Back when Dawkins and Hitchens were prominent atheists debating religious people, as a viewer, I saw atheism as active opposition to enemies of reason. I still think atheist has a place to keep religion in check in some ways, but gradually humanism, even during that time humanism was getting more popular. I think atheism just doesn’t have good press and at the end of the day, most belief sysytems are tied to tradition and ritual.
Humanism is a preferable way of conceptualizing our human experience that allows for more wonder than people think atheists have, so I’d agree that if we’re going to replace religion with humanism, I’d be much more comfortable governing a society on those principles than the ones we have now.
Sorry, part of that first paragraph was incoherent. Clumsy thumbs… I will say I identify as an atheist myself but it is lonely if you’re shunning community celebrations. I do teach my children humanist principles (of sorts) that are more intuitive and not anything I’ve read extensively. I think people want to do the right thing at the start and all these incentives not to get in the way. That or they learn that humanism doesn’t serve them as much as misanthropy.
My take: I love everything Elle writes about Humanism, but that all falls short of what Religion provides.
To paraphrase the great mythologist Joseph Campbell, Myth (or "Religion", we can say here) has several purposes. One is to tell us How to Live. Humanism as Elle describes it does that beautifully. But Myth also tells the human community Where We Come From. Where We're Going, and Why We're Here.
Secular Humanism just doesn't have those answers. Nor does Science. From all I can tell, if you peer deeply enough into Cosmology, Neuroscience, or Physics, the answers to those questions is always, "We don't know." or "Science can't answer that." So those of us who care about answering those questions must look again to Religion or Myth.
Thank you for contributing this idea in such a respectful manner! I can definitely appreciate those who want to look to religion or myth for those answers, and can see the beauty in having that. I love that Humanism provides us a middle ground where we can still meet, even if we turn to different places for different myths!
I like what you're pointing to here, and I'm a big fan of humanism and humanist thought.
I also think it's worth noting that *secular* humanism has had a poor track record when it comes to instituting religion in a traditional sense. Efforts like the religion of humanity from Auguste Comte or the church of humanity from Richard Congreve swiftly failed in the 1800s. And contemporary efforts like Sunday Assembly or Oasis have had lackluster results. To my knowledge, there's not a secular organization that has managed to replicate the communal strength of religion, especially when it comes to offerings for kids.
This isn't to say that secular humanism is wrong. It's just to say that spirituality and mythology seem like essential components when it comes to forming the types of communities that religions represent.
Well yes, I very much agree with you here. I'm definitely not advocating for some kind of Humanist Church, or alternative religion. What I am suggesting is a philosophy we can all live by personally. It doesn't need to be organized in any way! We just each make the world better where we can.
That makes sense. My driving question is how a personal approach helps with one of the primary benefits of church — namely alleviating loneliness and providing collective purpose. Can an individual, personal approach bring about a utopia? The connotations of utopia are about a collective, no?
(To be clear, I don't have answers here. I once thought I did, but now I'm just confused and perplexed by these questions.)
I don't know. My own personal experience is that, apart from leading a Young Life group when I was in my 20s, every religious community I have been part of has not been a positive experience. Perhaps because of this, I don't look to religious communities as the ideal to be replicated.
I have much better community with my friends now than I ever did with any kind of Church or religious community. But I still see the value of being united in some kind of collective purpose and perhaps the closest I've ever gotten to experiencing that was when I recently participated in a fellowship program with other progress writers who were pondering the same questions!
Elle is directly addressing one of the conundrums that I've been thinking about quite a bit.
I lean in the direction of some kind of Gaiaism at this point: finding our core meaning in the planet and the universe and learning to appreciate our proper place within the web of life (a cliché - more language needed.) The greater good has to go far beyond our own species.
I'm 100% behind humanism, and I like that you present it as a system that can be complementary to religion instead of necessarily replacing it. But my point of view is a literary one, and I think the whole problem with religion, especially Western monotheistic religions, is a misunderstanding of fiction.
Unless we find a way to solve this problem, humanism is going to be a threat to those who are religious (not all, but definitely some, including those in power) because humanism has almost everything religion has, except none of the bad stuff.
The one good thing religion has is story.
As a novelist, I recognize the power of story. Humans need it. It's literally part of what makes us human, being able to share truths from one generation to the next. But before the development of journalism, it was all fiction. That doesn't mean these stories don't contain truth -- quite the opposite. It just means that certain events didn't necessarily happen. But if you try to explain to a religious person their scriptures are fiction, they usually take it as an insult.
The word "belief" has two meanings. To believe in something and appreciate it and identify with it is entirely different than believing something is factually true. No fan of Star Wars, the MCU, or Harry Potter thinks these stories aren't fiction -- they understand and appreciate them because they understand they are fiction. But plenty of monotheists think the stories of their gods are factually true, which is something they can't explain or justify, and therefore see some human progress, such as humanism or science, as a threat to their belief.
