Re: Humanism in 2006


Roger Johansson wrote:
> Joseph H wrote:
>
> > > Humanism became an influential idea around the year 1500, and it set
> > > off a tendency towards secularisation and rational thought.
>
> > I'm just wondering if you aren't conflating two kinds, or brands, of
> > humanism - the one we know today and which you clearly support and the
> > general drift away from a purely religious mode of thought which
> > occurred in the late Middle Ages. These latter gentlemen - artists,
> > writers and the like - were most definitely not humanists in your sense
> > of the word.
> > But I take your general point about the shift in values during the last
> > half-Millennium. I think, however, that other factors played a
> > prominent role - trade, travel, disease, the fall of Constantinople,
> > the Reformation etc.
>
> I understand your question, because if you look at any single one of
> these philosophers and thinkers we cannot find anywhere the simple and
> clear humanism we can see today. But you have to understand where we
> were in the middle ages. We had hardly learnt to think in rational ways
> yet, most people were still trapped inside a very religious way of
> thinking and a religious way to express themselves even when they could
> think a little outside the religious box.
>
> That's why it has taken us 500 years to get to here from there.
> It was not an easy task. A lot of people wrestled with the only
> thinking mind they had, a religious mind, to find ways forward for
> mankind.
>
> It took centuries of using logic to overcome the belief-based earlier
> ways to think.
> Then it took centuries to realize that logic and math are only tools,
> theoretical models, which have no eternal truth to give us, logic can
> be used to prove practically anything, and we have to use our sound
> judgement to choose the logic models and mathematical formulas we have
> practical use for in certain situations.
>
> So it is not two kinds of humanism, it is the same humanism in
> different historical times. The most basic idea in humanism is to use
> the human as the base for our thinking, not the God.

Yes, but using the human as the base for our thinking is also limiting.
It ignores the wider context - the planet, the cosmos, even existence
itself. Just to ask how we may / should live is not enough - though it
is certainly an improvement on past models. We are not all there is. Do
we have a role in relation to the planet? Do we have a role, or can we
adopt a role, in relation to life? We are the only known creatures who
can ask these questions. Does the fact that this is the case impose an
obligation on us to investigate whether we might adopt a role in
relation to life in general? Clearly, humanists are wary of such
questions. They have cast off a panoply of superstition and do not now
want to don another mantle. But they should be equally wary of
isolating themselves from the rest of life. They might also wonder
whether moral or ideological codes focusing on human beings alone
aren't inherently depleted, offfering us no vision other than our own
(self-)satisfaction. Finally, they might wonder whether any such
self-focusing ideologies will ever have the emotional - and
intellectual - range to supplant the powerful ideologies of the past.
Certainly, there is a move away from religion - but as someone else in
this thread said it is towards secularism alone and not towards any
form of humanism. Is secularism better than religion? Yes, I say - but
it can lead to an emptiness and, through its indiference, it allows the
zealots to beaver away.

