The fundagelical problem with humanism
While reading a friend’s blog post in which he puts down some thoughts about recent events and the subsequent comments from his readers, I was struck by one comment in particular which was a comment to a comment, so to speak. Here is the relevant snippet from Mark’s comment:
Humanist and Utilitarian beliefs existed long before religion and will continue to exist long after religion has disappeared into the annals of ancient history. One does not need a fairy godmother to understand right and wrong.
It’s a perfectly logical comment, as the basic tenets of humanism are universal to the wellbeing of a group or society, and obeisance to or existence of a higher power isn’t a prerequisite (e.g. I love my parents and a god does not need to exist to enable that).
The comment that intrigued me also confused me a little. I’d rather not simply copy and paste it here as it would then be out of context, so here is the link to the comment for you to read in situ.
It appears to me that the commenter considers Humanism to be a world view devoid of morals and values, and quotes from the American Humanist Association‘s Humanist Manifesto II, written in 1973 (the most recent is the Humanist Manifesto III, written in 2003), choosing to combine parts of the 3rd Principle (Ethics) and 6th Principle (The Individual) as follows:
Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism… individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire.
I presume the intent of this is to justify the commenter’s assertion that Humanism is devoid of morals and values, as at face value and out of context this quote may suggest that it is hedonistic and perverted, existing to encourage lascivious behaviour and baser expressions of human activities. I believe the Daily Mail are always looking for journalists…
To provide their proper context, here are these two principles in their entirety (emphasis mine):
THIRD: We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life, here and now. The goal is to pursue life’s enrichment despite debasing forces of vulgarization, commercialization, and dehumanization.
SIXTH: In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered “evil.” Without countenancing mindless permissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire. We wish to cultivate the development of a responsible attitude toward sexuality, in which humans are not exploited as sexual objects, and in which intimacy, sensitivity, respect, and honesty in interpersonal relations are encouraged. Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and sexual maturity.
As can be seen, when taken in context the 3rd Principle is explaining that morals, values and ethics are based upon self-evidential experience (students of American history should be familiar with the idea of self-evidence, if not the phrase itself) and free from absolutism or dogmatic interpretation. That we know without doubt that we have this life now, but anything beyond that is uncertain and unproven, so to form an ethical framework around words written by men and adhering to them unquestioningly is foolish. And the 6th Principle is explaining sexuality and the universal sexual rights of human beings, again without unquestioning adherence to a framework or dogma.
That this Manifesto has seen four versions shows that Humanism is like science — it adjusts, revises and corrects as necessary. Nothing is absolute. And that frightens the living daylights out of many believers and conservative people.
Unfortunately for them, life and the universe is uncertain, relative and without absolutes. Those responsible for tracking objects from the Kuiper Belt and beyond may tomorrow detect an object on a collision course with earth with an ETA of 2 weeks and after which it’s All Over (if it happens, we won’t get much notice), the leader of a nuclear power may lose the plot and push The Button throwing us all into a nuclear winter, or any number of end-of-the-world scenarios.
Once you understand that not only do you not matter, that your country doesn’t matter, that this planet doesn’t matter to the universe, then you will have some insight into the marvellous thing that is life. Someone once said that before he was born he was a long time dead and after he dies he’ll be a long time dead, so he makes the most of this blink of an eye in which we’re born, grow, live, grow old and die. It also shows why Humanists have such a thirst for life, and why things such as the AHA’s Humanist Manifesto are so necessary.
Whether a god or gods exist is immaterial — and there are logical refutations and arguments that can be used to illustrate why such existence is unlikely at best — as that is not the issue here. There is nothing in human existence to suggest that any of the millions of religious texts on this world weren’t either written by men seeking power or a genuine, primitive attempt to understand the wonders and horrors of the world: fire, lightning, weather systems, the joy of sex, the birth of a child, the death of a mother during childbirth, the untimely diseased death of a child, a volcano burying a city.
