Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (essay 1 now added)

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_Mercury
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _Mercury »

Tal Bachman wrote:However, certain criticisms of secular humanism are quite devastating. And the most incisive and damning criticisms tend not to come from devoted religious apologists (who as a group seem ill-suited to the task of hard, clinical, rational criticism), but from secular thinkers themselves.


i predict within a few years Tal will become a rabid EV. What say y'all?
And crawling on the planet's face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time
And lost in space...and meaning
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

Almost all of this detailing has been done by those who would identify themselves as "secular humanists": those committed to Enlightenment ideals like, inter alia, reason, science, naturalism, democracy, equality, and the possibility of progress in ethics, politics, and happiness through those means.



The Enlightenment has both a light and dark side. Marxism, socialism, communism, the French Revolution, Walden Two, and Brave New World are all as much children of the Enlightenment as are Republican government, political liberty, civil rights, and equality under the law.

One of the primary problems of the 20th century has been, indeed, that reason has become, not just an ideal, as opposed to an intellectual tool useful for certain kinds of work and limited or useless for others, but a totem, and reason, elevated to the level of a totem, gave us the mass graves, gulags, and genocide of the last century, just as, in its proper sphere, it gave us our modern living standards, our prosperity, and the wonders of our technology.

"naturalism" is a philosophy that makes metaphysical assumptions about the universe not subject to empirical verification or falsifiability, and hence, according to Tal's own implications here, should have been left behind with geocentric solar system, or never conceived at all, within the context of Enlightenment rationalism (which was also a bastard offspring of the Enlightenment, not a necessary aspect of the Enlightenment itself).

The rest is rather laughable, as progress in ethics, politics, and happiness though purely human means is probably the greatest non-event of human history. Indeed, the 20th century, the century that saw more blood, more death, more war, and more contrived, engineered, and willfully constructed human misery in the history of all mankind, most of it in the name of scientific social control, reason, equality, and human salvation through rationality, planning, social, cultural, and behavioral control, and material abundance, has been the antithesis of the scientistic and naturalistic conceits and hubris that lie at the core of what is termed "Secular Humanism".

From the Enlightenment, we have Jefferson, Jay, Madison, and Franklin. We also have Hegel, Nietzsche, Comte, Satre and Marx. We have William F. Buckley, and Peter Singer. We have America, and have had the U.S.S.R. Communist China, Cuba, and Nazi Germany. We've had Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger. The Enlightenment gave us Freud, Watson, and Skinner, as well as Maslow. We have embryonic stem cell research (as scientific dead end, but live political issue) and other forms of such research (scientifically valuable, but politically inert).

The Enlightenment gave us the some forty million of the unborn slaughtered since 1973 so we could the better enjoy the fruits and possibilities of its personal liberties and material prosperity, as well as the means to accomplish it.

This is the Pandora's Box of the Enlightenment. much more complex than the simplistic liberation from the darkness of superstition and religion story we've all been told by the secularist mandarins of our intellectual institutions.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.


- Thomas S. Monson
_antishock8
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _antishock8 »

Mercury wrote:
Tal Bachman wrote:However, certain criticisms of secular humanism are quite devastating. And the most incisive and damning criticisms tend not to come from devoted religious apologists (who as a group seem ill-suited to the task of hard, clinical, rational criticism), but from secular thinkers themselves.


I predict within a few years Tal will become a rabid EV. What say y'all?


That's funny. lol...

Mr. Tal, could you get to the point? I'm not sure what you're stabbing at... I will, however, add that Secular Humanism (SH) tends to get lumped in with religionism, which it is clearly not. It's not a worship system, and I hate it when religionists attempt to re-define it along the lines of a pseudo religion. I also dislike it when SH is associated with Communism/Socialism. It's neither a religion, nor a political ideology. It's a position that values humanistic ethics that propel us toward a greater understanding of nature, and hopefully a better world for humanity... Whatever that entails...
You can’t trust adults to tell you the truth.

Scream the lie, whisper the retraction.- The Left
_Coggins7
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _Coggins7 »

Mercury wrote:
Tal Bachman wrote:However, certain criticisms of secular humanism are quite devastating. And the most incisive and damning criticisms tend not to come from devoted religious apologists (who as a group seem ill-suited to the task of hard, clinical, rational criticism), but from secular thinkers themselves.


I predict within a few years Tal will become a rabid EV. What say y'all?



Well, he's already a fundamentalist, in a very real way, and people given to this kind of mentality can tend to lurch from one extreme to another over time.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.


- Thomas S. Monson
_Tal Bachman
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _Tal Bachman »

Mercury wrote:
Tal Bachman wrote:I predict within a few years Tal will become a rabid EV. What say y'all?


---Gimme some credit, bro...!

I hope that was a joke
_The Dude
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _The Dude »

antishock8 wrote:Mr. Tal, could you get to the point? I'm not sure what you're stabbing at... I will, however, add that Secular Humanism (SH) tends to get lumped in with religionism, which it is clearly not. It's not a worship system, and I hate it when religionists attempt to re-define it along the lines of a pseudo religion. I also dislike it when SH is associated with Communism/Socialism. It's neither a religion, nor a political ideology. It's a position that values humanistic ethics that propel us toward a greater understanding of nature, and hopefully a better world for humanity... Whatever that entails...


