Posted by Jason on: 08.11.2008 /
Three weeks ago I wrote about false assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today. Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them. Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view. These are:
This week I wish to discuss why secular humanists value fulfilment, growth and creativity in life.
Fulfillment, growth, creativity – A primary concern with fulfillment, growth and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
I want to start by stating the obvious. That is that although this is one of the tenets of secular humanism it in no way bars a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or member of any other faith from seeking creativity, growth or happiness in this life. None of the tenets make any claim to be exclusive to secular humanism, how could they? Indeed, for me it is the teachings of the Dalai Lama that best describe the desire and benefit of living a fulfilling life. After talking about the limitations of temporary happiness he explains:
“But there is a better approach: framing any decision we face by asking ourselves, ‘Will it bring me happiness?’ That simple question can be a powerful tool in helping us skillfully conduct all areas of our lives, not just in the decision whether to indulge in drugs or that third piece of banana cream pie. It puts a new slant on things. Approaching our daily decisions and choices with this question in mind shifts the focus from what we are denying ourselves to what we are seeking - ultimate happiness. A kind of happiness as defined by the Dalai Lama, that is stable and persistent. A state of happiness that remains, despite life’s ups and downs and normal fluctuations of mood, as part of the very matrix of our being. with this perspective, it’s easier to make the ‘right decision’ because we are acting to give ourselves something, not denying or withholding something from ourselves - an attitude of moving toward rather than moving away, an attitude of embracing life rather than rejecting it. This underlying sense of moving toward happiness can have a very profound effect; it makes us more receptive, more open, to the joy of living.”¹
Happiness, true happiness come from living a positive, fulfilling life. We can, and certainly do, enjoy the temporary gratifications that life has to offer us. We cannot make a life or attain fulfillment solely through temporary gratification. As much as we might enjoy sex, for example, we must rest and feed our bodies, we must work to make a living, we must attract a mate and care for those we want to keep near us. We should certainly make the best of these acts. If we must eat then why not eat well and enjoy the flavours and textures of food, the smells and sights of it on our plate or while we cook. If should not be a chore to provide fuel for our bodies. It should not be a negative thing to rest and recover our strength, we should enjoy it.
More than the hedonistic elements of living we can also attain joy from more esoteric efforts. I take great pleasure in reading, I enjoy the challenge of programing, I enjoy debating, I take an inordinate amount of pleasure in parenthood.
More than simply seeking fulfillment in life we seek to explore it. Exploration enables us to better understand life and the universe that houses it which lets us grow and experience life more fully. There are things now that I can appreciate that I would have ignored a few years ago. As an undergraduate I took a foundation course in the arts. I studied literature, history, art, philosophy and music for a year. For fun. My appreciation of art is enhanced by having a basic idea of composition and form. I’m certainly no expert but I now have the advantage of understanding to help me to enjoy it better. The same is true with music. I enjoy listening to a variety of music but can appreciate it more now that I understand a little of the structure of music.
As we grow in knowledge and understanding we can attain a depth as well as breadth of joy. This depth enables us to appreciate the connection that we have with all life and the foundations of existence. I’m guessing that a Christian would call this connection and growth “spirituality”. At least in part. This growth allows me a greater degree of fulfillment that I might otherwise enjoy.
Why should a secular humanist value creativity? Fulfillment and growth seem important to someone who might reject the supernatural and seek to replace faith in the supernatural with something. How does creativity relate to this though? For me it is simply understanding that one of the great truisms of life is that things change, nothing remains static for long. In a changing world, even when we are the ones changing, we need to draw upon our own abilities to constantly adapt. I don’t mean this just as an individual creativity in life or as creativity in art although they are certainly important to us. I also mean creativity in the way we survive. Human beings inhabit almost every corner of this world from the brightest deserts of the Sahara to the densest jungles of the Amazon, from the frozen planes of the Arctic to the highest mountains of the Himalayas. It is testament to our creativity as a species that we range so far and adapt so readily.
I’d go further and applaud our creativity in the field of exploration. Human beings have explored the oceans of our planet and the skies above us, even to our own moon. We’ve done this with machines of our own invention. More than this we have sent our devices to explore the nearest world, Mars, and even sent probes beyond the bounds of our solar system. We’ve invented things to look even further so that we can explore the vast reaches of space to better understand the universe.
Besides exploration we’ve also used our creativity to make our lives better. Our medicine now extends human life to ages that would be considered freakishly rare a few centuries ago. We cure diseases today that would have been considered impossible only decades ago. We’ve done this through our own human creativity. Pick a part of life and see how human creativity has enhanced it and made it better. Even the basest of human action, warfare, we have shown our creative side. For every weapon we seek a counter, for every defence a new attack. Clearly not every invention is to our ultimate benefit but we keep trying and keep coming up with new solutions. Our creativity is something that we should embrace as long as we seek solutions to problems.
