I would like to explore the idea that most people are 'Humanists', or at least accept the principles, even if they don't realise it.
What I mean by this is that most people would accept the Humanist moral rule (The Golden Rule, and thinking in terms of the outcomes of actions) as 'trumping' other rules.
As an example, people that follow religious practices and views that affect other people will usually try to justify them with humanist principles ... or even modify their views to conform to humanist principles. Likewise many people frown on prejudice such homophobia and racism as unacceptable on humanist principles, and will generally accept that view as the higher principle, even if they fail to accept it at a lower emotional level. This is why so many racist remarks start off: "I'm not racist, but ..."
I will look out for examples from life and post them here to see how this concept stands up.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Error #1: "Atheists can have no morals"
I enjoy Nicky Campbell's religious discussion program on BBC on Sunday mornings ('The Big Questions'). Last Sunday they were discussing the question: "Is religion good for children?".
Some interesting thoughts arose from it, but one thing that jumped out at me was the often repeated views of religious people that if you don't believe in God you can't have any moral framework. The thought being, I suppose, that if you have no Bible or Koran you have no rule book to work to. They then take the logic a step further and say that if you have no rule book your behaviour deteriorates in to some sort of animal like behaviour, anarchism and ultimately social breakdown. One contributor said (in what the philosophers call a Post Hoc fallacy) that the London Riots last year proved that the schools need to be taught religion. A gentleman described as a Christian Evangelist stated that you can only get "true ethics" from the Bible. Another contributor amusingly claimed that if you don't have a religious belief you would wake up each day and arbitrarily choose a different ethical behaviour.
All these folks are trapped in a absolutist view point. However, Humanists take a relativistic view of morality. We judge the 'rightness' of an action based on the outcomes and how they affect people. The underlying principle is that we want the kind of world that we want to live in, and therefore we are looking for outcomes in terms of human happiness, personal fulfilment, a clean and safe world etc. In other words: "Do as you would be done by".(The Golden Rule that has been around for 4,000 years).
Not only is this a valid framework for an personal moral code, but it is far better that the absolutist codes based on ancient manuscripts, and I would suggest most people - even most religious people - actually believe this. I will elaborate on this in the next post. Watch this space...
Some interesting thoughts arose from it, but one thing that jumped out at me was the often repeated views of religious people that if you don't believe in God you can't have any moral framework. The thought being, I suppose, that if you have no Bible or Koran you have no rule book to work to. They then take the logic a step further and say that if you have no rule book your behaviour deteriorates in to some sort of animal like behaviour, anarchism and ultimately social breakdown. One contributor said (in what the philosophers call a Post Hoc fallacy) that the London Riots last year proved that the schools need to be taught religion. A gentleman described as a Christian Evangelist stated that you can only get "true ethics" from the Bible. Another contributor amusingly claimed that if you don't have a religious belief you would wake up each day and arbitrarily choose a different ethical behaviour.
All these folks are trapped in a absolutist view point. However, Humanists take a relativistic view of morality. We judge the 'rightness' of an action based on the outcomes and how they affect people. The underlying principle is that we want the kind of world that we want to live in, and therefore we are looking for outcomes in terms of human happiness, personal fulfilment, a clean and safe world etc. In other words: "Do as you would be done by".(The Golden Rule that has been around for 4,000 years).
Not only is this a valid framework for an personal moral code, but it is far better that the absolutist codes based on ancient manuscripts, and I would suggest most people - even most religious people - actually believe this. I will elaborate on this in the next post. Watch this space...
Friday, May 04, 2012
A great motto
One of my favourite quotations is supposedly by Albert Einstein: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
At first glance it might seem like a platitude, but I think it neatly sums up the Humanist philosophy.
Learn from yesterday: Don't slavishly follow the handed down 'rules' (such as the so called holy scriptures or church traditions) but look at the successes and failures in human endeavour and learn from them.
Live for today: As there is no afterlife we need to make the most of this life, and we certainly shouldn't expect others to tolerate suffering on the basis that there is better future 'heaven' for them.
Hope for tomorrow: The Humanist outlook must be optimistic. We must believe that that humans will ultimately build a better world, as we are all we've got!
Questioning: We are really only going to make progress if we keep questioning things, and we mustn't be afraid to be questioned. Critical Thinking is an important skill.
PS: I tried to get to a verifiable source of the quotation as Einstein's but have only drawn blanks. It may be a myth. One source said it was quoted in an interview in Life Magazine, May 2, 1955 - but I couldn't find it in the transcript. I would be interested to know if anyone has more information.
At first glance it might seem like a platitude, but I think it neatly sums up the Humanist philosophy.
Learn from yesterday: Don't slavishly follow the handed down 'rules' (such as the so called holy scriptures or church traditions) but look at the successes and failures in human endeavour and learn from them.
Live for today: As there is no afterlife we need to make the most of this life, and we certainly shouldn't expect others to tolerate suffering on the basis that there is better future 'heaven' for them.
Hope for tomorrow: The Humanist outlook must be optimistic. We must believe that that humans will ultimately build a better world, as we are all we've got!
Questioning: We are really only going to make progress if we keep questioning things, and we mustn't be afraid to be questioned. Critical Thinking is an important skill.
PS: I tried to get to a verifiable source of the quotation as Einstein's but have only drawn blanks. It may be a myth. One source said it was quoted in an interview in Life Magazine, May 2, 1955 - but I couldn't find it in the transcript. I would be interested to know if anyone has more information.
Thursday, May 03, 2012
It's been a while
Six years to be precise! To be honest, I had completely forgotten I had created this blog, and it was only the legacy migration reminder from Google that sent me here. Thanks for the interest from somuchtounderstand!
Not of course that I haven't been thinking about things in the intervening time.
The basis of this blog is to start with the underlying Humanist hypothesis that there is no supernatural super-being out there. We have one life ... and each other ... and so we need to work it all out ourselves. The Humanist generally has an optimistic view that humans will tend to figure it all out. Well, we have to, as this is all we have got.
So - if there is a problem to solve - we can't dive in to an ancient book such as the Bible or the Koran for definitive answers. We need to develop answers based in shared human values ... and this is where this Blog comes in.
Let's see where it takes us!
(If anyone has ideas for subjects to look at, add a comment)
Not of course that I haven't been thinking about things in the intervening time.
The basis of this blog is to start with the underlying Humanist hypothesis that there is no supernatural super-being out there. We have one life ... and each other ... and so we need to work it all out ourselves. The Humanist generally has an optimistic view that humans will tend to figure it all out. Well, we have to, as this is all we have got.
So - if there is a problem to solve - we can't dive in to an ancient book such as the Bible or the Koran for definitive answers. We need to develop answers based in shared human values ... and this is where this Blog comes in.
Let's see where it takes us!
(If anyone has ideas for subjects to look at, add a comment)
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