The Bible typically has two definitions for the word “judge.” The first is the one we think of when we think of judgemental people. Judge not lest ye be judged. But the second had more to do with “testing,” or being careful what you accept.

We all agree, I’m sure, that judging in the judgemental sense is wrong. But “testing,” or using good judgement, is quite alright. Take, for example, John Belushi’s Animal House character. You don’t know him, so you can’t judge him as a person. On the other hand, if you found out your daughter was dating him, you would be well within your rights to “test” whether or not he is someone you want your daughter spending time with. Or at least I am sure you would want her to test whether or not he was going to be worth her while!

So where do you draw the line between “judging” and “testing?” According to the speaker, it has to do with what he calls your “realm of responsibility.” You shouldn’t judge him because he’s not within your realm of responsibility. But if he wants to date your daughter, she’s within your realm of responsibility so testing his character is almost required of you as a parent.

Christians can be a judgemental lot. But many times, I think, we’re accused of being judgemental when really we’re just using our own best judgement. There is nothing wrong with testing, and rejecting, ideas. Christians and atheists alike do it all the time. But when it devolves into judging the people with those ideas, that’s when we’ve gone too far.

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

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.

Solomon is considered to be the wisest man who ever lived. I’ve always accepted the book of Proverbs as sound, common sense advice - obvious, even. I still do. But would irreligious people agree?

What follows is a story Solomon tells about the dangers of promiscuity. When you read this, instead of seeing Solomon looking out the window at some unknown youth, see yourself looking out at your own son or daughter. Would your counsel differ from Solomon’s?

Proverbs 7:6-27

6 At the window of my house
I looked out through the lattice.

7 I saw among the simple,
I noticed among the young men,
a youth who lacked judgment.

8 He was going down the street near her corner,
walking along in the direction of her house

9 at twilight, as the day was fading,
as the dark of night set in.

10 Then out came a woman to meet him,
dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent.

11 (She is loud and defiant,
her feet never stay at home;

12 now in the street, now in the squares,
at every corner she lurks.)

13 She took hold of him and kissed him
and with a brazen face she said:

14 “I have fellowship offerings at home;
today I fulfilled my vows.

15 So I came out to meet you;
I looked for you and have found you!

16 I have covered my bed
with colored linens from Egypt.

17 I have perfumed my bed
with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.

18 Come, let’s drink deep of love till morning;
let’s enjoy ourselves with love!

19 My husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.

20 He took his purse filled with money
and will not be home till full moon.”

21 With persuasive words she led him astray;
she seduced him with her smooth talk.

22 All at once he followed her
like an ox going to the slaughter,
like a deer stepping into a noose

23 till an arrow pierces his liver,
like a bird darting into a snare,
little knowing it will cost him his life.

24 Now then, my sons, listen to me;
pay attention to what I say.

25 Do not let your heart turn to her ways
or stray into her paths.

26 Many are the victims she has brought down;
her slain are a mighty throng.

27 Her house is a highway to the grave,
leading down to the chambers of death.

This passage strikes me as universally good advice any father would give his son or daughter, irrespective of faith. Do you agree? Disagree?

Imagine that you’re in a rowing boat on a lake.

It’s summer, early in the morning.  The sun is barely breaking through the landscape and long, tiger stripes of shadow punctuate the light.  The rays warm your skin as you drift serenely through them.  The shadows are cool but not chilly as you pass through the slices of day and night in the early dawn.  You can hear the clear, sharp, clean sound of birds singing.  There’s no background susurrus of daytime sounds yet, just the birds and the soft slosh of mini waves as they push against the sides of the boat.

You reach over the side and the shock of cold water kisses your skin.  The bob of the lake rolling beneath the boat plays across your knuckles.  A chilly rhythm of water.  Languidly you pull your arm back enjoying the hint of an ache in your fingers.  Holding out your hand, you close your eyes and feel the cling of water resist the gentle pull of gravity as the liquid finds pathways across your skin.  They fluidly build themselves into droplets and, when heavy enough, they fall.  Each drop taps. Tap.  A new sound in the arena.