We’re born into a world where people with an imaginary friend’s supposed writing dictates not only the way they live their lives but they mandate the same behaviour on to everybody else. What if you’re wrong? Have you considered that possibility seriously for just 5 minutes? I mean really seriously, without falling prey to the inevitable Argument from Incredulity or Argument from Popularity within 30 seconds and snorting your derision. And then extend that and ask how it can possibly be right for your values (immaterial of whether they’re correct or not) to be forced upon others — upon entire nations.
We’re a race that have flown to the Moon, we’ve fired things we’ve made to the very edge of the known Solar System, we’ve worked out empirically the age and size of the universe as we’re able to see it today, and we’ve sequenced our own genetic code and are in the process of decoding half a billion years of post-Cambrian development
And to this day we’re going to war for the same reasons with the same Books that we did back in the Bronze Age. Now tell me again why religion is good but Humanism is bad?
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In Mark’s post he objected to ‘NOT expect me and the rest of the hard workers and talented people in the country to pay for you to sit on your asses and F**K.’ In relation to the amount of benefits handed out to underage or young mothers who parent children of multiple fathers. However, moralistically it is wrong to parent outside of marriage with multiple fathers as far as the Bible is concerned. As far as Humanism is concerned they are merely expressing their sexual desires. Humanism also sanctions prostitution providing each adult agrees to it. Needless to say more than the majority of woman who are prostitutes are in that position not because they want to and ‘agree’ only to feed and clothe themselves. The very fact the Humanism allows adaptation (as seen as progressive) is alarming to say the least. Is has allowed for humans to marry a piece of furniture, a dog, have sex with animals??? Only recently a group of pedophiles used Humanistic morals and values to argue their ‘univeral sexual rights’ that sex with children would increase their value of life and to that of the children. Who the hell in Humanism decides what is moral and what isn’t??? Who is voting and how???
As far as the war in Iraq is concerned, I cannot for the life of me understand what that has to do with the Bible or Christianity, suggest you reread (if you haven’t already) the New Testament and actively look for any passage that states ‘kill anyone that isn’t a Christian’. On the contrary, Christianity teaches to ‘turn the other cheek’.
I actually feel sorry for you that you feel you and the others around you do not matter. If it is any consolation, I think you matter. ? As for uncertainty of life and the universe and everything in it or around it… I’m not uncertain at all and I don’t see how or why you would conclude that a believer would?
It is one thing not to believe in (a) God and another to (re)write morals to suite your own needs. Christian morals and values have served a good and better society than Liberal, Secular, Humanism ever will or can. And if you don’t believe me, go visit a council estate!!!
You appear to be upset, which is a shame. Remember Bertrand Russell’s quote in one of my recent posts.
Be careful when using examples such as paedophiles who use their interpretation on humanistic principles to justify their behaviour, as it would be all too easy for me to list the crimes against humanity that religions are still performing today. The same with prostitution: the religion upon which half of your Book and your own religion is based actively used prostitution when the person/people we call Jesus was alive, and the same continued through the Middle Ages with Christianity. The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were started by a man who believed he was performing a holy crusade and said so, and the man that allied with him carefully hid his Catholicism until he was no longer in power (it’s illegal for a British Prime Minister to be Catholic). I’m yet to see a Christian turn the other cheek, except in minor matters or where there’s a PR opportunity.
When I said that none of us matter, it’s not an emotional, despondent, woe is me situation. It’s a simple recognition of the facts of the universe: just as we walk over ants or kill all the things living on our skin without even being aware of it, the universe is as equally devastating to the rare instances of life within it. It’s a shame that you can’t see that it’s exactly this that makes life so precious and magnificent, not the belief that we’re somehow special in the eyes of a god who may or may not be there, much less that our egoes are so absurdly overdeveloped that we believe that he cares which team wins in the sport you’re currently watching or playing. Now using the context in which you refer to “mattering”, yes — we all matter: to ourselves, to each other and to those who walk the earth before and after us.
