"‘Yes’ to Naturalism, Secularism, and Humanism"

(Apologies for posting an article. I usually prefer not to. But since this is one of the strongest and most eloquent statements of the Humanist position that I have seen, it is worth sharing. Please, read the whole thing. It's long but totally worth it, if you want to better understand the worldview of Humanists):

...I'll come back to the link later to read the whole thing. Thanks for the link!

:) :thumbsup:

One minute, please, while this secular humanist goes and puts on some clothes....

I like a lot of what he's saying here, and understand that he wants to define what he is about, rather than what he is not about.

I also realize that people have differing definitions of atheism, ranging from "not interested in gods" to "there are no gods."

Oddly, Kurtz seems to make the case for the latter... before retreating to the safe cover of agnosticism:



Why this need to proclaim a willingness to suspend judgment? That's pretty much implied, it seems to me. I've never met an atheist, skeptic, scientist, etc. who wouldn't be interested if presented with evidence that could be scrutinized -- whether in the realm of the supernatural, cryptozoology, the Red Sox Curse :D, etc. Sure, there are some really negative people out there. But when the aliens land on capitol hill to introduce us to their friend Bigfoot, I'm confident even the most hard-nosed skeptics will tune in to check it out!

Earlier in the piece, Kurtz embraces (again, briefly) what seems to me to be a pretty standard definition of atheism:



I'm pretty sure he's not "agnostic" about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Why balk when it comes to supernaturalism? It leaves him splitting hairs between "nontheist" and "atheist" instead of pointing out (as he begins to elsewhere) that there is no such thing as the supernatural, just natural things we haven't fully studied or understood yet.

Why not "Sure I'm an atheist. Now let me tell you what does interest me: {insert virtually any category here -- nifty science... politics... sociology... ... prize-winning tomatoes from your garden... the latest episode of Mythbusters ("Adam's the coolest! No, Jamie is!")... or any other topic}."

That's the beauty of not having a label. While I understand the desire to have a positive, easily-understood term to define oneself, and to create a sense of community around identity rather than non-identity... he's over-complicating things, IMO.

If the need for political identification is what he's after, "Secular Humanist" seemed like a pretty good descriptor. For sharing one's outlook on life, "Naturalist" is certainly an honorable term. Darwin was a Naturalist. So is David Attenborough, Jane Goodall -- anyone looking at the world around us, taking notes, and trying to draw sound conclusions. (The clothing-free folks tried to claim "naturalist" for themselves, but I think most realize now that the term is taken, and have opted for "naturist" if they feel "nudist" in insufficient!)

In the end, though, it seems Kurtz wants to hang onto something Bigger Than Us, after all:



I'd argue we already have such institutions: families, friends, communities of like-minded souls (so to speak) and chance groupings of fellow humans. The arts, the cityscape, the night-time sky. A passion for social justice, preserving the environment. Surfing. Nascar. Knitting circles. Many other examples besides. All of it part of the "creatively joyful life" already there for the partaking, if you choose.

New institutions? We've got plenty already, thanks. In a sense, we are the institutions, all of us, just in the choices we make, in how we spend our days, communicate our views, when we offer a hand in sharing, who we invite into our lives. It's all right there, Mr. Kurtz. Have as much as you want. We can always make more.

... although I happen also to consider myself a Christian. I consider myself a scientific naturalist and a secular humanist. For many purposes, I am a committed materialist. My religious notions have nothing whatsoever to do with explaining natural phenomena. Frankly, I doubt whether my religion views have any relation at all to what the authors of such articles consider religion to be. I regard discussions about proving the existence of G-d childish nonsense. The Fundamentalists, of course, have been shrieking in horror at me for decades.

If references to G-d and religion were deleted from the article, I should generally agree with what was left whole-heartedly, though there are a few (important) hairs to pick. In fact, certain of the religious references could be left in without affecting my agreement at all, though it would be extremely tedious (and perhaps entirely pointless) to explain which and why.

and why have you kept the title even as you have rejected every supernatural idea that properly belonged to it?

I essentially reject your definitional premises, you will of course insist on them, so nothing can result except noise.

What "definitional premises" of mine do you reject, and what are yours?

as to why a self-professed secular humanist engages in the "G-d" spelling of the name of the divinity. May I ask why you do so?

of our own ideas.

A careless use of words often hides our ignorance from ourselves, because we by constructing sentences we convince ourselves that we have knowledge.

But for meaningful discourse, we actually require some limitation in scope, as shown by the vapid nonsense people spout when they try to discuss at length some topic such as reality or what exists.

So I will try to be somewhat careful of my words.

I can't tell for sure.

Humility casts no shadow were as vanity precedes all in the light of discussion. Thank you for the reminder.

