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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 10:27:59 [Permalink]
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Mooner.....
Are you, or any others reading this, aware of any fairly firm statistical data (polls, studies, or the like) indicating what the past and present state of the "growth of the movement" (as you implied) is? I subscribe to Rasmussen, and frequently look at other national polling organizations data on religious affiliation, and "do you believe in God" etc.; but to your knowledge is anyone really tracking the growth or spread of atheism, or for that matter, skepticism, in this country (or the world?) |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 10:55:13 [Permalink]
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Marf:
Also, most Humanists identify as Humanists, not secular humanists, and I've never read a fundamentalist criticism of "humanism" without the "secular". |
Doesn't matter. Call yourself a humanist and fundamentalists will tag secular on to the phrase, like it or not. Just the way creationists call us “Darwinists” or “evolutionists.” One way or another they will assign a negative religious connotation or dogma on to anything that contradicts what they believe. It serves them to portray us as having some kind of religion because in that way they can claim that their dogma is better than our dogma. Reality is much more difficult to argue against…
Basically, they live by fallacies of logic and assign the same fallacies of logic to anyone who dares to call them on it.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 11/18/2007 : 12:32:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Gorgo wrote: | Now, it's true, that a lot of those issues can be handled by more inclusive groups like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, or even the ACLU, but I think there is a place for us to learn, as atheists, our own heritage, and to stand up and be counted as atheists. |
This sentiment reminded me of this sermon:
http://www.skepticfiles.org/human/ynotuudo.htm
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That's cool. My wife and I tried to attend the UU Church a few times. Some of the members were also in our peace group. The train station analogy was pretty good, although the core of the church were long-time members, of course. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 12:49:49 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Go to the Brights' website. It is meant to be a catch-all term for people with naturalistic worldviews which includes Humanists. |
Yes, I am well aware of that, marf, as I am also well aware of the PR nightmare that is self-identification with the Brights (as Dawkins and Dennet did).| No, the term "secular humanist" has been tarnished in fundamentalists communities and that is all. |
I really don't care about the people you've met, marf, the terms "humanist" and "secular humanist" will go the same way as "atheist" so long as the fundamentalists take more time at the microphones than other people, especially the humanists. This is why "atheist" is now thought of as a synonym for "anti-theist" in the general population, rather than it's original meaning of "without theism" - because the anti-atheists were and still are allowed to relentlessly abuse the term. Given enough (relative) silence from the humanists, the terms they use to self-describe will be defined by the fundamentalists, no matter how "absurd" the definitions seem to us. This is the trap that Harris speaks of. By refusing to self-identify with any particular label (especially ones already loaded with "Culture War" baggage), we escape the trap (though I see no reason to also fly below the proverbial radar).| As for the article on Christian Answers, it was accurate (assuming we use the broad definition of "religious worldview" to include naturalistic ones... |
So you're agreeing with the author that the secular humanists are being dishonest: that they're anything but secular, but pretend to be so that they can get their religion taught in public school science classes despite the Constitution.| Secular humanism as Humanism are worldviews. They are atheistic. They accept evolution. They don't have an absolute moral code (although the article horribly simplified humanist ethics in a way that makes them seem almost like "anything goes".) Harris is right that atheism is not a worldview, but Humanism is. I don't see the point of denying this or refraining from forming communities and a social-political movement based on it. |
Then "Humanism" as a label fails to "work" for those of us who would rather not be thought of as religious. |
- 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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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 16:10:59 [Permalink]
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Labels are just that. As others have pointed out, their perceived meaning is often not the meaning that those who choose them understand. Even if we had some new made up word that had no historical baggage, given enough time it'd end up with the same problems that most of the current terms do.
I am an atheist, and if someone brings it up, I'll generally try to point out that while the label is accurate, it's far from a complete description of me. I like to use the "not collecting stamps is not a hobby" thing as an metaphor.1
Sometimes, however, a sensible discussion isn't possible or appropriate. If it's at a function/gathering where I think it could be an issue, I just try to say something like:
My position on religion is fairly strong, and somewhat negative, and it's one of the topics I love to discuss. However, it can make some people uncomfortable and isn't something we can deal with in 90 seconds, so I won't take it personally if you'd rather discuss something else.
A little wordy, I know, but generally it doesn't offend anyone too badly, and I don't feel like I had to lie or be deliberately obfuscatory just to avoid discomfort.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
| Edited by - JohnOAS on 11/18/2007 16:11:47 |
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The Rat
SFN Regular
Canada
1370 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 17:14:29 [Permalink]
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| I grew unsatisfied with 'atheist' years ago. First, it seems to presuppose the existence of a god that I choose not to believe in. Second, it's a negative term, describing me by what I don't believe in rather than what my actual philosophy is. I prefer 'naturalist'. |
Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.
