The Problem with Humanism…

One of the things that jumps into my mind is how the person who makes the definition gets a certain level of power, fame and/or perhaps notoriety.

I don’t get how something being broad, diverse, and hard to define is a “problem.”

And yes I use the label Humanist and don’t care about any manifestos.

Humanism represents an approach, not a dogma. It represents a commitment to secular reasoning and to doing right by your fellow person.

When Hoffmann describes it as “the garbled message of freedom, science, democratic values, and church-state separation spread out over a playing field with no ball and no rules,” I think it sounds just wonderful.

This argument is not unlike one recently about naturalism by Barefoot Bum. He had the same basic argument, that because naturalism doesn’t have a narrow, concrete, agreed-upon definition, that it has little or no use. Both arguments are poor ones because they deal with orientations towards reality. Such orientations change because our understanding of reality changes, as does human culture.

Humanism is a perspective, one that is itself pretty simple to grasp. That it manifests in messy ways says nothing about humanism itself. And I agree with Zackford: a “garbled message of freedom, science, democratic values, and church-state separation spread out over a playing field with no ball and no rules” does sound wonderful.

Uhgh, if that is what I have to think to use the label, “humanist,” count me out. I’ll stick to atheist and skeptic.

Non-theism comes with no real ascribed creed beyond the functional view of the universe. These various labels may hint at a focus (naturalist, humanist, godless baby eating secularist) but anyone who claims to be able to define a group of non-theist as a “religious” anything is doomed to alienate a good number of that group.

He would have done far better to have worded this as how he views his own mindset and not as he assumes all other humanists feel.

11. We are religious atheists.

Atheism is not an essential ingredient to humanism, nor is it an essential ingredient to secularism. Humanism is about trying to help people here on Earth, it does not require disbelief in an afterlife. If Hoffmann is confused on his basic definitions, maybe he’s not the person to be leading the charge.

That’s right define ourselves into few specific points, eventually a dogma will set in and then we are a cult. As in ZEN don’t limit your vision down a specific path but allow your walk to carry you to where you need to go seeing all open paths.
The various religions and dogmas around the world have made a mess of things which is why Humanism has gone in so many directions. There is so many things messed up!!!
We should keep ourselves loose and open. those who cannot handle openness are straight-jacketed into some religious cult anyway.

Well, I’ve just read the 3rd Humanist Manifesto, put out by the AHA, and I agree with it.

Humanism seems pointless to me. It means everything; it means nothing.
The term is often used by nonbelievers who lack the nerve to call themselves atheists.
It’s like alcoholics who join AA. Why do you need to join a club dedicated to what you don’t do? I can non-drink by myself, thank you.
Maybe I can start a non-skydiving club, but only if I get to be president.

Am I the only one who thinks those “articles” are completely anti-humanist, as reliable as an article on homosexuality written by Fred Phelps?

They remind me of the people who ask “how can atheists talk about morality, since they don’t believe in god”, which is, of course, absurd…

Or the writer mentioned in Pharyngula who thought the atheist conference in Australia was absurd, since what did atheists have to talk about? The fact that they didn’t believe in this or that?

That “manifesto”, for instance, looks just like a parody of liberal thought written by a conservative. “See, they believe in just anything, they’re completely wishy-washy, they have no morals at all”.

I can non-drink by myself, thank you.

Not everybody can. Alcoholism is a disease, and alcoholics have about as much of a chance of “not drinking” by themselves as heroin addicts do of just suddenly deciding they don’t like heroin any more and stopping.

The comments make so much more sense than Hoffman’s viewpoint does. The big problems in the world are so often caused by a mindset that goes into lockstep and becomes exclusive of the views of others, even when those views are badly outdated. We don’t want our secularism to become a crusade. Make peace, not war.