Now, right on that tap - stop.  Stop imagining.  Here is the real game.  This is the thing that is overlooked while being obvious and frightening at the same time:  the lake in my head, the same lake I was imagining.  That lake has become the lake in your head.  It doesn’t matter that you never know me, or never know anything about me.  In a thousand years after I’m dead, if language can carry this message forward it won’t matter.  Think carefully on this, beyond the obvious sense to the huge and amazing miracle hidden inside.  The lake in my head has become the lake in your head.

Behind the one hundred and ninety words that make up my description there is some kind of flow.  A stream of pure conception.  Something with no mass, no matter, no gravity and beyond time itself.  A stream of consciousness that can only be seen if we choose to look beyond the words, beyond the meaning and into the process itself.  Look at it at just the right angle and you’ll see my imaginary lake becoming yours.  We have made a connection that might be described as spiritual.  Maybe but not yet.  For that we need to go a little further.

Next try to visualise all those streams of human interaction.  All those communication links where imagination is passed from one mind to another.  Linking in and out and between people.  Not just the lake in the description but every concept, every idea that is shared and transformed and shared again.  Every text, every picture, each bar of music, every spoken word, knowing look, smile or tear.  Streams through casual contact, shared memories, witnessed events, past and future touching, cause meeting effect in billions of different ways.  Try to imagine this immense latticework of lakes and flowing streams, grasp a sense of it’s vastness and awesome complexity. The reach of this is nearly infinite and yet it remains rich with every experience that humanity has chosen to share.  This waterway of conceptual paradise mixing all information, all identities, all societies and selves forever and beyond time and space.  More than any single mind can hope to grasp.

Spirituality for me is when I catch a glimpse of that vast connectivity.  Some might call it God but for me it just doesn’t have words that are adequate.  It is my hope that this experiment has let you share it with me, even if just for a moment.  Let me know what you think.

Back to Secular humanism next week.

Yet I clung to the memory of several spiritual experiences I’d had in my life that seemed very real to me. But as I examined each of them (maybe half a dozen) in my memory, I also examined possible alternate explanations. Had god really been talking to me during prayer, or was it my own subconscious chiming in? Was the sense of transcendence I felt during certain worship services really supernatural, or was it an emotional reaction - one that I also felt at great concerts and touching poetry readings?

In other unrelated posts Jason has said that spiritual, to him, means a general sense of awe or wonder that we can experience in nature, for example.

And to me, a Christian, the spiritual obviously means so much more than that.

So I keep coming back to the question, “Is it possible to describe the spiritual in physical terms?” My initial reaction to that statement was that it was not possible - the spiritual and the physical are completely different - “like TV and radio” is how I put it at one point. I didn’t think it could be explained, but the more I think about it, the more I think I can!

I can’t wiggle my ears, but Jeff Goldblum can.

The way I understand it, people who can wiggle their ears can do it, but they can’t explain it. Jeff Goldblum can wiggle his ears, but he can’t teach me to wiggle mine. And that’s because wiggling your ears can’t be learned by explanation or teaching, it has to be discovered for ones own self.

But what does wiggling your ears have to do with spirituality, you ask?

Trying to explain spiritual concepts to atheists is like trying to teach someone to wiggle their ears - I can’t explain to you how to connect with the spiritual - with God. But I can show you what it looks like when I do it.

My main premise here is that there is a spiritual nature to physical life. It can’t be measured, it can’t be proved. It can’t even be taught - it has to be discovered. And I think where it shows itself is in that “sense of awe and wonder” that Jason referred to, or the “sense of transcendence” mentioned by Karen.

I don’t believe the ability to wonder at beauty evolved. I don’t believe it’s merely a measurable reaction to measurable inputs causing a measurable response in the physical brain. I’ve come to believe that the sense of awe, the ability to be moved by poetry or art, or mountains or the intricacies of science, is actually a manifestation of the spiritual world within our physical world.

