Posted by Jason on: 09.01.2008 /
Six 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 life – A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
I know that many Christians seek to make the very best of this mortal life, also that some are more concerned with the next life. Both, in my opinion, still have the benefit of believing in a second chance at existence. As an atheist I do not believe in God and I do not believe that my existence continues beyond the death of my brain. My brain is the physical receptacle for all my firing little axons and thoughts, all my neural pathways make up my memories and the direction of my thoughts. I am a slave to my biology, wonderful, mysterious and barely fathomed biology that it is.
What does a biological machine do with his average day? Well, we’re complex organisms, much more than eating, sleeping, reproducing machines, much more than the sum of our parts. We’re imaginative primates too, wonderfully clever and inventive, much more than any other animal. That is our great strength as a species as well as our curse.
Secular humanists, among many other groups, concentrate on life and making the most of it. We try to understand how we got to where we are, not just through the important lessons of history but through our development from earlier hominids and our inheritance from them. We can have no idea how a hominid thought or if they saw beauty in the world around them but we can understand how our cave dwelling ancestors looked at life. We can examine cave drawings depicting animal life and the hunt. How their survival was dependent on other creatures and how they recorded the most important, we assume, act of hunting on their cave walls.
We can note this tendency to record in art form in successive generations of humans from aboriginal tribes in Australia, Africa and the Americas right through to the modern age. What does art tell us about humans? We can tell something of the way we think from how we express ourselves in art. Not just visual art but in music, sculpture, literature, poetry, anything that we might consider thought provoking or beautiful. Our art forms appeal to our senses but also to our emotions and our intellects. We can be moved by art or influenced to think on a matter in ways that we might not have reached independently.
Art is simply one way that we express ourselves and explore our humanity. History is a fairly obvious way to understand how we arrive at where we are. One event leads to another. What would the world be like today if Arthur Tudor (Henry VIIIs big brother) hadn’t died when he did? Would England have split from Rome? Would we even have Protestants today or any of the range of Christian beliefs that we have in the West? Understanding how history shaped the world is one way to appreciate all that we have today as well as a way to ensure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of our ancestors.
Another great way to understand ourselves is to explore. Both geographically and in terms of scientific exploration. We explore the world to better understand it but also to better understand ourselves. I know I keep saying this but I really believe that it’s true. It is a concern of mine when scientific research is curtailed. Not that we shouldn’t consider the ethics of research, quite the opposite. We should consider the ethics of research but shouldn’t necessarily shy away from things that could be hugely beneficial to us. Recent newsworthy controversy over research is in stem cell research. The potential medical benefits are enormous but research is limited because of the source of the stem cells.
In life we encounter many people with differing views to us. We could ignore them or avoid them and cocoon ourselves away but then we would miss out on some very interesting conversations. More importantly we’d never discover anything about ourselves because we’d never challenge ourselves against those who feel differently. Our lives would stagnate without challenge and other people provide the greatest challenge to our views that we can encounter.
I am convinced that we create our own meaning in life rather than draw it from an external force. We create meaning by drawing from our experiences and our physical make up and by adjusting our views as new experience and evidence is presented. The emphasis is on this life and not on anything else.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
1Not being Christian any more has helped me appreciate this life. There isn’t any other option if this life might be all there is.
I’m glad some Christians care a lot about this life too.
I studied Tudors and Stuarts for O Level History but I have no recollection of Arthur. I just googled him and found out Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine was originally Arthur’s wife, then Arthur died. Wow. Either I forgot a lot (quite possible) or we missed out some interesting details when I studied this.
Comment by: Francis
2What “Humanism” means is quite well defined, as a result of substantial study, discussion and scholarly publication in the 75 years since it was first organized at the University of Chicago.
Humanism incorporates both religious and secular elements. What is the point of adding an adjective to it?
The International Humanist and Ethical Union [www.IHEU.org] recommends the use of “Humanism” with a capital “H” and no adjective. That makes sense.
Comment by: Jason
3Arthur and Catherine were good Catholics. If he’d lived I doubt if there would have been a break with Rome at the time. The church did need reform as earlier philosophers and priests had strongly suggested but this might have been gradual. How different the world might be today if this one event hadn’t happened…
When you say that not being a Christian has helped you appreciate this life, do you mean that your focus is no longer on the next life or preparing for it or is it simply the only option available to you. I ask because I don’t have the “former Christian” perspective to draw on.
