by RWC 72 Replies latest watchtower bible
I know i'm slow off the draw here, but back to the original question of where do we as atheists gain our moral codes from? Since we can pretty well draw our values from any where we want... I find rock n roll a great place to draw wisdom from.
Imagination is more important than Knowledge. Albert Einstein
peacefulpete,
Do'nt you think that the present uncertainties about humanist ethics (both of the authors and readers) is to be expected considering the relative newness of the field.As with any new religion, philosophical wrangling is to be expected, and given enough time should yield a more marketable and practical relevence for its adherents.
I wonder if the arguement you two are engaged in is'nt essentially about interpretation.Yes, when someone has lost the ability to successfully defend an absolutist statement the likes of what JanH stated, they often times resort to the fall back position of hair splitting definition wrangling. It is merely a vain attempt to avoid embarrassment.
The funny thing is that I often times find myself agueing against what I myself believe to be a good thing just to challenge statements that are clearly designed to manipulate.
A much stronger argument could be made that Ethical Relativism is critical to the "principle" foundation for some Humanists.
The problem is that some Humanists want to codify everything. There are some principles that are so lofty that any attempt to fully capture them with mere words, limits and dilutes them the minute they are characterized and codified. I believe them to be living principles that can only truly thrive in an environment of behavioral expression outside the awareness of the individual. This is where I believe the Humanist movement will end up.
This may be the true role for humanists.To be a stabilizing force in a world torn by ideologies. Religion may be simply a term for the attempt to formulate a more detailed pattern for life.In this sense religion is essential for society.Stability is one of the main functions any religion plays in society..... whether it be communism, marxism, Christianity, Hinduism, or secular humanism. Any world view organized enough to disseminate its ideas to a populace is religious by virtue of its function. Whether its evangelists choose to call it a religion or not is more a decision based on marketing rather than Sociology.
The true believers of any movement have no problem with this truth, even if it is only characterized as such privately.
The criteria used by such a religion would no doubt include subjectivity and perceptual norms.Thats OK.I'm in total agreement with this. However, if one of the main marketing tools of an ideology is to deny its religious function and to promote laughable claims about its total objectivity and its adherence to only factual criteria in the expression of such in social policy formation; then a critical mass will be reached where the benefits of dropping such claims will outweigh the liabilities associated with the marketing strategy change.
When that happens, it is then possible for a more relevant religion to emerge for the masses that will no doubt openly include the subjectivity and perceptual norms you describe.
The only problem with that is that you will have exactly the same type of heiarchal religion that we see today with the exception that it's moral foundation will then be openly intrerpreted by those in power; and if information is controlled tightly enough .....completely unchallenged by those subjected to it. I see a sound basis for an eventual Orwellian world when religion is based strictly on an internal perception rather than an external toouchstone.
Adherents of any ideology should openly fight to have all major world views taught, openly debated and fairly critiqued. That is the responsibility of each and every member of this planet IMHO. Without rigorous critique our leaders will inevitably become corrupt and our societies will inevitable be "dumbed down"
After God is gone from the collective mind, the hunger to be led will continue.You can bet that the social engineers understand this fact 100% Are you really so nieve to believe that this will not be exploited to the advantage of the powerful?
Fictious or not, the concept of God is far more critical to freedom than many would like to imagine.
Yet the realities of the 21rst century are irrepressibly eroding the traditional religious foundation that men have leaned upon for millenia.
Recent years have seen a renewed interest in traditional religious perspectives, especially since many have morphed a bit to become a more relevant in a modern world. Can we thank science for this adjustment? Can we thank Atheists for taking a more critical look? Sure we can.
As I suggested earlier I feel their role is limited to a stabilizing effect.To keep before the eyes of the world,logic,scientific advances and internationally recognized human rights. I got to believe you agree with me.Yes, if limited to what you have described, I fully agree thay would be very useful and is a perspective of great value.
What means of personal regulation do you wish to endorse?.... I do wish to know in all sincerity.The kind you described in your question....."personal regulation" If I attend a religion that controls information so tightly that I don't even know what the hell is going on, then my regulation is in actuality oppression.
Likewise, if an ideology serving the same societal function as religion attempts to fly under the religious radar and marries itself to our governments for the purpose of social policy formation, limits the information diversity in our educational institutions, and claims to be the only legitimat world-view; then I am no longer self regulating but a mere ideological drone.
I believe the diversity of ideas is our strongest defense against "group think" and oppression.
I'm for independant press too.If that is your point.
I always appreciate a forward thinking perspective.But rarely can such complex social questions be predicted.You do seem to favor pessimism, at least thats the impression I get.Thats great,the balance requires pessimism too.(read:caution)But to connect the future loss of democracy and freedom with atheism requires clairvoyance.I still have "faith" the essential goodness in men, as well as his tenacious love of freedom would make the outcome you fear unlikely.A much greater imminent threat to public good is irrationalism and superstition.
Gould's position he named Non-Overlapping Magisteria seems to embody my and millions of other's feelings.Science must strive to be free of religious (theist or not)influence.Likewise if religious (again theist or not)systems purport to use science to support it's authority they must be prepared to be challenged on these points. No one believes it is possible to isolate these magisteria completely.All human decisions involve a measure of both.However the more religions are exposed to science the more moderate they become.Inversely the science that respects people is far less likely to horrify us.