Is it possible that Jason was having a spiritual experience? At first I thought not, but now I think he was. Is it possible that Karen did feel the same “sense of transcendence” at the poetry reading or concert that she felt during certain worship services? I think so, but rather than thinking none of them were spiritual, I think all of them were!

I can’t prove it, I can just try to explain it. And like wiggling your ears, you can see what it looks like when I do it. But there’s no way I can explain it that will give you that ability for yourself. It has to be discovered.

All I’m saying is, maybe you have discovered spirituality for yourself, but nobody recognizes it for what it is.

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

The search for truth is something that both secular humanists and those who belong to one theistic group or another can appreciate.  Secular humanists, I think, take a slightly different stance to it though.

Search for truth – A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.

Clearly human beings are creatures of limited perception.  We have five senses, none of them particularly finely tuned yet adequate for our survival.  They serve us well and have certainly contributed to our success as a species.  Our brains interpret the data that our senses provide.  Evolutionary shortcuts mean that our brains can be fooled in a number of ways.  I remember as a child sitting in a swing at a fairground.  The swing was gently rocking but was entirely enclosed by a spinning tube with bright patterns of stars on it.  As the tube spun I was convinced that I was looping round on the swing at an incredible speed.  Shutting my eyes dispelled the illusion but for a moment my senses where completely fooled by my expectations and assumptions and the limitations of my perceptions. 

Anyone who has been fooled by a card trick or a magicians illusion will understand that our senses and the brain’s ability to interpret data can be exploited sometimes with amusing results.

The reason for the clip is tenuous but it makes me laugh every time.

When searching for objective truth though we seek to explore the bounds of our reality.  We can do so through the scientific method using our reason but these are just tools in our search.  I think it is best explained by referring to the Bahá’í faith:

Baha’u'llah emphasizes the fundamental obligation of human beings to acquire knowledge with their “own eyes and not through the eyes of others.” One of the main sources of conflict in the world today is the fact that many people blindly and uncritically follow various traditions, movements, and opinions. God has given each human being a mind and the capacity to differentiate truth from falsehood. If individuals fail to use their reasoning capacities and choose instead to accept without question certain opinions and ideas, either out of admiration for or fear of those who hold them, then they are neglecting their basic moral responsibility as human beings. Moreover, when people act in this way, they often become attached to some particular opinion or tradition and thus intolerant of those who do not share it. Such attachments can, in turn, lead to conflict. History has witnessed conflict and even bloodshed over slight alterations in religious practice, or a minor change in the interpretation of doctrine. Personal search for truth enables the individual to know why he or she adheres to a given ideology or doctrine.

Bahá’ís believe that, as there is only one reality, all people will gradually discover its different facets and will ultimately come to common understanding and unity, provided they sincerely seek after truth. In this connection, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said:

Being one, truth cannot be divided, and the differences that appear to exist among the many nations only result from their attachment to prejudice. If only men would search out truth, they would find themselves united.¹

And further

The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity is necessary if we would reach truth, for truth is one.²

I like this description for it’s simplicity.  We seek truth for ourselves to help us to better understand ourselves.  When we understand who we are we can better understand our place in the world.

Of course we don’t live in a vacuum and face many changes as we go through life.  Something that we’ve always accepted as truth might crumble when presented with new information that contradicts it.  Other truths might be confirmed or strengthened.  As things change we need to constantly reevaluate what we have come to accept as true and be prepared to change our ideas.

Of course no explanation of truth would be complete without calling on Immanuel Kant

Truth is said to consist in the agreement of knowledge with the object. According to this mere verbal definition, then, my knowledge, in order to be true, must agree with the object. Now, I can only compare the object with my knowledge by this means, namely, by taking knowledge of it. My knowledge, then, is to be verified by itself, which is far from being sufficient for truth. For as the object is external to me, and the knowledge is in me, I can only judge whether my knowledge of the object agrees with my knowledge of the object. Such a circle in explanation was called by the ancients Diallelos. And the logicians were accused of this fallacy by the sceptics, who remarked that this account of truth was as if a man before a judicial tribunal should make a statement, and appeal in support of it to a witness whom no one knows, but who defends his own credibility by saying that the man who had called him as a witness is an honourable man.³