You said

"Idolatry is the worship of our our creations and in a larger sense the worship of our own ideas.

A careless use of words often hides our ignorance from ourselves, because we by constructing sentences we convince ourselves that we have knowledge.

But for meaningful discourse, we actually require some limitation in scope, as shown by the vapid nonsense people spout when they try to discuss at length some topic such as reality or what exists.

So I will try to be somewhat careful of my words."

The purpose of writing "G-d" instead of "God" is to try to communicate the same concept, but to also claim that the act of your writing the commonly used symbols for God in English will actually have some effect, other than communication, compared with replacing a vowel with a punctuation symbol. This, to me, seems to be "the worship of our our creations and in a larger sense the worship of our own ideas". You are saying that you "have knowledge" that written letters in the English language have a magical effect if put in a certain order. I was hoping that your use of the future tense ("I will try to be somewhat careful ...") meant you were going to give up the magical thinking. :shrug:

If you don't want to write that way, then don't.

But I consider it dishonest to put words in my mouth: I certainly never said I "have knowledge" that written letters in the English language have a magical effect if put in a certain order. That doesn't remotely resemble my views.

It sounds entirely supernatural. You said "A careless use of words often hides our ignorance from ourselves, because we by constructing sentences we convince ourselves that we have knowledge."

There was nothing in your explanation about why you choose to substitute a punctuation mark for a vowel. Instead you talked about constructing sentences, and convincing ourselves that we 'have knowledge'. I hope I can persuade you to see that your own argument of how you construct a sentence (ie using a punctuation mark instead of normal English) is indeed you convincing yourself you have special knowledge - that writing 'God', in normal English, is somehow wrong, because of a supernatural effect that some people claim it has. I really think you are truly hiding your ignorance from yourself, if you think that using a non-standard method of communication has some effect in reality.

... satisfactory discussion on this point.

But I will lay out as clearly as I can my views here and explain again what I am trying to say.

In fact, to say it again, meaningful statements require a limitation in scope. On a logical view, this is necessary to avoid various silly linguistic paradoxes. From a scientific perspective, some limitation is necessary to know what the actual issues are. As a rhetorical matter, scope limitations prevent inane discussions that wander freely over whatever comes to mind. So just as one has difficulty discussing reality or everything, one should expect some difficulties discussing G-d, simply due to a lack of mental clarity about the alleged subject.

That difficulty is independent of another question, which is whether or not the word really means anything or whether it is applied properly. Someone, who does not consider a word meaningful, should perhaps consider abandoning the use of it, since it is pointless to try to make meaningful statements using meaningless sounds: the philosophical stance of an absolute materialist should be in favor of positive statements approximately reflecting actual realities.

Most people, however, are not typically so careful of their language use; most (and I count myself among them) use words to convince ourselves that we have a handle on the world, by allowing words to substitute for realities. One need not look far to find meaningless or counter-factual sentences, used in all manner of rationalizations. This misuse of words is closely related to the misuse of concepts: a classic example is the notion of race (as used, say, in the American South of Jim Crow or in in exterminationist Nazi Germany or in apartheid South Africa) which, although it was devoid of meaning, functioned as a convenient fulcrum for peculiar institutional purposes. More pedestrian examples are also easy to find. Words commonly function in this way, as psychological intoxicants, not only by being meaningless but by being misunderstood and wrongly applied.

While it is true that I hold certain views associated with my Christian beliefs, it has not been my purpose here to explain such views in any detail, except insofar as the portion relating to my preference to write "G-d" can be expounded in purely secular terms. You can make an entirely secular sense of my preference for writing "G-d," by regarding it as a reminder of a circle of ideas, somewhat along the lines I have just sketched. By doing so, you free yourself of the burden of speculating about my vulnerabilities to peer pressure (as you do in attributing my preference to a belief that writing otherwise "is somehow wrong, because of a supernatural effect that some people claim it has") or insisting that I am being dishonest in my claim, since I have just given you a non-supernatural explanation for the preference.

but it doesn't - it just uses the word 'God'. So if you think there is a difference between 'God' and 'G-d', your comments on it appear in quite a different light.

But I can see your explanation immediately above as 'secular'. The previous ones, involving 'idolatry', 'worship' and 'the prohibition against vainly uttering a name' seem extremely religious.

I've only really fully taken on the label of atheist a few years ago now. I've always been skeptical but until I understood what it meant and felt confident in my own secular ethical code I would often equivocate my atheism to some extent.

I do strongly agree with the focus of this piece that we (secular progressives, non-theists, etc..) need to be as loud about what we are for (and certainly that is going to be a diverse grouping of "we" perhaps with somewhat different messages just as there are different theist creeds) as what we are against.

It makes sense that it does, because most believers (and nearly all nonbelievers) support the separation of church and state.

Go secularism!