¹ “The Art of Happiness” - Chapter 3, HH Dalai Lama & Howard C Cutler
Comment by: Mike O
1Loved the Dalai Lama quote. it’s funny to me that my people - Christians - would poo poo it right away just because it’s the Dalai Lama. But if you put that exact quote, word for word, in a book by a Christian author, they wouldn’t have any issue with it. I’m definitely not sayint it’s right, I’m just saying that’s funny to me. I had an idea for a good game. It has, say, 5,000 quotes with a list of four possible sources (Jesus, Dalai Lama, Darwin, whoever) - or even political ones - and the object is to guess the person who said it. That would be interesting.
I pretty much agree with everything here. So what I’m about to write isn’t an attempt to undo anything, but rather give a Christian slant.
I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with this statement. To a Christian, I think, “fulfilling” will mean something different. For me, this ties into a later topic you’ll be covering about “this life” but I am fulfilled by helping people see “the bigger picture,” that there is more to this life than this life, etc. Whether I’m right or wrong, that fulfills me and it makes me happy to pursue it - not at the expense of this life, but as a part of it. Too many Christians do ignore this life at the expense of a later life, and I think that’s sad. But at the same time, the idea of eternal life should bring fulfillment to this life for Christians.
One more thought … the idea that the Dalai Lama is expressing is something I’ve called “an undercurrent of joy” that runs through all of life’s ups and downs. I like that visual. I personally see a difference between joy (ongoing) and happiness (tied to circumstances), but I think what the Dalai Lama is talking about when he says “happiness” is what I think of when I say “joy.”
I would … at least in part. There’s more to spirituality than that, but yes, what you’re describing could be a a physical manifestation of spirituality.
I liked what you wrote here, too. I just wanted to make a connection to something we talked about in part 2 that “creativity” is one of those things like “life” that I think combines spirituality and reason, and I don’t think can be explained without the spiritual element. here’s why …
Starting with abiogenesis, at some point “life” was a chemical reaction. And at some point, that evolved into living things (WAY simplified, I know!) My point is that at some point, creativity came into play. Chemical reactions aren’t creative, they’re reactive. But somewhere along the line, some “thing” became aware of it’s surroundings and tried to manipulate them. To me, that can’t have been physical. There’s a whole “relational” element to evolution that wasn’t there at the beginning, but we have now - where did it come from? At what point did the thing (chemical reaction or plant or animal or whatever) start to give a damn about their prodigy? At what point did the ancestor start to take measures to protect the successor?
Creativity is relational - it’s the idea that I can do something to something else to create an effect. Where did that desire come from? How did the first idea happen? To me, “creativity” is more than evidence - it’s proof - of a creator. Again, I don’t mean to undo anything you’ve written - this is just the christian spin. We value creativity, too, but it’s also part of our support for the existance of God.
Comment by: Jason
2I would think that it means something different for everyone. More than that I think our ideas of what is fulfilling change as we grow.
I think it’s sad too and terribly wasteful, whether you believe in an afterlife or not you still only get one life.
I wanted to get across the idea that we aren’t simply machines running solely on reason. We have emotional parts. More than that, our emotional, physical and logical needs mingle to form the people that we are in very complex ways. That’s before you even factor in the experiences that shape us. Complexity means that we are more than the sum of our parts.
I like your Christian spin on it. I can’t say I agree with it but I still like it. I don’t have answers to your questions. I’d love to find them, to find the point where simple chemistry becomes biology. It makes the geek hairs on the back of my neck tingle at the thought.
I saw a very simplified possible explanation from Carl Sagan a while ago. I think it was in part two of Cosmos. The beginning part might relate to your queries and the formation of life. A wonder for me in that the Cambrian explosion produced a huge variety of life forms, any one of which could have evolved to a form that could have dominated the planet as we do today if things had been slightly different. Some tiny change could have caused a massive variation in life on this planet.
This takes me down the path of Chaos Theory and and then my mind sort of flips over. It’s all too much for me, too many variables exist to make any sort of reasonable prediction. I’m left just wondering and how complex and magnificent everything is. That makes me very happy.
I like the idea that there are reasonably explanations for any thing but also that we might never know what they are. We can create a piece of poetry or art that mixes styles or twists something that we’ve always accepted and it becomes beautiful. Even an explanation can be fulfilling. Look at a tree for instance. We can see the whole plant or we can zoom in to the structure of a leaf. We can see the whole forest too as part of a complex ecosystem. There is a fractal pattern to the whole that might well imply a creator to some. I don’t but it’s easy to see why some people do.
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