Humanist Symposium #8: Interlocking Ruba'iyat

Within this godless universe, we find
A purpose and a reason to be kind.
So gather round, and read the posts here, sent
To warm the heart and educate the mind.

When Daylight Atheism shines, ascent
For humanists seems quite hard to prevent.
With optimism, what a voice have we!
Look: Atheists at twenty-five percent.

We need a secular community.
So argues vjack. Solidarity
Will take us all significantly far
-- And help our growth as humans, usefully!

Imagine (Is that Lennon, there? Aha!)
Explores the way we show our character
In trouble, we go weak, or bright, or stroppy...
So ask yourself, Do You Know What You Are?

So countries that have atheists are happy?
As skeptics, we've a duty. Don't get sappy.
Greta Christina warns, it would be flawed
To just assume causation, fast and sloppy.

A middle path at Letters from a broad...
There's room for pens that aren't quite like the sword.
But still, we need to make our presence plain.
I read this, and I cannot but applaud.

And Greta's back with more words in this vein.
Let's go with Good Cop, Bad Cop. Do not strain
To silence other atheists. We'll keep
Both types of activism: shine and rain.

Shamanic Visions of Selective Sweep
Explains how schizophrenia can reap
Rewards in partial doses. Read, and see
An interesting speculative leap.*

At evanescent, with simplicity,
We ruminate upon morality.
We do not need a Scripture to invoke
For 'wrongness' to exist objectively.

If someone says "Come on, it's just a joke,"
Can we excuse them from offending folk?
The Atheist Ethicist, with balanced sight,
Compares two statements to dispel the smoke.

"With Paradise swamped in darkness, where's the light?"
An Atheist's Sonnet at A Load of Bright
Evokes a shattered landscape, and then shows
The humble hand that leads us from our plight.

Allow me to explain the form I chose
In echo of the Nightingale and Rose
Built, and re-built, by better hands than mine
The ruba'iyat which every poet knows.

Greta Christina's Blog is next in line.
If to our next Symposium you incline,
October the fourteenth we meet again.
Till then, fare well! Let hope and reason shine.

*I wasn't quite able to include that this post is at The Primate Diaries. Here, for completeness, is the list of blogs and post titles:

Atheists at 25% posted at Daylight Atheism
We need a secular community posted at Atheist Revolution
Do You Know What You Are? posted at Imagine
Is Atheism What Makes Happy Atheists Happy? posted at Greta Christina's Blog
My passionate secularism posted at Letters from a broad...
Good Cop, Bad Cop: Atheist Activism posted at Greta Christina's Blog
Shamanic Visions of Selective Sweep posted at The Primate Diaries
My Morality Rumination posted at evanescent
Kathy Griffin and The Comic Defense posted at Atheist Ethicist
An Atheist’s Sonnett posted at A Load of Bright
The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam posted at Elliptica