Ciao
>
> We had gotten into the church dominated world of the medieval times by
> building a world based on God. That was not a good world, and it was
> hindering development of science and technology, and locked people into
> very restricted ways to think and live. We nedeed to change the most
> basic idea our society was based on. We needed to replace the old
> testament thinking based on God into a thinking based on humans.
>
> The way from the old creator God of the old testament to our secular
> humanism went through the humanitarianism of Jesus for a lot of
> thinkers, so they expressed themselves in religious and spiritual terms
> while they were criticizing the old testament religion, but they
> finally arrived to our modern language and ways of thinking, which is
> caring about humans, wanting to create a better world for humans,
> without having to use religious ideas and the religious secret social
> system at all.
>
> Now we have removed the religion based laws from our law books, we have
> separated the state frrom the church, we have replaced memorizing bible
> verses with science in the schools. Officiallywe are no longer
> dominated by religion in our modern society.
>
> But if we look closer at our social life we find that many religious
> ways to do things are still present, but now as traditions which are
> kept alive by social communication.
> The views of the old testament based on gender roles, initiation
> procedures, mobbing, manly honor, are still present in social life.
>
> So a big part of this job is still not done, we have only removed the
> theoretical and formal superstructures like the church, but people are
> still ruled by old religious laws in their social life.
>
>
> I edited an article in wikipedia yesterday
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_law
> and its discussion page:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Oral_law
>
> My explanation for my change:
>
> Oral law often comes into conflict with modern laws, like when a father
> kills his own daughter to preserve the honor of the family. He is
> following an old oral, or earlier written law in his culture, but
> modern law forbids such action. Many modern laws are written to change
> or counteract old oral laws which now are transmitted as an oral
> tradition. This is an important case as it often happens that people
> continue to follow old traditions and the modern society cannot
> tolerate such behavior. When immigrants from one culture come to
> another country they have to follow the laws in the new country, but
> the cultural pressure in the immigrant community is strong to ignore
> the official laws and follow the old oral laws of their culture
> instead. Many oral laws are _not_ written laws precisely because it is
> no longer legal to follow these old traditions in a modern society. The
> currently valid laws are the written laws. Roger
>
> >From the article page, the actual change:
>
> "From a legal point of view, an oral law can be:
>
> * a habit, or custom with legal relevance or when the formal law
> expressly refers to it (but in this latter case, it is properly an
> indirect source of legal rights and obligations);
> * a command, an order, verbally given, that has to be respected as
> a law (in most modern western legal systems, some dispositions can be
> issued by word in given cases of emergency).
> * a remnant of earlier traditions or laws which are no longer
> accepted or legal, such as the honor laws that says that a daughter who
> has dishonored the family must be killed."
>
> I added the last point here. The rest of the article, before my change,
> only talked about positive aspects of so called oral law, so I thought
> it was important to add the case when oral law and modern law are
> direct opposites of each other.
>
> (Remember (If you look it up in the wikipedia) that wikipedia can
> change quickly, somebody has maybe already removed my edit from the
> article page, but my version is saved in the history of the page.)
>
> Checking it now:
> Yes, somebody quickly removed my point, and wrote this on the
> discussion page:
>
> "Jews do not do honour killings. Are you suggesting that following the
> written religious law should exonerate one from violations of national
> law? You seem to completely misunderstand the topic under discussion
> here. JFW | T@lk 12:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)"
>
> Probably a person who thinks oral law is a specific jewish thing, and
> he does not understand the general case in the world today. That's
> wikipedia today, a battle between defenders of special interests, who
> seldom see further than the tip of their own nose.
>
>
> --
> Roger J.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Humanism in 2006
    ... > humanism - the one we know today and which you clearly support and the ... Now we have removed the religion based laws from our law books, ... Oral law often comes into conflict with modern laws, ...
    (talk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: "Forbidden" science
    ... non-gays often show extreme prejudice against gays. ... Our society has all sorts of laws or attitudes that are not directly ... Again I think science can help us see the importance of ... toss out _all_ religion and toss out spiritual ...
    (soc.religion.bahai)
  • Re: OT: Was Bush validly elected in 2004?
    ... What about the establishment of religion ... state laws that encroach on liberties may ... > I HAVE defended natural RIGHTS, ... > conservatives are either outrightly secular (Dalrymple is an out ...
    (rec.arts.mystery)
  • Re: Saving the children from gay penguins
    ... religion question involved. ... You can try to manipulate it all you want, but you have made a LOT of personal attacks against individuals and their beliefs. ... My contention is, and will be, you can't pick and choose which laws of the bible you want to follow. ... You can't have it both ways, it makes you a hypocrite. ...
    (rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: THATS why.
    ... Creation was an supernatural event that cannot be ... explained with natural scientific laws. ... Forget religion. ... Switch perspectives with the person standing on the side walk and it ...
    (talk.origins)