Perhaps you missed my point about the origins of morals and values, as you still appear to think that Christianity or the Bible invented or wrote them, which naturally implies that there were none (or at best, inferior versions) existing prior to then. This has been borne out by evidence to be patently absurd and very wrong. The Golden Rule, for example, of “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” — Jesus’s great idea, right? Wrong. That philosophy was commonly known for centuries before then. As with holidays, feasts and celebrations, nearly all of them were in existence for time immemorial prior to Christianity, and the church piggybacked their own events and meanings onto them in an effort to stamp out paganism. If Jesus was one man, he certainly wasn’t born on 25 December; the crucifixion follows the lunar calendar, so didn’t occur on the different days we celebrate it each year; the year he was (or they were) born was not 1 CE, and may have been 10 years sooner or later; the people who wrote the Gospels never even met Jesus, having been written 75-200 years after his death; the Apostle Paul wrote all his texts completely unaware that a man named Jesus, or someone believed to be the prophesied Messiah, had even walked the earth; they all believed without doubt that the Messiah would return during their lifetimes; and so on and so forth. This is also what I mean when I refer to absolutism — none of these historical facts are facts at all.
You believe Christian morals and values have served better than any alternative? Really… have you thought about that to any great depth? You’re referring to a morality system that also advocates (present tense) slavery, subjugation of women, genocide, patricide, matricide, genital mutilation, and rape, to name just a few. The problem with declaring a book to be holy is that you don’t get to cherry-pick from it what you like and what you don’t. The passages from Leviticus that are used to justify homophobia are surrounded by absurdities such as forbidding women to ever be naked, seeing your children, parents, siblings or grandchildren naked, capital punishment for speaking against your parents or adultery (all in Lev.18 & Lev.20).
A sure sign of the falsehood of religion is when your god hates the same things you do.
Not sure why you bring council estates into the discussion, run by the government of this Christian nation. Every student here is forced to take Religious Education, pray in assemblies, those in boarding schools also have to attend church services, there are committees setup to ensure that other religions are at least touched upon while ensuring the core Christian ethic is always foremost. The religious privilege in this country is astounding and every person in a council estate is subjected to such moral education, so I’m confused as to how a council estate is relevant.
On the contrary the only thing that upsets me is your referral of me to become a DailyMail journalist.
I know of no crime that I commit as a Christian unless being one is a crime in itself. As far as history is concerned Religion has often enough been misused as tools of power and coercion (Catholic Church really takes home the bacon with that). My beliefs follow the New Testament teachings while treating the Old as a book of history. Fundamental to my beliefs is forgiveness, love and peace. Quite the contrary is those who use Religion and wage war. So who do you think is right here? If Jesus said ‘turn the other cheek’ and so-called Christian’s do the opposite, who is right??? Well I think you already know the answer to that as much as I do. For whatever Bush thinks he is, he is not practicing what Christianity tells him to do. And that is his sin to bear, not mine and certainly not all practicing Christians.
Nowhere in the Bible does is state any dates relevant to the death and birth of Jesus, so there is no point in arguing dates of festivals. The dates of the first 4 or 5 books of the New Testament might even have been earlier than 70 AD (recent study permitted this sometime early this year) but for certainty they do date around 70 AD. Matthew and John however were eyewitnesses to the accounts of Jesus as they were both one of the first 12 disciples.
I am failing to see how Leviticus 18 & 19 advocates ‘slavery, subjugation of women, genocide, patricide, matricide, genital mutilation, and rape’ Nor does it justify homophobia other than it not being allowed nor ‘forbidding women to ever be naked, seeing your children, parents, siblings or grandchildren naked, capital punishment for speaking against your parents or adultery’. However this ‘uncovering of nakedness’, which dominates the King James versions is replaced with the less conservative and more accurate translation of uncovered nakedness (which just seems odd in itself) with ‘sexual relationship’.
[Edited by Jumile: Entire quotation of Lev. 18 and Lev. 19 removed for brevity and sanity.]
And as far as Religion in schools is concerned: In 2001 there were 7000 state faith schools in the UK (of 25000). Not exactly astoundingly privileged is it.
Sorry about the long post.