You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II
Baculum's page: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3947338590 |
| Edited by - The Rat on 11/18/2007 17:14:57 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 20:55:49 [Permalink]
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Kil wrote: | Doesn't matter. Call yourself a humanist and fundamentalists will tag secular on to the phrase, like it or not. Just the way creationists call us “Darwinists” or “evolutionists.” One way or another they will assign a negative religious connotation or dogma on to anything that contradicts what they believe. It serves them to portray us as having some kind of religion because in that way they can claim that their dogma is better than our dogma. Reality is much more difficult to argue against… |
And Dave wrote: | I really don't care about the people you've met, marf, the terms "humanist" and "secular humanist" will go the same way as "atheist" so long as the fundamentalists take more time at the microphones than other people, especially the humanists. This is why "atheist" is now thought of as a synonym for "anti-theist" in the general population, rather than it's original meaning of "without theism" - because the anti-atheists were and still are allowed to relentlessly abuse the term. |
People who want a worldview label and community to go with it (such as myself) shouldn't let groups who wish to eradicate or defame us control how we identify ourselves. A big part of why I don't called myself a secular humanist is because that label was inspired by criticism from fundamentalists. Humanism and Ethical Culture, on the other hand, rose up independently in the aftermath of the Enlightenment as positive new lifestances for these modern times.
As for atheism being associated with anti-theism, modern fundamentalism isn't responsible for that. Atheism has a much longer history of being demonized.
If anyone asks me if I'm an atheist, I will honestly answer yes, and hopefully I'll have the chance to qualify what that means with regards to my personal worldview. But I'm not just an atheist, I'm a Humanist, and proud of it. I just came home from officiating a beautiful Humanist wedding ceremony. I'm still wearing my celebrant's outfit with my happy human necklace around my neck. I will emcee my local group's HumanLight party in December. I will attend our community's events with joy and sense of real camaraderie. Assholes who fear my worldview and want people like me to change or disband will not frighten me into re-defining myself or distancing myself from a social group that affirms my strong-held beliefs and ethics.
Dave wrote: | Then "Humanism" as a label fails to "work" for those of us who would rather not be thought of as religious. |
IMO, those who do not want to be thought of religious shouldn't use a single label for their worldview and shouldn't join communities which are united under a single worldview. If people want to fight only the political battles, go join Americans United for the Separation of Church and State or the Interfaith Alliance or ACLU – where your personal worldview is irrelevant to the socio-political causes being fought for. My defense of Humanism is not a criticism of Sam Harris's talk. I agree with Harris on this issue. I simply think that Humanism doesn't apply to his criticism because it is in fact a worldview, and NOT one that is defined by being against religion.
Many atheists and agnostics do not have a desire for labels and communities. Hell, that's probably the majority of them. People like Kil, for example. My husband is also that way. He has no single or primary label for his worldview. That's great! I think what Sam Harris is advocating in his talk is already the reality for most non-theists. That's exactly why we have so many labels and the majority of us won't rally around just one. That's why the "Bri |
"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 11/18/2007 20:56:42 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 22:11:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
People who want a worldview label and community to go with it (such as myself) shouldn't let groups who wish to eradicate or defame us control how we identify ourselves. |
No, you shouldn't. The question is, how are you going to reclaim your identity?| IMO, those who do not want to be thought of religious shouldn't use a single label for their worldview and shouldn't join communities which are united under a single worldview. |
Nobody joins any community simply by calling themselves an atheist, but there are plenty who attack all atheists as being religious anyway. That's why Harris is arguing against using the term.| My defense of Humanism is not a criticism of Sam Harris's talk. I agree with Harris on this issue. I simply think that Humanism doesn't apply to his criticism because it is in fact a worldview, and NOT one that is defined by being against religion. |
Okay, we need to back up a bit. You offered up "Humanist" in response to Dude's query, "But how do we take our rationalist, empiricist, pragmatist, critical thinking, scientific, evidence based worldview and condense it down to a single word or phrase that accurately defines it?" You asked, "So what's the problem with this label?" I've been trying to tell you what the problem is, the main one being that it has already been co-opted by the religious fanatics in the culture war to mean something that it doesn't mean, just like the term "atheist" has, and the humanists aren't screaming loudly enough to win the terms back (top Google slots are dominated by fundies, and the first defense I found is from 1997 - perhaps I'm missing the battles, or the humanists really are being complacent). The word also has religious connotations (from the group's inception) that properly do not belong in the condesation that Dude is looking for.| Yes and no. No, they are not being dishonest so that they can violate the Constitution. Good science is good science and should be taught in school. And evolution is good science, period. |
But you're just contradicting the fundies' "evolution is a tenet of the humanist religion," and thus from a PR point-of-view it looks like you're saying nothing more than "is not." Because they agree (loudly!) that good science is good science and should be taught in school. They've already framed the issue that way, and are using it to attack Humanism (which they freely use as a synonym of "secular humanism"). In other words, what you've said is absolutely correct, but will have no effect because you're tacitly agreeing to argue on the slanted playing field the fundies have created for just that purpose.| Are secular humanists dishonest? In my opinion, yes, to some degree they are. |
And by admitting as much (even though you clearly re-defined the terms), you are, once again, falling into the fundies' trap. They weren't saying that the word "secular" is dishonest because it confuses atheism for religious neutrality. They're saying that the "secular" bit is dishonest because everyone knows that the word means "religiously neutral" but the secular humanists are a religion just like fundamentalist Christianity is a religion.