Wow, it is always stunning to see the vast ignorance out there about humanism. First, this Hoffman guy spends half his article critiquing the second humanist manifesto, which is completely out of date anyway and is replaced by the third humanist manifesto, which was written in 2003. Not fair to argue against humanist statements without even acknowledging the existence of the 2003 humanist manifesto.

Second, I would suggest that the word “manifesto” is a really unfortunate choice, at least in a contemporary context, but it was the word used when the first document was written in 1933, so it has been appended to subsequent documents to maintain continuity. But it does give the impression that the document is some sort of creed or dogma, when that is not at all the case. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you read the current version for yourself; it is very brief, just one page, and by some of the comments on here I can tell that many people have not read it but are still feeling free to criticize it. Here’s the URL:

http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_III

@stogoe: What’s the alternative? Nihilism? Apathy? It’s obvious that we have a lot of obstacles towards creating a better future for humanity, and progress is by no means inevitable. But we all know that no god is going to save us, so who is left to do it?

It’s far too easy, I think, to write off our situation as hopeless. The fact is, there are people out there who are working hard every day to make the world a better place, and they are succeeding. Check out this week’s New Yorker for an article about a woman in Haiti who took charge of finding food for her quake-ravaged community and has managed to support hundreds of people through her efforts. I’m glad she didn’t decide that it was “irrational” to believe that humanity could solve its own problems.

To me, humanism means trying to make the world a better place to live and placing the importance of human rights and welfare above any concerns about an afterlife or life after death. It’s possible to be a religious humanist, but it fits more neatly (IMO) with a non-religious worldview.

Humanists naturally oppose that which does harm to humanity (the Zeroth law!) – so if the Vatican is trying to discourage condom use in countries where they could improve health and life for the inhabitants, they’ll condemn that – but not because they’re anti-religious. They’re pro-humanity. If a religious group is working to get clean water or a steady food supply to an impoverished area, Humanists would praise such efforts, because it helps humanity.

:: winks at Stephan Goodwin ::

To me the word Humanist is fine. But I define it broadly as somone who supports all of Humanity as a whole, and not to some version of tribalism Ie. racism, nationalism, religious denominations and so forth.

Can you be a humanist and a misanthrope?

One of the things that drew me to this whole atheism-secularism-humanism thing was the lack of a dogmatic approach. If people are looking to “belong”, then join a political party or a charity group.

No, it’s too religious for me. And I don’t call myself Humanist because I don’t give two shits about either Humanist Manifesto.

In short, I rather loathe Humanism but for different reasons than this asshole.

But, yeah, hello, he’s right about one thing, ATHEISM doesn’t stand for anything. The only stand I make in regards to my absence of belief is there is no god.

I make plenty of stands about plenty of things, mind you, but it’s irrelevant (except in the sense that it affects my worldview as in my mind is free to be open to certain things religion would close it to like not beating my child or freaking out because the guy next door is rather sweet on the guy a block over for instance) to my Atheism.

I don’t think being a Humanist in any way means you have to ascribe to a manifesto (or anything else, for that matter).

I actually worked at the American Humanist Association while one of them was being written. I read it, commented, added my thoughts, etc. and we published it. I think parts of it are meaningful to me and other parts are completely useless.

Unlike “some people,” my beliefs and convictions aren’t based on something written on a piece of paper.

“Rainbow Love”
Fuck me. I would never dare suggest that to my humanist group here. I’d be tarred and feathered and rode out of town on a rail.

So much for rainbow loving humanists.

I think we’re a little more down to earth hereabouts.

I myself have a longing for something more “spiritual” but I would never go that overboard.

I usually identify myself as a secular Humanist. It sounds more professional than atheist. Most importantly it begs people to ask wtf it means to be a secular Humanist whereas people pretty much assume they know what you’re talking about when you say atheist (Hitler, baby eating, etc). When people inquire further I usually say something along the lines of “It’s the belief that humans should take responsibility for themselves.” It’s an easy sell/conversation starter in addition to being quite a hard statement to disagree with.