Vanessa
Being a Christian is no longer a crime, but you must remember that were it not for the Roman Empire and its creation of the Holy Roman Church as the official religion to replace the Pantheon, the noisy Jewish sect called Christianity would never have survived. As fashionable and popular as it is today for Protestants to say that Catholicism is bad (or the more infantile “they’re not even Christians!”), every person calling themselves a Christian owes the Catholic Church a debt of gratitude. A bitter pill to swallow for many, I’m sure.
While there is some actual history in the Old Testament, most of it is so cluttered with fantasy, propaganda and outright lies that the history is indistinguishable from the fantasy. Under such a dark cloud, in religious terms, surely one should either embrace only the New Testament or the whole Bible, not some convenient middle ground that allows you to ignore the inconvenient and use the old (irrelevant) stuff to justify a position or action today. If the book is holy: it’s all or nothing, surely.
The four Gospels have the name Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but very few educated theologians still consider them to actually have been written by the names that appear in the title. The first three are known collectively as the Synoptic Gospels, and there is evidence that two are merely copies of the third, with Matthew being the first, Mark a copy (or complement) of Matthew, and Luke being derived from both; effectively one Gospel. The fourth is so outrageously different from the first three that it’s clear that it was only included in the final selection because it is more supernatural in nature and included Revelation, otherwise I doubt anyone would have considered it a contender for inclusion.
And the fact that there were councils held to determine which of hundreds or thousands of texts would be included into what would become the modern Bible is astonishing and, frankly, a serious cause for concern. For example, it wasn’t until the 1st Council of Nicea in 325CE that it was decided that Jesus needed to be a deity in order to make the religion work properly (before then he was just another OT-style prophet and martyr) and the absurd kludge called the Trinity was invented to get past the polytheistic problems that created, the Bible as we recognise it today didn’t exist until the 3rd Council of Carthage in 397CE, and the unhinged gibberish that is Revelation wasn’t tacked on until 22 years later in another Council of Carthage in 419CE. That’s almost a century of paper-shuffling to get all the ducks in a row. It’s clearly a religion built by committee, not by the self-sacrifice of an ordinary martyr-voted-into-deity.
Religious privilege does not simply include the force-feeding of religion in school and the deliberate exclusion of other faiths and the concept of absence of faith. The UK is one of only two countries in the world that still has religious orders in central control of its government. Many Christians may speak against Iran’s theocracy, but the UK has the Bishops in the House of Lords. There are no other countries in the west that have religious leaders specifically seated in such positions of power. That they rarely exercise their privilege is not the point, and when they do it is nearly always to ensure that the church’s agenda is looked after.
Vanessa writes:
“Needless to say more than the majority of woman who are prostitutes are in that position not because they want to and ‘agree’ only to feed and clothe themselves.”
And that’s what makes it wrong, not what it says in the bible. If the bible said it was OK to sleep with a prostitute, it would still be wrong.
@ Antony
That’s what makes what wrong? The prostitution or the fact their work is undesirable to them or that they have a job that they only do to feed and clothe themselves?
How do you evaluate a man or woman who sleeps with a prostitute? Are they being ‘immoral’ or just letting loose their sexual desire under the pretension the prostitute is doing the same? What makes it wrong if say you work at McDonalds and you hate it but it is the only job you can find in your position to feed and clothe yourself?
Humanism gives no reason to disapprove or approve itself; it gives no moral high way to grasp at. The Bible on the contrary, is very clear as what is and was is not permissible/morally correct (as is pointed out in Leviticus 18 & 19).
@ Jumile
Actually the first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John.
For a complete chronology of dates see: earlychristianwritings.com
Furthermore the Roman Empire did not ‘create’ Christianity as it predates that of the Holy Roman Church, which in no way with it’s symbols and hierarchies resembles the Biblical teachings of the Bible. The Holy Roman Church is a mockery to the Bible and to God. To understand anything about Christianity you must first separate the Bible from the Pope (and everything other monstrous atrocities they have inflicted on the world).
If the Catholic religion had its way, we’d still be in ignorance about the Bible and enslaved to the pope. Time fails me here to tell of other marytrs like John Hus, John Rogers, etc. who were killed.