Francis, secular humanism takes a lot from Humanism but it is not the same thing. The religious elements are not given any value in a purely secular philosophy. Also the capital H is for proper names that refer to organisations and religions while secular humanism is more a set of ideas with no single, unifying body of control.
Comment by: Francis Mortyn
4Jason says: ” … secular humanism takes a lot from Humanism but it is not the same thing. The religious elements are not given any value in a purely secular philosophy. Also the capital H is for proper names that refer to organisations and religions while secular humanism is more a set of ideas with no single, unifying body of control.”
To repudiate “religion” and “religious elements” calls for a definition of what you mean by use of that word and its cognates. In a very limited sense, you may just be rejecting supernatural religious belief, organization and practice - in which case it would be more to the point to repudiate supernaturalism, and that is what the Humanist Manifestos do.
“Religion” derives from *ligare*, the same root that gives us “ligament”. The implication is a binding or linking. In religious practice, whether supernatural or not, it is the binding of one to another that characterizes religion. That fact is not diminished by the choice of some to consider their binding to be to a supernatural personality, yet their peculiar prejudice is not the defining characteristic of religion.
When an undergraduate at Berkeley I met for a year with the Quakers, sitting in silence each week. I saw in them no evidence of adherence to anything supernatural and considerable evidence of rejection of it. But I saw religion. They were very clearly deeply religious people, bound together in commitment and values, and the Society of Friends is indeed a religion as it has been since George Fox (1647).
In 1961, Julian Huxley compiled a fine anthology, “The Humanist Frame.” His essay in that book sets out his vision of Humanism. Huxley is the founder of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (1952) and is arguably the foremost theoretician of Humanism of the twentieth century. His perception of Humanism is as the heir to all that is best in religions today, destined to supersede and displace them, not to fight and destroy them crying écrase l’infame. In his essay “The Prospect for Humanism” (1975) Paul Beattie, one of the foremost scholars of Humanism in America, points out that to a substantial degree Humanism has already achieved many of its goals. Humanism is by no means marginal, as Konstantin Kolenda points out.
Humanism per se is properly categorized neither as religious nor as secular. It is a new movement which draws on elements of both. The large corpus of literature by its founders and their successors defines it. Prominent among them are John Dewey, John Dietrich, Curtis Reese, Charles Francis Potter, Roy Wood Sellars and Julian Huxley. They do not talk about things supernatural, such as an alleged “God,” and in some cases were not even averse to the use of his name as atheists commonly are. Humanism was never about “God” at all, but about man, and the word “atheism” does not occur in any of the three Manifestos. Like Bah’ai, Humanism is an entirely new departure, well defined, distinct from its predecessors, and deserving of its capital “H,” as is recognized by the IHEU and Harold Blackham, Levi Fragell, Corliss Lamont, Harry Stopes-Roe and Rob Tielman.
“Secular Humanism” is a redundancy introduced by the US Supreme Court in a passing reference, footnote 14 in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961). In the 1970s, it was found useful by the fundamentalist “Moral Majority” as a scapegoat, to be blamed for the world’s ills. Tim La Haye blames even the French Revolution on it. Their vociferous denunciation made “secular Humanism” a household term, and perhaps the hitherto unfamiliar word “secular” sounds close enough to “sex” to scare the bejesus out of the Puritan hayseeds in Kansas.
In 1979, in a jurisdictional dispute, the American Humanist Association took its periodical, THE HUMANIST, from the control of its editor, Paul Kurtz. He responded by launching his own magazine, FREE INQUIRY. In 1980, he founded his own Humanist movement, and very effectively capitalized on all the free publicity generated by the fundamentalists, calling his splinter movement “secular humanism,” adopting the lower-case “h” in the process.
Philosophically, it offers nothing new, and its declarations of principles disclose only imitation and even plagiarism of prior Humanist publications - hardly surprising since Kurtz was a co-author of the 1973 Manifesto. But he had to find and promote a new name, and “secular humanism” serves him well to this day. Jason correctly identifies what “secular humanism” is but fails to observe its monolithic control.