In other words we define truth by knowledge but assume that our knowledge is true.  The search for truth then is a wonderful form of circular reasoning.  Well I disagree.  The search for truth is an iterative process.  We learn something and test it, modifying our view accordingly.  We use this knowledge to learn something else, modifying our view accordingly, and so on and so forth ad infinitum.  Each step in the process draws us closer to the actual truth but we must always be aware that we may be close but we’re unlikely to ever reach it.

Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI (God’s Rottweiler) disagrees, he believes that truth is ultimately knowable and that “the modern self-limitation of reason” such as that described by Kant is a rejection of all that can not yet be observed.  This is particularly so, in his view, where the ultimate questions of truth such as the origin of life or the power of love.  &sup4  I’m not sure that I agree that it is self limiting.  I’m sure that there is more to the universe than we can conceive of but we’ve barely begun to explore it.  How can we tell which tools will best serve us in the future?  As we seek to explore the truth of reality we will use our reason and we will use intuition and inventiveness.  We will use whatever works the best.  I see no reason to reject what has worked so far until it fails to work.  If it fails to work.

Tools for searching for the truth aside I think we can all agree that it is a worthwhile exercise.  Most religions have some doctrine that they hold as the truth.  The Christian faith has the Bible, Islam has the Koran, Hindus have the Bhagavad Gita.  Obviously this isn’t observed truth or scientific truth but the faiths often make the claim that they hold an inspired or sometimes revealed truth.  Unfortunately there is no way to test the veracity of such claims.

The important thing, for me, is not where we search for the truth but that the truth that we search for is personal to us.  We conceive things and perceive things in our own unique way so the truth is similarly unique for each of us.  So is the search.  That is why it is important for our growth.

1. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1969), p. 129.
2. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1912. 11th ed. 1969), p. 136.
3. Kant, Immanuel (1800), Introduction to Logic. Reprinted, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (trans.), Dennis Sweet (intro.) (2005)
4. Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief And World Religions, Ignatius Press, 2004

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

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

Phil 3:13-14a “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on …”

In a perfect world, there would be no curveballs - life would be under our control and go as expected. The problem is, it simply doesn’t work that way! Life throws a lot of curves, and the purpose of Curveball is to help men get past them. Fair or not, the curveballs of life are part of who we are today. And given that reality, Curveball will help men ask the important question, “So now what?” The short answer can be found in the first three words of Phil 3:14: I…PRESS…ON!

The thing that got me started on this topic was my job lay-off that I just went through this year. That was my most recent “curveball.” Of course, we’ll be taking a Christian approach, but it occurs to me that this topic is something that could be useful to people of any faith or non-faith.

The question that we’ll be working on isn’t “Why did this happen?” or “Why did GOD LET this happen?” (although that may come up!), but rather, “Given that this happened, how am I going to respond?”

The material I’m planning on using is two series by Andy Stanley called Destinations, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I’ve never heard them before, but I like Andy Stanley’s communication style and I think it will connect well. Here’s what they’re about:

We all have places we want to end up in life. Yet the paths we choose often lead us away from our intended destinations. One poor decision can send us down the wrong road, crushing our dreams, and wasting years of our lives. As time passes, we look back wondering how we got off course, and how we can recover from broken dreams. In this four-part series Destinations, Andy Stanley examines the disconnect between our dreams and the paths we take to reach them—that our direction, not our intentions, determines our destinations. Then, in the two-part series Boulevard of Broken Dreams, we learn how we should react when our dreams can’t ever come true.

It seems to be taking more an angle of “recovering from bad choices” than “dealing with difficult circumstances,” but I think it will apply well - especially the last two parts.

Another one I’m considering using is called “Life Interrupted,” by Louis Giglio.