Anyway, I like everything you said about humanism, and it's inclusivity. I just wondered what your take on this angle is, and maybe there's a solution that doesn't sound like I'm trying to man-splain religion to the religious. :)
Yes, stories are important! A friend recently asked me why I still put a nativity set up in my home during Christmas time, I said because story of the birth is still a powerful one! Light entering the world! Whether or not someone takes a story as fictional or literal doesn't matter to me as long as it brings them hope and inspires them to treat others well.
Take all of the Greek and Roman gods, I have read old stories in which it seems philosophers thought they were actual real people, and I have read old stories in which philosophers clearly think them to be myth, stories to illustrate morals. I would argue both sets ultimately used those stories to behave more ethically. So does the fictional/reality of a story matter?
Yes, I think it matters. With the Greeks and Romans philosophizing about Greek and Roman gods, they're communicating ideas within their own culture, using their own language, so they get the context of the story. With the Judean-Christian bible, there are so many layers of culture and language spanning thousands of years that it's impossible to understand even half of it without knowing who wrote what when, how, and why. If you look at the stories of each book as fiction, then you're open to learning the context, maybe even the beauty of the language, and it can even become spiritual if you find that human connection. But religious scripture written as journalistic truth, as if written by a god that can't be questioned, devoid of the culture and the time at which it was written, doesn't contain the humanity that would make it appealing , or even useful.
I'm not even sure what the story of the birth is. You're talking about Jesus' birth? Constructing the myth of his mother being a virgin was popular at the time, but it's hardly useful now. There was a virgin mother that gave birth fairly recently in Africa, and that story was horrible and sad -- I don't think you want to know the details. But suffice it to say that "virgin birth" doesn't have the value that it used to have.
Or perhaps you just mean the family being poor and having to spend the night in a manger (so the lower classes could relate), yet also three magicians show up to offer expensive gifts because they knew he was special (so the wealthy class could relate). Then centuries later, churches described Joseph as a carpenter to make him and Jesus more relatable to the middle class (although he was closer to a lumberjack, and definitely part of the lower class, as the middle class didn't yet exist).
So I guess my point is that religious stories are interesting how they evolve over time, and retro-fitted from one culture to another, but that can only be seen if they're recognized as fiction. And when they're not recognized as fiction they can become dangerous, as authoritarian types use their own interpretations to control others.
Hmm.... well those are some interesting thoughts about the birth of Jesus that I've never hard before! In any case, you are right that religion has been used for a lot of nefarious purposes. But men can take a story and use it for good or use it for evil, so I'm not sure their take on the validity of the story matters so much as their own intention for using it does?
For instance, the bible can be used for crusades, or it can be used as a reason to be philanthropic. There are people who take the stories literally and people who take them figuratively that do both. So is it the story being fictional that matters? Or the intention of the user?
(In case you were interested in fun facts I never get to use having pursued my graduate studies in Mariology (the study of the Virgin Mary): The "Virgin Birth" was never meant to be physical. The word used in the original Greek was "parthenos" which actually meant "unmarried." The same word was used at the time to describe the Egyptian Goddess Isis who had sexual intercourse with Osiris to give birth to Horus. The word was meant to denote the fact that she did not belong to any man (as married women were property of their husbands at the time), not that she didn't physically have sex.)
Your explanation of the virgin birth illustrates my point, that unless Christians know this, they're not going to understand. They will, instead, worship the venerability of abstinence and demonize sex, even including (ironically) demonizing single mothers.
The 1966 article "Shakespeare in the Bush" comes to mind, that no matter how great the story or the writing, no one will understand the story unless they understand the culture (and language and time) within it was written. This is what separates higher learning from church. In churches they just tell you what they want you to hear, whatever is best for the church, and more often than not they get the original story wrong.
So I can't see how religious institutions can have any moral value. Why not replace them with institutions of learning?
To answer your last question, I don't think we can replace religious institutions. They will be part of humanity for the forseeable future, for better or for worse. Which is why I would advocate for, rather than replacing them with institutions of learning, layering on some kind of philosophy that unites us?
I think your idea is admirable, layering a philosophy onto religion that unites the religious and non-religious. The only thing I can think of if is the examination and study of scripture as literature. Maybe both sides could get behind that.
I don't think the point of religion is to make the world a better place, or to make people better. The point is to simply recognize and celebrate the existence of a certain god or gods, just like Bigfoot Societies recognize and celebrate the existence of Bigfoot. And if you think "God" (or Jesus, or Bigfoot) is the messiah that will save the world, then that's all we need -- any attempts to improve the world, or yourself, without such a messiah would be foolish. And sadly, this is why conservative politics all over the world have such a stronghold in the face of most people wanting progression, because those in power can dump money into pro-religious political campaigns to convince them that doing nothing is best for all.
So even humanism, as a philosophy and/or spiritual guide, would be seen as sacrilegious to the religious because it omits the only thing they really believe in. Maybe, hopefully, I'm wrong. I also think religion won't last forever, but I honestly didn't give political institutions enough credit decades ago for their part in keeping it afloat.
