Are you a Humanist?

Watched The Big Questions on BBC1 earlier and frankly found a lot of the religious comments to be disturbing.
I've been happy not aligning myself with any secular group, but lately, I've been feeling that it would better if I could be around like minded people.
On the show, there was a guy from the British Humanist Association, who was one of the rare non scary people on the show, so I thought that I would find out more - turns out that their acronym is the same as my football team - must be good then :)
Anyway I'm not going to say anything about my personal views on religion, other than I think it is time for non religious people to make their presence in society more apparent.
There is a quiz on the BHA home page - I am 100% humanist
https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/how-humanist-are-you/

I watched that this morning !
I got married in a church only in my view that it is a traditional thing to do as i do with Christmas and easter .. I don't believe unless i see the prove in-front of my eye's !
I did the test and got 100% as well :)

Certainly. Most people are, including most religious people.

My Grandad had a humanist funeral. Very impressed, lovely ceremony.

I got married in a registry office as I didn't want to be part of anything religious, When my mother died an agonising cancerous death I insisted to my Dad who agreed 100% we have a non religious funeral as there was no god, or if there was he is an evil bastard.

The humanist who did the service at the crematorium was very good, even the religious odd bods commented on his method.

I never push my views on others, we have religion in the Family and I let them get on with it, respectfully asking to be no part of it.

I probably am, if very informally. I hesitate to identify myself too closely to any -ism, but broadly, I guess I'm agnostic, rationalist, skeptic, humanist and secularist, probably with a dash of a few other things.

I don't necessarily believe in things I can't see evidence for, but don't rule them out either, unless I can see evidence for that. And I certainly don't think ANY religious group should be defining standards or principles by which anyone not of that belief is required to live, nor should any religious group be advantaged, or disadvantaged, over members of any other group or of none, by the state.

I certainly have no issue with any religious person believing what they wish, or practising in any way provided they don't seek to affect or control those not of their faith.

The one religious group I do (or rather, did) have a problem with is Jehovah's Witnesses, on the basis that they keep (or kept, they seem to have stopped now) banging on my door pestering me with their rubbish. And personally I have no problem with them, just so long as they leave me alone.

I'd probably tick the right tickboxes to pass the test, but I suspect I'm not humanist. With 7 billion people killing off wildlife and each other to overpopulate and destroy, human is not a badge I wear with pride.

Nope, although looking at that quiz I found myself often wanting extra answers to those provided, and while reading the "What is humanism?" page of the website I found the definition of humanism rather vague. So I might well agree with a good deal of 'humanistic' values or ideals, but couldn't ever be a humanist in that it seems a big part of definition is a negative statement about God, that is, what they don't believe, rather than what they do. I'd want more definite, positive, statements about what humanism, and why one should subscribe to it, before I could considering subscribing in part or whole, because the video fails to address how one might differentiate between individual, opposing 'meanings'.

I got 100% in their test, but if I am asked to define my religion I normally say atheist. I guess you can be both though?

I didn't see the show, I was watching Tree Fu Tom and Chuggington, but I read the fallout on Twitter. Apparently none of those representing religions came out very well. The 'Humanism is Demonic' comment got a few laughs...

I only managed 61%, wonder what I picked that wasnt humanist...

Doesnt matter, I dont require a box to fit into, quite happy accepting that life has no purpose beyond what you make of it and that it just ends.

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Originally Posted by TeePee

Certainly. Most people are, including most religious people.

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Indeed, the two terms are not mutual exclusive.

Got 77%.
Don't know what it means and don't really care much.
I'm too busy living my life and not being a total [expletive], which seems to be the fundamental idea behind most religions anyway... Don't need some scripture to tell me I should try and be nice to folk!

I donated to the BHA once (why? I can't recall, now stop sending me mail!) so I guess I am. Quiz says 100% but the answers were pretty much:

I believe in God
I'm a selfish douche
I'm a nice person

So it's a bit obvious what you'll get.

As I'd love to say to my religious in laws...

"I'm a good person because I want to be, not because I'm scared what will happen if im not"

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Originally Posted by BobF64

I only managed 61%, wonder what I picked that wasnt humanist...

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Does that mean you are an inhumanist? :)

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

My Grandad had a humanist funeral. Very impressed, lovely ceremony.

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So did my wife's.

Whereas we went to a Catholic wedding at around the same time, which thought it necessary to include how anyone who died without converting to Catholicism was going to hell. She nearly walked out crying.

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Originally Posted by directhex

So did my wife's.

Whereas we went to a Catholic wedding at around the same time, which thought it necessary to include how anyone who died without converting to Catholicism was going to hell. She nearly walked out crying.

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Sad to hear that for the people involved, but I always find it a bit off expecting people with religious views to conveniently dilute them to suit fashion or circumstance. You end up with humanism or New Labour.

Humanist is a label that has a more positive spin for the atheists to subscribe to. To quote the BBC:

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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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Religious folks are certainly not humanist, but most atheists probably are.

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Originally Posted by wasabi

Sad to hear that for the people involved, but I always find it a bit off expecting people with religious views to conveniently dilute them to suit fashion or circumstance. You end up with humanism or New Labour.

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Is being a dick to people a core part of the religious experience?

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Originally Posted by narz

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.

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On the contrary, it is quite possible for 'religious people' to embrace humanist values - it is the reverse that is unlikely to be true.

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Originally Posted by directhex

Is being a dick to people a core part of the religious experience?

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Is the Pope Catholic? ;)

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Originally Posted by directhex

Is being a dick to people a core part of the religious experience?

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It was originally "be a dick towards everyone not of your religion", but they dropped the religious requirements.

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Originally Posted by peterb

On the contrary, it is quite possible for 'religious people' to embrace humanist values - it is the reverse that is unlikely to be true.

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If the following is true,

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Originally Posted by BBC

Humanists believe that human experience and rational thinking provide the only source of both knowledge and a moral code to live by

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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.

Rejection or acceptance of a creator is more of a critical factor here and hence I align them with Atheists.

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Originally Posted by narz

Then "religious people" are excluded, as their source of moral code is mostly from scripture.

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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. :mrgreen:

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? :p

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Originally Posted by directhex

So did my wife's.

Whereas we went to a Catholic wedding at around the same time, which thought it necessary to include how anyone who died without converting to Catholicism was going to hell. She nearly walked out crying.

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Didn't get an address for the Catholic Hell by any chance? I'd like to make an advance booking, just in case it's full when I get there.

:D

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Lucio

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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Have to say i'm fascinated by this idea and want to hear more! What makes you think this? I don't want to assume too much but I suppose therefore you try to live your life on the 'good' side of this definable source?

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Originally Posted by peterb

On the contrary, it is quite possible for 'religious people' to embrace humanist values - it is the reverse that is unlikely to be true.

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Yea i'm all for discrediting silly sweeping generalisations by providing one of my own. :D

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.

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Originally Posted by snedger

...
I've been happy not aligning myself with any secular group, but lately, I've been feeling that it would better if I could be around like minded people.
...
https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/how-humanist-are-you/

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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.