A pink slip you didn’t see coming. A devastating test result. An untimely death. Sooner or later, interruptions come crashing in on us all, bringing with them a flood of questions about life and truth. Why did this happen? Where is God? How am I ever going to make it through these days? Yet, in the midst of confusion, God calls us to ask a different set of questions and embrace a new way of thinking, a path that leads us to understand His purposes in a seemingly unstable world.

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

This week I wish to discuss why reason, evidence and the scientific method are important to our world view.

Reason, evidence, scientific method – A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.

I won’t repeat the benefits of the scientific method again as I have done so before.  If anyone does want to read about it please go waay back to March and have a look here.

This follows on from the need to test beliefs.  We need to ensure that the methods of testing our beliefs are appropriate.  As my old Math teacher, Mr Wells, used to say “show your working” or we ensure that we don’t simply arrive at a conclusion without knowing the steps that we made to arrive at it.  When we are wrong it makes it much easier to go back and see where the error was.  We reduce the number of assumptions that we make.

In the 14th century William of Ockham, an English monk in the Franciscan order described a principle that basically states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible.  Ockham’s razor is well known today in religious debates on the subject of creationism as well as many other areas.

Of the seven tenets I would assume that this one is the one that most Christians take the greatest issue with.  I don’t mean this because Christians or other theistic groups do not use reason, evidence or the scientific method to make sense of the world.  That wouldn’t be true.  I say it because it seems to deny the spiritual and refute faith as a way of living.  As Christians you place a certain amount of value on faith and denying this value will naturally put you on the defensive.

Yet we are talking about human problems and answers to human questions.  While I doubt that there is a god of any kind I do know that gods aren’t human.  If gods do choose to interact with humanity there is nothing that we can do about it.  That leaves us only with human problems and questions that we can influence.  Last week Mike posted something that was ultimately about the question of evil.  How does such a question register on a secular humanist’s opinion?

My answer is that the question of evil is not a human question.  Why does God allow evil?  How can such a question ever be answered by a human?  How can the idea be tested?  Isn’t the assumption of the question worth examining before seeking an answer?  Namely that God allows evil?  Does God allow evil?  The question assumes that evil exists and that God allows it.  Further, that God exists to allow evil.  The questions then are what is evil and what is God? 

There is no way to test to investigate the question as to what is God.  There is no way to determine why Gods allow evil?  These are not questions that can be answered.  As for evil, I believe that this is purely a human concept.  Events are neither good nor evil except in the way we view them.  Our actions are either good or evil depending on how they are viewed by others.  There are certainly actions that I would view as evil.  Many would agree with me but some actions that I would view as evil would be considered merely unpleasant by some others and others that I do not consider to be evil would be viewed with horror and revulsion by some.

The question of why God allows evil is simply not an important human question.  Not without proof of God anyway.  Our reason can better be focused on something that we can solve.  There really is enough to occupy our minds.

According to the Bible God made all things and called all things “good.” Glaucoma is yet another example of “God’s good creation” which I have non-trivial issues with. Why did God create a disease which silently and permanently erodes one of the senses, negating possible joy and full experience of already short human lives? Doesn’t this show that God is incompetent or playing destructive games with humanity? It’s yet another example of why I think the whole story about God, especially the version of God described in the Bible, is a load of horsepuckey. If God has a “plan” or “purpose” for my life (which is something I’ve heard a majority of Christians assert at various points, and which the questions Mike posted above suggest), why does it involve so much seemingly unneeded suffering and misery… especially on a biological level? If God is “good” and all of “His creation” is good, then doesn’t this suggest that God himself is diseased and corrupt?

I’m not asking these things as purely rhetorical questions, I’d really like to hear what “Christians” or “Christ Followers” or “” have to say about this.

I’ll post a comment later, but I didn’t want the topic to become “my answer to Rev. Dan’s question.”

If you’re a Christian, how do you answer, and can you understand why it’s difficult for people like him to believe in your God?

If you’re not a Christian, how do you answer the Christian responses, and can you understand why it’s difficult for people like me to *not* believe in our God?

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

The first one I wish to discuss is the need to test beliefs.

