Humanist is a label that has a more positive spin for the atheists to subscribe to. To quote the BBC:
Religious folks are certainly not humanist, but most atheists probably are.While atheism is merely the absence of belief, humanism is a positive attitude to the world, centred on human experience, thought, and hopes.
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If the following is true,
Then "religious people" are excluded, as their source of moral code is mostly from scripture. If religious scripture and humanists share some common values. That's all it is, doesn't make you one or the other.Originally Posted by BBC
Rejection or acceptance of a creator is more of a critical factor here and hence I align them with Atheists.
Well Humanism, at least historically speaking, doesn't stop at critical and rational thinking, it also placed a rather high value on the importance of Mankind, collectively and down to the individual.
Not surprisingly most Religions also show a rather strong bias towards Humans (so lucky that a such variety of gods love us so), so both movements definitely converge here. When you go beyond the "I am the only true god, worship no other" fluff that justifies any brutality and punishment against humans, you are left with religions that much like Humanism naturally seek to celebrate and establish a moral code that benefits what it sees as important, in this case us.
In regards to the quiz, I don't rate humans particularly high and given the evidence presented on the subject I would even say any movement built around critical thinking supported on evidence might be opening a tiny exception when they see us as valuable or even relevant.
That said I still got around 80% on the quiz, but as Rob_B already mentioned its mostly due to how the questions were put. You wouldn't expect a Samsung quiz to tell you not to buy one of their tellies would you?
I'm definitely not a humanist, as I believe in moral absolutism, that there is a definable source of moral behaviour which exists outside of our myriad of global societies. Closest I've been able to pin down, I'm a pantheist, someone who believes that God is the universe, which makes us all, a tiny, tiny part of it all.
I scored only 18% on the Humanist scale, and yet belong to no organised religion, and never have done.
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I don't like the BBC's definition, as it is very exclusive.
Most religious people in western countries get their moral code from secular society rather than from their religion. Just the same as most religious people seek rational human solutions to problems. There are exceptions, like people who go to faith healers to cure their ailments, when a rational solution would be to visit a doctor. They represent a minority of the religious.
To err is human. To really foul things up ... you need a computer.
This seems perfectly understandable to me. Whatever you may or may not think about the finer points of religion, it has and continues to serve I think some important purposes. A sense of identity, a sense of community, a sense you share values with others. I won't defend this claim, but will simply say these are important things to humans. An organization such as the one you link to goes a little of the way to addressing these things that are not normally paired with an atheistic (or even agnostic or secular) view of the world.
It goes a little further also and tries to provide answers to some questions that don't just fall out of the backside of naturalism. For example, given that we think there is no God, how should we treat each other?, or how should we treat animals?, or what is the future for our society? They seem to understand these questions are almost unanswerable in any empirical sense, but full credit to them for provoking their contemplation and attempting to reach a conclusion.
As a child, apart from a couple of occasions, I was never exposed to anything much in the way of religiosity, and since, whether by chance or some unknown guiding social pressure so small it might as well be chance, I don't associate with a great many religious people. My family, apart from the older (mostly deceased) members hold no particular religious views. Religion is never really a topic of debate amongst family, friends, collegues or business accquaintences, and, according to the latest UK census, I live in the most God-less part of the country. I'm quite content with the few religious people I have met where I live and further afield, I'm even happy to listen to radio 4 in the early morning and catch thought for the day, which is sometimes interesting, sometimes thought provoking, but most often banal. I agree that I also hear some horrid things from religious people but off the top of my head I can't recall anything anyone I personally knew has said that gave me pause.
For these reasons, personally, I have never felt any need to stake my values out in any organisation. I don't see myself doing so in the near future either. I could be persuaded perhaps if things started to divert from the above.
I would also say go for it if you think it's important.
To err is human. To really foul things up ... you need a computer.
It's the term "Humanist" that rankles me, rather than anything they may "believe", as it still hints at a degree of arrogance of superiority. Whilst we may indeed be unique, at least within our own galaxy, that doesn't make us special. In fact personally I'd say that it adds a great weight of responsibility that currently we are for the most part doing our best to shirk out of blinkered self interest.
That said it is about time we started to have the debate about such things as external moral absolutes vs. self determined ethics. Perhaps then people will begin to realise that the need for certainty is not proof of "higher influence", but more our fearful reaction to uncertainty. At our deepest emotional level we are still animals, driven and controlled by primal responses such as fight or flight. Somewhat amusingly the Bene Gesserit test for being "human" is not far off the mark, for fear is "the mind killer".
That's not to say that there isn't something more to the universe than, for want of a better word, the mundane. We just need to wake up to the fact that nothing is certain but uncertainty itself, and in doing so start to grow up as a species. Currently we're still acting like spoilt young teenagers, so have a long way to go before reaching what you might call civilised adulthood.
If Wisdom is the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and its deliberate use to improve well being then how come "Ignorance is bliss"
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