Secular humanism is a religion. One that takes much of the wonder and beauty out of the world and replaces it with the drear and tawdry.
If I’m going to believe in something even if others call it “imaginary”, then at least let it be one that preaches hope that there is something beyond and better than bills, quiet despair, and being nothing but future worm food.
This is a subject for another thread. I’m not sure how it relates to anything that’s been said here.
it has just as much relevance and was in response to:
I have to admit I’m not seeing the relevance. Der Trihs wasn’t arguing in favor of secular humanism and I am pretty sure he doesn’t consider himself a secular humanist. I’m not trying to discourage you from opening a discussion of that subject, but it’s a separate issue from what’s been discussed here.
Please compare (from wiki) : “Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment. It specifically rejects religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience or superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.”
to: “This has been covered again and again. Religion is extremely destructive, and even the milder versions serve as enablers for the more extreme variants due to the fact that they use the same exact flawed reasoning to justify themselves.”
You both can call it whatever you want, you can delete my post even, but what he said reflects SH ideas
I’m still not seeing the connection. Anyway I’ve moved these posts to their own thread. The original thread, for those following along, is over here.
And what do “bills and despair” have to do with secular humanism? As for being worm food, research into life extension is if anything exactly the sort of thing secular humanism striving for.
And “wonder and beauty”? Religion is seldom about that; it’s more often a grim and anti-life institution dedicated to crushing all the happiness and pleasure out of the world, in favor of cruelty, self hatred and telling people to hope for a better existence after death. And that hope for an afterlife is typically the “hope” of being a slave to a supernatural egomaniac.
None of that is religious, since none of it is based on faith. The reliance on faith is the most important feature that distinguishes religious and non-religious belief systems.
It’s not a religion. Religions have clergy, sacred spaces, rituals, sacred stories (like creations myths), etc. Secular humanism has none of these things.
It has a belief system that functions as a pseudo faith. It has adherents who are just as intolerant of “non-believers” as any organized religion. And denying all Gods is just as big a leap of faith as believing in one.
IMO If you can’t the find divine spark in everyday things, then you miss the real point of faith. And a lot of the beauty in the world. It isn’t about man made rules, or even about what mumbo-jumbo or ceremony is “correct”. Too many of the religious really miss this as well.
OTOH, if there is no deity that’s expecting us to behave ethically, then why should we? If you’re willing to pay the price (ie go to jail), why not behave like a pig, steal, kill, maim? Why ‘turn the other cheek’, when you’re insulted, either? That’s where modern life get tawdry and ugly.
Anyway, this was never meant to be a standalone thread, and I still am not quite sure how one person stating his opinion that ALL religions are bogus and destructive was ON topic in a topic about Scientology, but my honest response that I found simply THAT philosophy rather depressing was somehow so far off that it required a new topic…
Color me confused
I fail to see how not having the audacity to believe that some imaginary super friend created the entirety of the universe just for you removes any wonder and or beauty of the natural wold.
I would argue the reverse, religion allows one to dismiss the unknown as punishment or praise from an angry god and discourages inquiry to protect outmoded myths.
True, I believe when I die that my experiences will end but it is the conditioning of your religion that paints that reality as unbearable.
Is that why you act morally? not because it’s right and proper, but just because there’s a deity?
If you can decide that moral behaviour is good, why can’t an atheist arrive at the same decision? If someone is only restrained from stealing, killing and maiming by fear of God, they’re not devout - they’re psychopathic.
There are case where secular humanist or similar organizations might superficially resemble religious ones. I got married in the Ethical Cultural Society in Philadelphia. It was a hall, and we were married by an official from the society. But I think its resemblance to a church or temple was only to take advantage of all the advantages our societies give to religions. It was in no way a sacred space, and while the guy wanted to meet with us before marrying us, there were no questions on our beliefs or ethics, and no attempt to get us to join. The space, and the ceremony, were entirely secular of course.
As for the OP, I’ll take being worm food to burning in hell - and worms have to eat also, after all. I’m quite happy with the beauty of the universe, which is quite nice enough on its face without appeal to magic sky pixies. If something good happens to me I can thank chance and my own actions, and not worry about something handing it to me; if something bad happens to me I can also count chance and try to do better, without worrying which magic rituals I’ve neglected to perform.
Life comes without an instruction manual. If you think the Bible is one, it might be, but it is clearly meant for a totally different product and is pretty useless for this one.
So by not having faith I am missing the point of the faith that I have that there is not god to have faith in?
I do say, that those who are faithful and profess they have no reason to act ethically except the fear of god do frighten me.
As a social being I am quite capable of acting in a way that benefits the group even when it is not advantageous to me.
Luckily most humans are capable of doing so too, as I think you will find that few of what you probably think is “ethical” is in your mythology.
There is a lot of slavery and murder and brutality in most primitive human mythologies. Understandably that message has been muted to fit in a more dense populated world that we live in today.
Are all belief systems religions? That doesn’t seem right.
In any case, my experience is that it’s **religion **that sucks the wonder out of the world. It takes the infinite marvels of time and space and reduces them to anthropocentric pap. The universe is a far more amazing and interesting place than the theists pretend it is, and I find it tremendously sad how tiny and cramped their lives are as a result.