Need to test beliefs – A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.

I want to point out that this isn’t a rejection of faith but it is a willingness to examine our beliefs.  Secular says nothing about God, god(s) or the beliefs or lack thereof that people hold about them. Atheistic denotes an actual position being taken (no positive belief in god).  A secular humanist with a religious belief can focus on the human aspects of living without rejecting their god.  Faith and secular humanism are not mutually exclusive but I think it is still rare to find a religious secular humanist or at least a person who takes on both labels for themself.

Buddha wrote:

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

The need to test beliefs is not the need to reject everything that is held on faith.  It is a requirement to ensure that those beliefs are meaningful.  They should have some basis in reason, logic, fact or function that make them worthwhile retaining. 

Let’s take the life of Jesus Christ as an example, not to be contentious but to illustrate the point.  Assume that you hold that Jesus lived a life as a teacher and example to man on how to live a good life.  You decide to emulate the man and his actions in your own life.  The actual events are not provable in the independent historical record.  The miracles performed are not repeatable in the modern age.  Are the lessons still valuable though?  Does this way of living work?  Does the philosophy of helping others and personal sacrifice that Jesus personified make for a happier and more fulfilling life?  I think that even the non-religious could agree with these points in a general way.

On the subject of religions though lets take a specific Christian ritual and test it in accordance with the first tenet of secular humanism.  Something that has recently been mentioned in atheist blogs is the issue of the communion wafer representing the flesh of Christ in Roman Catholic ritual.  What purpose does this serve?  A Roman Catholic might tell you that it is a literal transubstantiation and that by taking bread and wine as the flesh and blood of Christ they are bringing themselves closer to the divine.  For me the issue of transubstantiation is purely one of faith.  The bread is not literally divine flesh, I could test it to determine this if I wished.  Is it spiritually divine flesh?  I see nothing to indicate that it is or that it isn’t so I must reserve judgment until proof is provided or reject the idea based on what I do know.

What benefit does the transubstantiation ritual provide?  For the faithful it is a way of drawing the group together in something that is shared only between them.  It fosters ties within the religious community.  It also marks them as separate from other factions of Christianity and other faiths.  This could well lead to divisions within disparate communities.  Indeed it has.  The same could well be said of any other ritual from Sunday service to morning prayer, from the Bah-Mitzvah to the ritual ablutions of the Bahá’í Faith

As human beings we learn things as we grow.  We take what works and pass it on.  Sometimes a lesson that is passed on does not keep the reason with it.  An example might be the avoidance of pork in Jewish and Islamic religions.  Pork spoils easily and contains a number of parasites that can be passed to humans.  Avoiding this meat may make a lot of sense to a people who live in a hot country with poor sanitation and methods of long term food storage.  Does it make sense today with modern refrigerators, relatively clean meat processing plants and more hygienic storage of food?  The religious restriction remains, independent of the food hygiene issue.  Perhaps it didn’t arise from that or perhaps society moved on and the lesson remained behind.

It is important to take stock and reassess the things that we have learnt or discovered in order to ensure that we haven’t got them wrong.  I should point out that this obviously includes the assumption of atheism as well as religion.  Are my views on religion appropriate given what I know about the world, history, philosophy and science?  Have I been introduced to new information or a new way of looking at current information since taking on the label of atheist?  Do my views still remain valid given this new information?  In all honesty I can say that they do, although my views on religion have changed considerably in the last few years.  There are some interpretations and rituals that I view as horribly destructive or socially repressive but there are equally some that I see as positive and worth retaining in a secular life.

Finally the tenet states that it is the individual who must test and assess a conviction.  We all have our own criteria for belief.  Some of us require hard evidence, some accept witness testimony, others believe second hand evidence or viable theories, others still place value on workable ideas and axioms even when they can never be proven.  I think most of us take a mixed approach to ideas and the burden of proof.  That’s why we must all make up our own minds about what is true and what is false.

That’s my take on the first tenet.  Hopefully I’ll write about the second tenet next week.