A PERSONAL VIEW
I am a member of the BHA but, typically, do not agree with all of their methods. I am very much against strong rhetoric and evangelising or proselytising in any form.
But I do believe that NO single belief system should have any influence in how the country is run outside of expecting the state to recognise them and permit them to operate providing they do not infringe on the civil rights and liberties of any other group or individual. This is a view shared by others and the reason you rarely find Humanists standing on street corners shouting at the passers by.
For me Humanism both generates and solves problems. Though it is not onerous
I feel a responsibility to all other people -
The other side of the coin is that I do not feel that I have to answer to a higher authority, within the law my decisions are purely my own and my actions are entirely my responsibility, I can’t pass them on in any confessional (though confession is not always a bad thing).
It is not always a comfortable belief, but since I was always in trouble for asking “irreverent” questions in Sunday school and in RE in my state school (the 1950s version of RE) it was an inevitable ethical “home” for me. I found Humanism (literally, on a notice board on a meeting room) at the age of 13 and realised I was not the only one thinking the way I did!
A BRIEF LOOK AT HUMANISM
“Humanism: a rationalist outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than supernatural or divine matters”
Oxford Dictionary.of English
“Humanism is an approach to life based on reason and our common humanity recognising that moral values are properly founded on human nature and experience alone.”
About 400 BCE the Greek philosopher Protagoras said, “Man is the measure of all things.” The full statement is taken to mean that mankind developed the moral rules by which he lives rather than some supernatural power. So Humanist thought goes back a long way!
Humanism has an ethical structure that holds that all members of mankind are
wholly responsible for their own actions. This is actually a large burden but need
not be onerous, much of it can be exercised in one’s day by day behaviour, driving
with respect for others for example. It does however very much encourage the Humanist
to act in an honest and ethical manner. In certain respects the it is little different
from any other belief system that holds the basic moral “toolkit” to be the way to
live -
The commandment, “Do unto others as you would have do unto you” predates Christianity
and has variations in almost all western and eastern religions -
Humanism has never organised itself in the way that the major religions do, there
is an international umbrella organisation and there are national organisations, but
a lot of work is also done in local groups -
“The unexamined life is
not worth living.”
“The unlived life is not worth examining.”
Anon.
“If you are a Humanist that means you care about other human beings, and everything
you do affects other human beings, so you have to think about that -
“I’m an atheist and that’s it. I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.”
“Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.”
John Morley
“Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
NOTABLE HUMANISTS AND ATHEISTS
As briefly mentioned above the debate about where our moral sense came from is fundamental to Humanism. Was it religion that Was the sole source of the values by which we live. Which religion? Different religions have different values. Or are those values inherent in the human mind, developed in our hominid antecedents tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago? Do we have a “template” in our minds that is just waiting for the right shapes, similar to that which we appear to have for language. And language and morality may be strongly linked.
The following article attempts to answer some of these questions:
The British Humanist Association has officiants, trained and accredited, to carry out alternative life ceremonies; naming, a form of marriage (including single sex joinings) and funereal. These people are not “ministers,” they are people with empathy and the ability to deliver a moving ceremony to invoke the joy or ease the pain of others.
“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”
“It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty.”
Linda Smith, the late well loved comedian, was the President of the BHA up to her death.
There are many more peers, academics, writers etc. Who support Humanism.
Roy Hattersly Ian McEwan
Claire Rayner Laurie Taylor
Terry Pratchett Philip Pullman
Isaac Asimov Havelock Ellis
Jane Asher Ludovic Kennedy
BBC ETHICS AND FREE THOUGHT MESSAGE BOARD
These are the opening “posts” on the current Ethics and Free Thought Board
Want to join? CLICK HERE
NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN...
I have been enjoying some of the debates on the BBC Religion and Ethics Notice Boards for the last few months
There are a lot of debates that I keep out of because they require one to have read a specific book, especially Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”. Others delve into such depths of philosophy that, despite it being a subject that fascinates me, I run out of mental breath very quickly.
There is also a great deal of “talking through one’s arse”, but that’s inevitable. These boards are bound to attract everyone from the rabid fundamentalists to the liberals. Though there is a great deal of fairly serious stuff humour is not unknown, neither is insult, despite it being against the rules.
The BBC “moderates” each new member for a few postings, until they are confident that the member is “safe” to let loose. After this the members monitor themselves, if you think that a posting has broken the rules you report it and it is checked. It may or may not be “hidden”, depends a bit on who does the checking it seems.
At first I just took my lead from the other posters, but one quickly develops a style that is comfortable. I started of being a bit aggressive towards the “theists”, those that follow any religion that has a god or gods that are worshipped, but have now become a bit more balanced. Even atheists make bad arguments at times.
Supporters of ID pounce. When the use “theory” in everyday speech, “It is my theory,”
the word is synonymous with “idea”, “opinion” etc. We use it to denote a bunch of things
that are just immaterial entities in our
minds.
In science “theory” has a special meaning, it means a body of fact that leads us to a valid
Conclusion that is demonstrable in the real world. In order to disparage evolution as being
merely a theory one would also have to debunk the theory of gravity, atomic theory, the germ
theory of disease etc. Etc.
There is another who has said this far better than I and below is a link to the YouTube videos
That he has produced. If you are a Creationalist please let me know if you can produce a more
coherent and robust argument against evolution!
There are several videos in the set, all are worth watching.