Humanism

Nov 17th, 2008 | By Rodrigo Neely | Category: Commentary

It may seem strange for those who regularly read my post, but I think “atheism” is a non-issue.

There is nothing implicit in the lack of belief in god, or gods, that makes me agree with someone on anything else.

I find the word “atheism” to be a word that is necessary, especially here in the religious parts of the U.S., but generally speaking I find this word to be more devoid of meaning than full of meaning.

I rejected belief in god for very specific reasons, which were directly derived from scientific naturalism.

There is no such requirement to meet the condition of atheism.

One could decide that there is no god because the leprechauns are crowding him out and still be athesists.

For me, the important concept is humanism.

Humanism can be a little difficult for me to pin down. Most of the humanist books I have read have been by Paul Kurtz, I have also read Austin Dacey’s book The Secular Conscience, which is definitely a humanist book. Yet the ideas proposed are very, very broad.

I will attempt to pin down humanism as the idea that humanity, itself, is something worth regarding as the inspiration for personal ethics.

I am using the term ethics in its broadest sense here.

Humanism is the inspiration for everything I do which I do not do merely for pleasure.

I think of people, in all their messy naturalistic weaknesses, yet all of their splendor.

I think the first piece of humanist wisdom I read came from Daniel Dennett, who is not usually an ethicist.

Its called Thank Goodness

This is an essay Dennett wrote after heart surgery in response to his religious friends inquiries and prayers when Dennett was so close to death. Dennett argued that prayer was an unethical waste of time, and that Dennett owed his life to basic human goodness in bloom working in concert to save and preserve lives in ways we often take for granted.

When I read this early in my atheist days, I began my transition into humanism.

Today I set all of my major goals, I decide about how I want the whole story of my life to play out, and what should be done to make the world a better place in humanist terms.

In short, if the best hope for humanity really is humanity, this is such an important premise that it should guide us as we all try to make our contributions to the world.