Does SH entail spirituality? Where does it get its hopeful position?
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond
_antishock8
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _antishock8 »

The Dude wrote:
antishock8 wrote:Mr. Tal, could you get to the point? I'm not sure what you're stabbing at... I will, however, add that Secular Humanism (SH) tends to get lumped in with religionism, which it is clearly not. It's not a worship system, and I hate it when religionists attempt to re-define it along the lines of a pseudo religion. I also dislike it when SH is associated with Communism/Socialism. It's neither a religion, nor a political ideology. It's a position that values humanistic ethics that propel us toward a greater understanding of nature, and hopefully a better world for humanity... Whatever that entails...


Does SH entail spirituality? Where does it get its hopeful position?


I don't think it does, hence the 'secular' part. I think optimism is what drives SH. I just read a great article in this week's Rolling Stone about Dr. Larry Brilliant, a consumate optimist, and sans religious decrees from upon high has done more for humanity that Joseph Smith ever dreamt of doing. His mindset and determination, coupled with brilliance and determination is the kind of moxy that propels humans forward in the face of medieval fatwas, clitorectomies, institutional polygamy, religous wars, and NASCAR just to name a few...

For me, there's a place for rationalism when we talk about The Greater Good. However, human beings, generally speaking, are so bereft of critical thinking skills, so disposed toward credulism, and with such a tenuous grip on progress that I fear one huge step backward will erase so many of our little bumps forward. In other words, rationalists are only good in a freedom-loving environment where an exchange of goods and ideas isn't hampered by oppressive systems forcing draconian codes, ideologies, and customs onto everyone.

That being said, from what I see it's in our nature to destroy what we build. It's not surprising to me that for every Larry Brilliant you have a death cult waiting to retard human progress. I think there's something systemic in the human social dynamic that essentially mimics a life-cycle. Death. Birth. Life. Death. Re-birth. Life. Death. etc... So, while it's natural to want a utopian society where we create and sustain life at its pinnacle, in my opinion humanity, like everything in the Universe, will experience death in one form or another, maybe even repeatedly, but that shouldn't be a reason to not seek understanding. We might as well try to make the best of things while we can... And that's about as optimistic as I'm going to get. ;)
You can’t trust adults to tell you the truth.

Scream the lie, whisper the retraction.- The Left
_LifeOnaPlate
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _LifeOnaPlate »

antishock8 wrote:
Mercury wrote:
Tal Bachman wrote:However, certain criticisms of secular humanism are quite devastating. And the most incisive and damning criticisms tend not to come from devoted religious apologists (who as a group seem ill-suited to the task of hard, clinical, rational criticism), but from secular thinkers themselves.


I predict within a few years Tal will become a rabid EV. What say y'all?


That's funny. lol...

Mr. Tal, could you get to the point? I'm not sure what you're stabbing at... I will, however, add that Secular Humanism (SH) tends to get lumped in with religionism, which it is clearly not. It's not a worship system, and I hate it when religionists attempt to re-define it along the lines of a pseudo religion. I also dislike it when SH is associated with Communism/Socialism. It's neither a religion, nor a political ideology. It's a position that values humanistic ethics that propel us toward a greater understanding of nature, and hopefully a better world for humanity... Whatever that entails...


The religionists who put it in the religion category may have a different view on what constitutes religion. For example, I see everyone on this site as very religious.
One moment in annihilation's waste,
one moment, of the well of life to taste-
The stars are setting and the caravan
starts for the dawn of nothing; Oh, make haste!

-Omar Khayaam

*Be on the lookout for the forthcoming album from Jiminy Finn and the Moneydiggers.*
_LifeOnaPlate
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Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _LifeOnaPlate »

Tal Bachman wrote:
---Gimme some credit, bro...!

I hope that was a joke


I'd say you're already largely EV. Just not in a pro-Christian view.
Last edited by Guest on Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
One moment in annihilation's waste,
one moment, of the well of life to taste-
The stars are setting and the caravan
starts for the dawn of nothing; Oh, make haste!

-Omar Khayaam

*Be on the lookout for the forthcoming album from Jiminy Finn and the Moneydiggers.*
_antishock8
_Emeritus
Posts: 2425
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:02 am

Re: Is Secular Humanism a Fraud? (Target Exmo)

Post by _antishock8 »

LifeOnaPlate wrote:
antishock8 wrote:
Mercury wrote:
Tal Bachman wrote:However, certain criticisms of secular humanism are quite devastating. And the most incisive and damning criticisms tend not to come from devoted religious apologists (who as a group seem ill-suited to the task of hard, clinical, rational criticism), but from secular thinkers themselves.


I predict within a few years Tal will become a rabid EV. What say y'all?


That's funny. lol...

Mr. Tal, could you get to the point? I'm not sure what you're stabbing at... I will, however, add that Secular Humanism (SH) tends to get lumped in with religionism, which it is clearly not. It's not a worship system, and I hate it when religionists attempt to re-define it along the lines of a pseudo religion. I also dislike it when SH is associated with Communism/Socialism. It's neither a religion, nor a political ideology. It's a position that values humanistic ethics that propel us toward a greater understanding of nature, and hopefully a better world for humanity... Whatever that entails...


The religionists who put it in the religion category may have a different view on what constitutes religion. For example, I see everyone on this site as very religious.


Did you have to re-define the word 'religion' in order to make that work for you? What is, in fact, your definition of religion?
You can’t trust adults to tell you the truth.

Scream the lie, whisper the retraction.- The Left
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