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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 11/13/2009 : 07:51:26
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I was very careful how I worded the subject of this thread - in particular I didn't want to say "New Humanism verses New Atheism" because almost everyone I know personally in the secular movement are fans of the proponents of both, as am I. By "New Humanism" I'm not referring to what some here have been calling "accomodationalists" to religion. I'm referring to those who are fans of the work of the "four horsemen" but are concerned that their message, by itself, is not enough.
Anyway, the Harvard Chaplaincy just fired off a new webzine called "The New Humanism" and I thought this article very articulately expressed some of the concerns that go beyond mere semantics and arguments over politeness. http://thenewhumanism.org/authors/james-croft/articles/building-the-humanist-movement
It is no surprise that the religious barb that without God there can be no morality continues to strike home. Our champions refuse to raise the surest shield against it: the evocative depiction, using all the tools we have, of what a moral non-religious world might look like. You can argue all you like, as Dawkins does, that the morality of the religious does not in fact come from their religion, or that religion frequently makes people act in strikingly immoral ways, but still the point goes unanswered: what sort of world do non-believers wish to live in, morally speaking?
Already, some readers are squirming. Some atheists are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of presenting a comprehensive "Humanist philosophy," fearing that any such worldview will inevitably become just another ossified dogma enslaving the minds of those it infects. Perhaps this fear is a corollary to the concern Rick Heller describes, the discomfort of some atheists and Humanists in considering the importance of emotion in human life. Perhaps it has more to do with that alternative moniker for the non-religious: "free-thinkers." Reacting against the construction of a comprehensive non-religious worldview is seen, possibly, as another act in the struggle for mental manumission, keeping us free from one more potentially confining framework. |
Croft goes on to call this an "ultra-sceptical" position which should be rejected most importantly for moral reasons. And of course there his point was made for me, because as soon as someone starts talking about the higher moral good I feel like I'm getting a lecture I don't want or need, as I'm sure most freethinkers would. But I tried to put aside that bias and just read his plain message: that if the organized secular movement doesn't stand for some kind of specific moral framework, it ends up being little more than a wrecking ball. We end up being like revolutionaries who work to overthrow the current regime without giving enough clear and conscious thought as to how we're going to run things when we're in charge. In this sense, it is kind of easy to be the underdog. We can bitch about the status quo, and it is always much easier to criticize effectively than it is to pose an effective solution.
Sometimes when I've brought this up to other atheists they sort of scoff at me and say something which implies they believe that of course things would be fine is atheists were the majority. I guess this is because they take their neglected humanist worldview for granted and assume all atheists are humanists. But they aren't. Someone from the local Atheist Meetup just spoke about a new member who expressed such a staunch Objectivist view that when someone else mentioned helping kids in Trenton, NJ through a breakfast program, the Objectivist suggested it would be better to just let those kids starve if their parents can't afford to feed them or won't.
Human morality comes in many different frameworks, and some secular ones can be just as scary and cause just as much human suffering as the worst religious ones. So just as I get irritated when I hear someone on the radio spouting religiously irrational sentiments, I get just as irritated when on Veterans' Day I kept hearing people talk about the tragic "loss of American lives - because my Humanist moral framework values non-Americans equally with Americans, and I want to see that value reflected in the mainstream perspective of my society.
If we want mainstream society to hold certain values, they must be encouraged in the next generation. Just look at the example of gay rights. Young conservatives are less likely to be against gay rights and squeamish about homosexuality in general than liberal elderly people. That changed happened because of what people of the younger generation were exposed to. Kids from the Quaker school and UU communities that I've worked with are much more likely to express a sense of social responsibility and to seek out volunteer work and political activism than the kids I work with in public schools. My mom, on the other hand, works at a Catholic school that focuses more on religious teachings than acting on worldly ethics here and now, so it wasn't a surprise to me when she said her students didn't want to take the offer of being pen pals with kids in a poor Latin American country. The students' reasons: "We don't want to have to read about what they don't have and then feel guilty about everything we have." I can't imagine the kids in my Quaker school expressing such a selfish and materialistic sentiment. Obviously it isn't the kids who are fundamentally different - it's how they are being raised.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Edited by - marfknox on 11/13/2009 07:53:19
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2009 : 09:55:16 [Permalink]
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A lot to chew on there, Marf, but I had a question about this:| Originally posted by marfknoxSometimes when I've brought this up to other atheists they sort of scoff at me and say something which implies they believe that of course things would be fine is atheists were the majority. I guess this is because they take their neglected humanist worldview for granted and assume all atheists are humanists. But they aren't. Someone from the local Atheist Meetup just spoke about a new member who expressed such a staunch Objectivist view that when someone else mentioned helping kids in Trenton, NJ through a breakfast program, the Objectivist suggested it would be better to just let those kids starve if their parents can't afford to feed them or won't. |
While obviously I'm not going to say that any segment of the population uniformly believes in acting one way or another, how representative is this guy? I don't know how many atheists I know and interact with, but I've never heard this sentiment expressed, either in person or on forums like SFN. And perhaps it's a birds-of-a-feather thing, but it's not something I associate much with atheists.