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By the way:| The term was coined by Paul Kurtz when he broke away from the American Humanist Association and founded the Council for Secular Humanism. |
Perhaps Kurtz is so much a "glory hound" that that's the story he tells, but your own quote of Justice Black comes from 1961, or eightteen years before the break between Kurtz and the AHA. |
- 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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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 00:46:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Mooner.....
Are you, or any others reading this, aware of any fairly firm statistical data (polls, studies, or the like) indicating what the past and present state of the "growth of the movement" (as you implied) is? I subscribe to Rasmussen, and frequently look at other national polling organizations data on religious affiliation, and "do you believe in God" etc.; but to your knowledge is anyone really tracking the growth or spread of atheism, or for that matter, skepticism, in this country (or the world?)
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No, I don't know of any such scientific poll, except as mentioned by Sam Harris in his recent speech. And as Harris says, there is a lot of doubt that people speak honestly to pollers on such a touchy subject. It's my impression none the less that atheism is growing mightily, partly due to a reaction to the theocrats in this country and the 9/11 Muslim fundy jerks. I suspect people are both being "converted" to atheism, and that the sizeable existing minioritry of atheists are coming out. Atheists have "the big mo," I think.
But no, I've got no proof. But just look at how books by atheists are selling. I suspect the same thing's happening in the USA as happened much earlier in Europe. We're just decades behind, is all.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 01:54:51 [Permalink]
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The more I think about this topic, the more I think Harris may be right.
Hitchins gets a certain amount of visceral appeal with "anti-theist", and there isn't much of his position on religion I disagree with. There is little doubt in my mind that I am an athiest and an anti-theist.
The "bright" thing never appealed to me at all. It just seems over the top. Look at us, we're brights, and you are dims! Yeah, they don't say that, but that is what their title makes people (even me) think.
Humanism, secular humanism, aren't bad as far as that goes, but they are to soft. They seem to lack the skeptic element with regard to all claims of fact.
Its a strange thing, that there may be no word or phrase in the English language that could be used to describe a rationalist, empiricist, pragmatist, critical thinking, scientific, evidence based worldview.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Halcyon Dayz
New Member
Netherlands
27 Posts |
 Posted - 11/19/2007 : 07:26:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Its a strange thing, that there may be no word or phrase in the English language that could be used to describe a rationalist, empiricist, pragmatist, critical thinking, scientific, evidence based worldview.
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Sounds like skepticism to me.
Very old word too. |
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. -- Don Marquis
"The universe is a strange, practically incomprehensible place. But that is how things are, and no amount of wishing that things are really the way we perceive them will change that." - The Black Cat |
| Edited by - Halcyon Dayz on 11/19/2007 07:30:48 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 08:11:22 [Permalink]
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This dead horse still looks like it could use a beating,
The anumenists are still taking applications (current membership of 1) however there are strict rules against making anumenism into a political group or social cause organisation. The term will be limited to your personal views and nothing more. (Those without religious or spiritual characteristics.) Though you may feel free to be a anumenous atheist or anumenous humanist, etc. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 11/19/2007 08:14:35 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 08:54:24 [Permalink]
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Marf:
Many atheists and agnostics do not have a desire for labels and communities. Hell, that's probably the majority of them. People like Kil, for example. |
I'm just saying that however we identify, it will be used by those who view us as the enemy in a way we did not intend. I see no way out for that. I might agree with Harris, but on the other hand if someone asks me I will tell them that I am agnostic and an atheist and then go on to explain why, if I can.
Mostly I identify as a skeptic. And even that sometimes takes a whole lot of explanation to the uninitiated.
I guess what I am saying is I can't be bothered by how my worldview is going to be perceived and twisted by those who don't agree with me. It's going to happen.
No word that we come up with to describe a common worldview that includes a non-belief in God will change that.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 09:04:19 [Permalink]
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BPS said:
This dead horse still looks like it could use a beating,
The anumenists... |
My point was (and still is):
None of the labels make a strong positive claim. Is there any real doubt among most of the people who frequent this forum that the outcome of a rational and empirical (evidence and reality based) worldview is better (literally better) than the outcome of any faith based wordlview?
But how do you, if it is even possible, label this type of worldview in a way that isn't going to be percieved as just telling people they are wrong? I mean, we are naysayers, debunkers, and skeptics, but the outcome of our type of naysaying, debunking, and skepticism has (so far) been the science that enables the modern world. Surely there has to be a way to sum that up in a word or phrase that makes a positive assertion itself? And if not (which I suspect), then Harris may have the right of things, and we need to stick to the business of challenging the nonsense, one specific claim at a time. Which we would do anyway.... so maybe it is, as BPS says, a dead horse.
(slightly OT, but with some bearing on the point I'm trying to articulate)This lecture offers some explanation, based in current neuroscience, about why religion flourishes.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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1 hour of unwasted time