Hey Vanessa, just a note on the ‘Muratorian Fragment’ upon which the ‘Muratorian Canon’ is based. Obviously Wikipedia is not the best source but it is at least moderated:
“… it contains internal cues which suggest that it is a translation from a Greek original written about 170 or as late as the fourth century. The copy “was made by an illiterate and careless scribe, and is full of blunders” (Henry Wace[1]). The poor Latin and the state that the original manuscript was in have made it difficult to translate.”
Sounds really reliable!
@Vanessa
>The Bible on the contrary, is very clear as what is and was is not
>permissible/morally correct (as is pointed out in Leviticus 18 & 19).
It’s quite possible to think for oneself about what is right and wrong, and just as nessasary for Christians as it is for Humanists… and as for Leviticus being very clear – see Leviticus 20:10 and John 8:1-7 – I think it’s fair to say some interpretation was required?
Thanks for your reply Antony,
However, no ‘interpretation’ is required when reading the passages.
If you’ve ever read the book of Romans you would know that Old Testament believers were forgiven “in the forbearance of God” (Rom 3:25). God gave his people a forbearance until Christ could come and pay their sin-debt for them. In this way they could avoid the punishment for their sins, even though Christ had not yet died for them.
Christians today are “forgiven” when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9)
Hope to have cleared this up for you,
Vanessa
“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
Come on, if that’s not a discussion about interpretation, what is it?
Thanks for that stuff about forgiveness and forbearance, but I’m not sure how it relates to our discussion about how to tell right from wrong (except that maybe right and wrong are irrelevant if one is going to be forgiven anyway, but I’m sure that’s not what you’re saying).
As I see it, the New Testament adds principles on top of the old laws, things like love thy neighbour, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc… which unlike laws cannot just be blindly applied, which is why I say it is just as important for Christians to think for themselves as it is for Humanists.
As I see it, the New Testament adds principles on top of the old laws…
Without wishing to place words in her mouth, many of Vanessa’s responses to Old Testament problems tend to be addressed with the old “the New Testament came to replace the Old” argument.
My problem with that has always been that if any of the Old Testament is now invalid or superseded, then the entire work has no place in Christianity, except perhaps as a continuation of fable and storytelling tradition — but most certainly not as a source of law, ethics or morality. The alternative is what we have now: a cherry-picker’s dream. And that’s ignoring the eternally unaddressed problem of the books that were selected for and excluded from the Bible, which we’ve touched on previously.
You are quite right to assume that I address ‘the New Testament came to replace the Old’.
Jer31:31
Behold the days come,saith the Lord,I will make a NEW COVENANT with the house of Israel,with the house of Judah:Not according to the covenant,I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt….
New Testament is also referred to as a ‘New Covenant’. Hence we under a new agreement with new laws.
It is not however excusable to ‘cherry-pick’ which laws to follow and which not. The New Covenant came to overright existing Convenant. Therefore you may not stone an adulteror under Old Testament law while we are under a New Covenant.
Vanessa
@Vanessa
Then what am I supposed to make of what you said earlier: “The Bible on the contrary, is very clear as what is and was is not permissible/morally correct (as is pointed out in Leviticus 18 & 19). ” ?!
I don’t want to get distracted from the discussion about how (in my view) the process one goes through to decide what is right and wrong isn’t really any different for a Christan than it is for a Humanist, even though the content is likely to differ considerably.
but:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).
With each covenant came a new agreement on term. Pre-existing rules are either changed in the new covenant or are left as they are passed onto the new covenant.
Rules in animal sacrifice and circumsicion changed whereas love they neighbour remained. All of the 10 commandments stay the same througout the covenant.
In the circumstance of adultry (and all other sins), stoning was replaced by forgiveness in Christ.
13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,[b] God made you[c] alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.[d]
Vanessa
Why would an omniescent God have to change the rules half way through the game? Did he make a mistake on the first play? Can’t be omniescent then…
Or could it be that it’s all made up for power…?
Occam! Where’s that Razor?!