Well-- ok, as I write that, I'll say that I do recall interacting with some atheist-libertarians who, while not saying something like that specifically, have made similar comments. But that's not anywhere near the norm in my experience. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2009 : 11:07:20 [Permalink]
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Yeah, Cune, that's the social Darwinism aspect of Objectivism/Libertarianism kicking in. It's not associated with atheism because whether one thinks social Darwinism is a good thing is largely independent of one's religious views, unless one's religion specifically states that one should help the less fortunate (of course, even then it is often ignored).
marf wrote:| We can bitch about the status quo, and it is always much easier to criticize effectively than it is to pose an effective solution. |
Yup. "Effective solutions" for an entire moral framework are hard work, especially when it has to be contingent upon circumstances. As soon as one tries to create an alternative Ten Commandments, one fails to be flexible. I'm not going to make a stand on principle with the Ethic of Reciprocity if murderous thieves break into my home (I don't think I'd feel the least twinge of guilt about staving their skulls in, either, were I to get the opportunity). So yeah, Croft is right that I (at least) have concerns that promoting any particular moral framework as such would make it look, to many others, like "ossified dogma" right off the bat.
But what Croft doesn't mention is undoubtedly what he did with the prison workshops: simply setting a good example. Croft thinks that humanists need to present a moral framework, but does that need to go beyond presenting oneself as a functional, integrated and likable human being who lives without religion? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/16/2009 : 17:14:04 [Permalink]
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Dave wrote: | Croft thinks that humanists need to present a moral framework, but does that need to go beyond presenting oneself as a functional, integrated and likable human being who lives without religion? |
No, it doesn't. And I didn't take Croft to be saying that we should be presenting that framework as rigid commandments. That's why he concludes that we must become story tellers.
This is rather similar to a debate that many evangelicals have. I've had a couple friends who considered themselves "evangelical Christians" but who never ever proselytized in the rude and annoying manner that is typically associated with evangelicals. They "spread God's word" through example, not by directly telling other people what and how they should believe.
Also, the nice thing about secularists is that even if we present our own alternatives to the Ten Commandments, we'll never be claiming that the authority of God stands behind them. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Bob Lloyd
Skeptic Friend
Spain
59 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2009 : 04:08:17 [Permalink]
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I've come across this argument many times, that if you take away the moral imperative of religion, there's nothing left. It's a complete fallacy because all you've done is to remove the imperative. The morality of society remains, the ethics instead of being justified by ancient religious texts and their intepretations, stand instead on acceptable social practice.
It is then necessarily recognised as historically, socially and politically determined. So we don't actually need to produce any kind of "moral framework" to replace religious values because we already have a wealth of secular values embedded in society. By being drawn into the debate about what replaces religion, we are conceding that religion occupied a necessary position in the first place. And whilst socially and historically it played a role in the development of cultures, such things change.
Religious values may have played a socially cohesive role at some historical and cultural points, but equally caused devastation and slaughter in others. We should see religious values as arising from the development of society, which performed a role in the past but whose role has critically changed now. With the development of a scientific understanding of the world, much of the magical explanations provided by religion are now anachronistic and are largely dropped, but the corresponding religious beliefs and values cling on, kept alive by indoctrination and the power of religious institutions.
We should adopt a historical and political approach to the development of ethics and moral values. So instead of trying to construct some alternative moral framework, we should argue quite simply that society develops its own morality through social practice. Religion doesn't have any particular contribution to make in modern times, its beliefs being increasingly anachronistic and socially harmful. Where there is something of use in religion, we find it is a secular value. |
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Jayhawker Soule
New Member
21 Posts |
Posted - 11/23/2009 : 05:22:03 [Permalink]
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[qoute]It is no surprise that the religious barb that without God there can be no morality continues to strike home.[/quote]
There is some justification to the characterization "religious barb," but one would be wrong to claim that this position is endemic and necessary to [Abrahamic] religion. |
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Merits of New Humanism and New Atheism
