize as an organization. And to get your support for them, I want to use this blog to try to explain some of the changes and what motivated us to make these decisions below.

Our Annual General Meeting is coming up on Sunday May 7, 2017.

This is our yearly formal chance to report back on what we've been up to and for members to stand for election for the Board. This year, we will also be proposing a new Constitution and Bylaws to comply with legislative changes.

Learn more.

You must be a current member to vote at the AGM. Formal notice will be going out to all current members later today.

You can check and renew your membership here.

Last week we asked in our newsletter and on social media, what you were optimistic about? Here's what you told us.

Today is the first day of Spring. And while Humanists don't attach supernatural significance to the position of the Earth relative to the sun, it is a good chance to look forward at the coming year.

So I want to ask you: What are you optimistic about? Email me (or answer by tagging us on social media).

Reason, compassion & hope are the cores of #Humanism. So what gives you #hope on the first day of #Spring? pic.twitter.com/K4pmr8HNrs

— BC Humanists (@BCHumanist) 20 March 2017

This last year gave us a lot of reasons to be pessimistic but a big part of Humanism is the belief that the arrow will always swing back to progress (even if we have to continually nudge it along).

If we receive enough answers I'll consolidate them into a blog for you for next week.

Editor's note: This article relates to our latest Vancouver Sunday meeting topic on implicit bias. Look for a version of that talk to appear on our podcast soon. For more, here's another article from The Conversation on race and implicit bias.

Think you're all for gender equality? Your unconscious may have other ideas

By Magdalena Zawisza, Anglia Ruskin University

The words of my doctor from earlier that morning were still ringing in my ears when I found myself slamming the brakes of my car to avoid a nasty collision. An incompetent driver was cutting across two lanes at a roundabout just in front of me. Still perspiring somewhat I carried on to drop off my screaming child with the nanny. It was a hectic morning. 

Now let’s stop to take a breath and ponder on this story. Was the doctor you imagined male? Was the bad driver female? And what of the nanny and the narrator? Females too? If so, you have just experienced unconscious gender bias. You are not alone. Even the almighty Google image search “thinks” 75% of doctors are male but in reality women make up just over half of GPs in the UK. In fact Google has been accused of unconscious bias in its own operations as over 79% of its managers and engineers are male. Apple, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo are not far behind.

What exactly is unconscious gender bias and why do we have it? Unconscious, or implicit, bias happens outside of our control and awareness. It’s automatic and reflects the associations we acquire as we socialise into the culture we grow up in. You can test your own implicit biases more scientifically by taking this Implicit Association Test. The test was designed to capture the brain’s learnt automatic associations. Since it is based on time reactions it can bypass our social desirability concerns and tap into unconscious biases. As such it is reportedly superior to self-report measures of prejudice in predicting behaviours.

Four years ago, the Government of BC denied our request to register representatives that can perform legal marriages.

Last week, we learned through a Freedom of Information request that while Humanism isn't considered a valid "religion" for the purposes of the Marriage Act, Scientology, Zen Buddhists and a group called the Canadian International Metaphysical Ministry are. The latter group appears online to exist for primary purpose of registering celebrants who then offer their services in secular and commercial, rather than religious language.

We detail these findings, plus how Humanists are able to perform marriages in Scotland, Norway, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Ontario in a report we published on Wednesday.

In that report, we make the case for the legislative or judicial changes to the Marriage Act.

It's time to end religious privilege in marriage. As we move toward the upcoming provincial election, I hope you'll ask your candidates whether they'll support such an amendment.