Please don’t twist my words, friends. Which is really worse? Those that make sure they do right because they believe it matters to their deity? Or those that do wrong and don’t care because they don’t have one, and worry only about maybe getting caught by the police? The second is where a lot of the really bad stuff in our society IS coming from.
And thanks again to those who so beautifully proved my point about institutionalized intolerance with derisive comments.
I taught my children to make the effort to respect other people’s beliefs, even when they don’t share them. I taught them that faith was a personal choice. I also tried to teach them how to disagree without being disagreeable. Too many folks today seem to have missed those lessons.
One of my personal failings is I have no patience for arrogance or hubris. Far right, far left, ideologue, demagogue, fundamentalist, or atheist, anybody who claims to have all the facts, and THE answer, is usually mistaken.
Are you saying that it doesn’t matter which god you belive in, as long as you believe? Also, are you drawing a distinction between belief and worship? Is it better to believe in a god but also believe he deserves nothing more than your contempt?
To me it’s the other way around. The idea that a flower such as the Habenaria radiatacame about simply due to the “rules” of nature, is far more beautiful than the thought something made it look like angel wings.
So these rules are “man made”? They’re not from God? So why bother following them? Plus “mumbo jumbo”… So there aren’t any real ceremonies we have to follow? Does that mean we should do nothing, or as long as we do ‘something’ whatever god actually exists will be pleased? You really don’t want to know where I could take that idea.
But you just said the rules were man made! What some of them aren’t? How are we supposed to tell them apart?
Wait I think I know the answer to this…
Doh! We’re back to those pesky man-made rules again. I’ll tell you why I (an atheist if you hadn’t worked that out) don’t steal, kill or maim. It’s because I hate the thought of harming another human being. Let me repeat that:
I hate the thought of harming another human being.
I think this is an important lesson that most “believers” miss. I don’t hurt people, because it makes me feel bad. There, simple. I don’t have to try and justify it by some fear of lost paradise, or firey pits. If I hurt some-one, I feel bad immediately.
Man made rules again. There are plenty of gods with different attitudes.
Ok let me explain. He was talking about religions. You are talking about belief. You said it yourself…
The other thread was about a specific religion. Secular Humanism is not, not a religion. Unfortunately you seem (like so many with a faith) to be unable to recognise the difference.
First, cite? Lots and lots and a whole freaking lot of criminals pay lip service to Jesus.
Second, yes, people who do bad things are worse than people who don’t do bad things. This is not in dispute. The disagreement occurs when one assumes that a lack of faith in a deity means one is inclined to do bad things.
In other words, if one believes the only thing that prevents people from being amoral psychopaths is a belief in God, then it must logically follow from that position that a lack of belief in God results in one being an amoral psychopath.
Your belief in God prevents you from harming your fellow humans. Fine. My belief in the inherent value of human beings prevents me from harming them. Also fine. How is this a bad thing?
Please cite where secular people are causing most of the problems due to their lack of “responsibility” to an imaginary friend?
http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/Zuckerman_on_Atheism.pdf
There aren’t too many atheist suicide bombers, that kind of action typically requires a belief in some divine reward.
You posted this while I was replying.
I just want to know. “Those that do right” do you mean right by their deities rules, or their societies?
Oh and what about people like me who do “right” because acting otherwise feels… well… wrong. I could just as easily say “What’s really worse? Those that donate blood to help their fellow people? Or those that allow their children to die because a blood transfusion is against their religion?”
I do try to rationalise it with the philosophy (and I hope you realise the difference between that and a belief) is that if I am helpful towards people in general, they might be helpful towards me. Really though that’s just my attempt to rationalise an emotional behaviour.
Oh? And where are secular humanists slaughtering people in the name of secular humanism? Or burning people at the stake, or offering up human hearts to appease their “faith”?
And belief system isn’t the same as faith. Faith is a form of madness; the denial of reality. Beliefs don’t have to deny reality.
Utter garbage. First, the logical default is that gods don’t exist; it’s the job of believers to provide evidence, not that of skeptics to prove a negative. And second, the gods people actually follow (as opposed to the ones people make up for arguments like this) violate physical laws and logic in all sorts of ways. The evidence is strongly against them; it takes no faith to disbelieve in gods.
The point of faith is to deny reality. To deny the validity of logic and facts.
Nonsense. Religion doesn’t make people moral, it at best makes them incapable of genuine morality, and often makes them into lunatics and monsters, into enemies of humanity. Civilized behavior requires that religion be ignored. Civilized behavior requires that you ignore rules created by barbarians, that you pay attention to actual people and the actual consequences of your actions and not imaginary gods and souls. Being detached from reality by being religious makes the judgment that genuine morality requires impossible.
Our society is plagued by people doing evil in the name of religion. People don’t do good because of their religion, at best they do good in spite of it. Their “deity” is a collection of barbarian myths, and their own whims & prejudices given the imprimatur of divine right. There is no God, he isn’t going to correct them when they do wrong; on the contrary, being a believer means that you can justify any evil imaginable just by saying that God wanted you to do it. Believers don’t have any actual morality on any matter touched by their religion, just dogma and deified self indulgence. Even if they are doing good in the name of their religion at the moment that’s just chance; they could turn around and start murdering people tomorrow with the same exact sense of righteousness because their actions are not based on reality. “God wants me to feed the poor” and “God wants me to kill unbelievers” have just as much religious validity; neither is based on any actual concern for people. Just concern for their imaginary souls and an imaginary god.