Unlike the earlier Humanist bodies, that “secular humanist” movement does indeed have a “single, unifying body of control.” It is quite distinctly a Kurtz organization, the official conservatory of his ideas. Its leadership is appointed, by authority and succession, not elected by the membership as is the case with the original Humanist organization (1941), the American Humanist Association.
Humanism incorporates Humanistic Judaism and other religious groups as well as its oldest element, Ethical Culture (1876), which calls itself “a Humanist religion” (see http://www.NYSEC.org). It is Ethical Culture’s South Place Ethical Society that established and operates Conway Hall in London, and the first use of the appellation “Humanist” in America was in application to EC’s founder, Felix Adler (in New York DAILY GRAPHIC, 22 January 1877). Recent attempts to identify Humanism with antireligious atheism have no authentic historical or philosophical basis.
Humanism today is diverse, catholic, and democratic. “Secular humanism” is a segment of it, philosophically minor, which is monolithic and controlled. Parts of Humanism have identifiable unique personal leaders, such as Polly Toynbee, Paul Kurtz or the late Sherwin Wine. But Humanism as a whole is, as Jason says, a set of ideas. Like Switzerland, it authorizes no single personality to speak for it permanently, yet it works because of coherence in its core ideas and it successfully maintains continuity. It is both religious and secular yet neither. It is Humanism.
Comment by: Jason
5All very interesting stuff. Thanks. I still prefer the term secular humanism. Humanism, as you rightly point out, does not deny the existence of gods but seeks to concentrate on the human aspect of living. In effect putting aside the epistemological questions. That’s fine and works for many and is even inclusive for people of religious backgrounds but no supernatural belief. I’m thinking particularly of Buddhists but that isn’t the only choice by any means. Indeed, you can have Humanist religions, arguably all have elements of Humanism within them. Humanism was even considered a religion at one point.
Secular humanism may have originally come from that idea but it has grown beyond it. As ideas tend to. There is a clear link between humanism and secularism and secular humanists seek a distinct separation from religion. We can see many secular humanist organisations springing up in recent years. The Brights for example are quite outspoken against religion and the harm that they see in the various practices and beliefs.
Humanism, while broad ranging and very valuable as a set of ideas, doesn’t seek to keep religion apart.
Comment by: Mike O
6I liked what you wrote - it gave me a good perspecive of your views.
The topic of “this life” in relation to Christianity reminds me of a phrase we used to use to describe Christians where were overly spiritual and next=life minded: “so heavenly-minded they are no earthly good.”
I see Christendom seperated into three groups when it comes to “this life.”
1) those who are so spiritualy-minded they are no earthly good.
2) Those who are so earthly-minded they are no spiritual good
3) Those who are both spiritually-minded *and* earthly good.
It is possible to fall into the 3rd category, but I’m afraid Christians might tend to see it as an either-or scenarion. I think it can be both.
I said none of that to detract from what you wrote - it’s just my perspective on what I think the Christian perspective should be on “this life.”
Comment by: Mike O
7Amen to that!
When my son was a junior in high-school (he’s a sophomore in college now) he made a statement that really stuck with me. There was a study to the effect that many Christian youths turn away from the faith when they leave for college. My son attributed it to parents giving them an overly simplistic view of their faith, and not exposing their children to, or preparing them to encounter, alternative views.
His time here on OTM played a big part in his stability as a Christian now. He probably won’t admit it, but I see it in him. He’s a questioner. He doesn’t go with the Christian flow, but at the same time he holds to the core Christian tenets. He’s discovered the ability to seperate “religion” from “faith,” to seperate “Christianity” from being a real “Christ-follower” and “truth-seeker.”
Comment by: Jason
8Mike said:
I like these but I’d hate to label anyone like this.
I think you might be on to something with your assessment of a limited outlook being easily challenged. Perhaps that is why people from a sheltered background appear to rebel so completely when able to.
One thing that I am sure of is that my children will have different views on some (probably many) topics to me. I look forward to the day when their arguments are mature enough and challenging enough to make me think that my own views might be wrong.
Comment by: Mike O
9I didn’t mean to label anyone - just categorize views in general. I see a sort of continuum here.
Comment by: Jason
10I wasn’t trying to imply anything. As broad categories I think they suit quite well. I doubt if anyone would ever fit neatly into one category though, that’s all I meant.
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