Again I ask what would you have us do?Suppress the reality that science has revealed because of some social imperative to believe in God?We must accept the future will not be smooth or perfect but the human race will survive this transformation from theism to humanism.Watch dogs like you will ensure no one opinion will unfairly dominate.
Again I ask what would you have us do?Suppress the reality that science has revealed because of some social imperative to believe in God?
Beleif in an infinite digression of cause and effect events or something from nothing is at least strongly inferred by the atheist if not outright embraced. I ask you a similar question, would you have us pervert science and believe in such unprovable superstition?
Arguments about our origins are really pointless arent they? Does that mean we shouldn't consider ideas about the subject? No, it does mean that people should have available to them all major views on the subject. That would be the scholarly thing to do. Multi-Culturalism demands it.
Are Humanists interested in giving people a fair shot at determining what their world-view options are? Or, do they, like their marxist cousins attempt to control and shape information to further their religious agenda?
The [Humanist] teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach.....The classroom must and will become an area of conflict between...the rotting corpse of Christianity together with its adjacent evils and misery and the new faith of Humanism, respendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian idea of 'Love Thy Neighbor' will finally be achieved."....."The Humanist" for Jan/Feb 1983, John J. DunphyMany Humanists point out that their real enemy is Christianity because it emphasizes a limited role of government as opposed to the one world government agenda. It places great value on the traditional role of family as opposed to the government taking over many of families' traditional functions and the attempts by Humanist to totally redefine the character of Family for the political purposes of social policy formation.
We must accept the future will not be smooth or perfect but the human race will survive this transformation from theism to humanism.It is statements like the one you make above that has thinking people worried that religious and political totalitarianism is the true goal of Humanists, especially in light of their attempts to silence the competition, even though their own fundamental answers to the question of origins rests profoundly in the realm of superstition.
In say 100 years, do you really want your children's children to live in an Orwellian world where the government has taken over most every other institution? If Humanism becomes the only world view, what is there to keep its leaders honest if all other world views have been eliminated from the publics' consciousness?
Our experience from the WBTS should give all of us serious reason for pause when we see any ideology going down the road of censorship and the demonization of its ideological competititors.
Perry
You are on a crusade.I understand now.Quoting the most extreme humanist view to characterize the whole movement.No one cares whether you wish to believe in a divine first cause,noone wishes to take that from you.The concern of most moderns is that we not return to misusing science or silencing progressve thinkers to protect an untenable religious bias.I feel there is litte room left for discussion.All the best to you.
I realize I started this, but you guys have taken it far further than I anticipated. Thank you.
I do have a question. Are you considering humanism akin to a religion?
It seems to me that there will never be a transition from theism to humanism. The more things swing away from religion in a culture, inevitably they swing back. I do not think that the majority of man will ever look to his fellow humans for the needs that are filled by a belief in God. The idea that we are becoiming so enlightened that we will one day be able to rely upon ourselves is thinking that has come and gone again and again throughout history.
Quoting the most extreme humanist view to characterize the whole movement. No one cares whether you wish to believe in a divine first cause,noone wishes to take that from you.
I think that I diversified my quotes enough to disuade the thinking that the quotes were extremist. Humanist Manifestoes I and II are the foundation of the movement.
I think that my previous quote from a Humanist journal from 1983 has proved true. Virtually any discussion of a First Cause and subsequent ethics has been eliminated from public school. While ethics based on the infinite digression of cause and effect events are openly taught. Critics see this as a clear violation of church and state.
RWC:
Many Humanists characterize their world view as religious as can be seen in the preface of humanist manifestoes I and II. Others object to this characterization because it would bring about the responsibilities and limitations of a religion under the constitution.
It appears that the goal of Humanists is a merging of church and state or at least the establishment of a global religion. Political globalists find the tool useful to their agenda.
Perry
If I had greater self control I would have left this discussion,but as it is....There truly is no one voice for humanists.Do not make the error of charactorizing a movement with a few quotations out of context.I am a humanist.I know what I feel.I meet every 3rd thursday with fellow humanists in my town for a topical discussion.Discussion implies a variety of positions.If you were a JW do you not remember the indignance you felt when head bobbing finger pointing born againers would assume to tell you what you believe?They only knew what they had been told or learned in some other second hand fashion.
To debate whether humanism is a religion is again a issue of semantics.Earlier I defined religion as a loose term.Yet when I generally use the word, I am as most are, referring to traditional religion.
I did not challenge your belief in a Divine first cause,and noone scientificlly can.Yet you appear insistant I did.The scientific community as a whole has wisely not attacked anyones belief in such.This is because our science does not yet allow us to pear into the matter adaquately.
What troubles me is that you have used this point as justification to cling to a whole edifice of theology.Conceding there "might" be an intellgent first cause does not mean it is scientific to believe in one. Or not to believe. And it sure does not mean support for belief in the Holy books used in traditional religions.In which are found the Benevolent Father Figure God you worship.
Since you had quoted the Humanist manifesto,I felt I would also.(dispite the fact that this does not represent all who call themselves humanists.and that I personally feel the work can be improved upon,and no doubt will be.)
"The right to believe and practice one's religion or belief without discrimination must be respected.The equivalent freedom,not to practice religion,should be afforded to religios dissenters,agnostics,and atheists,whose view deserve no lesser respect."pg45 Chapt.7
Of couse a conspiracy theorist would say that this is just a cover to conceal our true intentions; to make Orwelian zombies out of everyone!
Now I'm done.