There are unitarian or universal churches who thrive by (a) replacing the word "god" with the word "love" and (b) not mentioning the bible or any stories in it. It's great if you just want social communion, but I'd rather commune in a craft brewery, a martial art dojo, or on a trail in the wilderness.
Appreciating and identifying with stories goes further - it becomes part of one's personal framework of meaning. Stories and metaphors help us out with symbols—cognitive tools, as it were—to make sense of our lives. If I used to believe that being an Aquarius meant that I was interested in to helping humanity, then that was a projection of something deeper within my personality that couldn't be verbalized. Objective, critical thinking is not enough for living a full, human life.
Ever since I discovered that some of the old ladies in a Presbyterian women's circle I used to visit believed in reincarnation, I've been wondering to what extent people through the ages really do take the stories and dogmas literally. Certainly the threat of hellfire can get your attention, but how many Catholics through the ages grew up and figured that there were inconsistencies in the image of such a vengeful god? Religious threats might make us "be good" when we're kids, but as we gain wisdom we understand how the ethics we inherited from our culture work in society, usually to keep it a bit more peaceful. The fact that religions are always splintering is an indication that people have always been thinking about what they're taught to believe.
Excellent post, Elle. Thanks for reminding us to care for ourselves and for others. The Golden Rule says it all. “ If we are ever in doubt whether something is the Humanist thing to do, we have only to look to the Golden Rule which has become the banner of Humanist thought. Do unto others what you would have done to yourself, it asks.” So very true!
There’s a few ideas I’m batting around after reading the piece.
The first regards humanism and dogma. A significant theme of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens is that humanism is ultimately as "religious" as the traditional religions.
The notions that humans are equal, that we should uphold justice and care for the marginalized, that actions are best informed by reason, and the progression of humanity are, in a significant way, dogmatic. They can’t be empirically established or reasoned towards without making faith assertions.
Harari’s assertion is uncommon in my experience. What is more common is what the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor calls a “subtraction story”: the secular outlook is simply what was left after science and reason we have subtracted our former belief in the supernatural. Once that superstition is gone, we are able to see things that had been there all along—that reason alone can establish truth and the humanistic values of equality and freedom. The problem, as Saudi anthropologist Talal Asad puts it in his work Formations of the Secular, is that this process entails shedding one set of unprovable assumptions about reality for another. To that end, your words on the various creeds we embrace resonated.
The second was your compelling engagement with nihilism. I suppose one reason nihilism has become a default is that many find it a logical conclusion to the materialist view of the world. They may be able to generate rationalizations of meaning and universal benevolence, but it nonetheless feels like a conscious larp.
For most cultures/worldviews throughout time and place, meaning and ethics are downstream from ontology. In some ways, secularism was particularly constructed to isolate these elements of the human experience (in part to quell the religious wars of Europe). But that leaves modern Westerners in a unique position.
I’ve seen humanistic ideals unite folks along the moral level. But, the ontological questions can’t help but seep into the conversation, or at least our consciousness. And if you leave a vacuum regarding these questions, it will fill up in ways that are often unexpected (Tara Isabella Burton’s Strange Rites does a great job of documenting how this manifests in our secular age).
Nevertheless, I think the draw to nihilism begs the question of whether secular ontologies have the resources to generate secular humanisms, especially over the long haul.
P.S. I am wrapping up my draft for a delinquent “curation assignment #5” on David Perrell’s Why You’re a Christian (https://perell.com/essay/why-youre-christian/). That’s one of the reasons this conversation is very fresh on my mind. After reading this essay, I think you’re critical feedback would be really valuable if you had the opportunity! Either way, I'll be sharing the essay soon and this discourse is really helpful in me processing the content of the piece~
Well written essay Elle! looking at some of your linked, prior pieces now on this subject!
I too have the problem with ontological questions. If meaning and ethics are downstream from ontology, the ontology is often just "given" by the culture and few question it. Perrell is right on track about how our humanist thinking has been passed down through the ages as the West wrestled with Christianity and Judaism in many different historical and cultural contexts.
I'm not sure how we can replace the ethical impact of believing we are created in the image of God, not to mention what it means to respond to the idea that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
Very interesting thoughts! Thank you so much for contributing to the discourse!
As for your secular argument, this is why I am personally agnostic. I do not know beyond what I know. So in this case I am not swapping one unprovable belief for another, I am merely stating that I do not know and I am choosing to focus on the things that I do know.
In my case, I do believe that all human beings are deserving of human flourishing, and that humans have it our capacity to work toward that, and you're right. You could certainly argue that that is dogmatic. I guess I am not thinking of it that way because it is a self-established dogma as opposed to one imposed by religion. (The "unquestionable" dogma?)
As for nihilism, I personally think it has become a default belief, not just because we have removed all positive beliefs, but because we have added a lot of negative ones (nearly everything one could want to read or watch is negative). In this case, I am advocating for another positive belief we could turn to.
I'm not sure what you mean though about ontological questions seeping into the vacuum of secularism though? I personally entered my own secularism through the addition of knowledge and research and critical thinking (not less), so in this way I feel my questions are more answered now than when I attempted to answer them with religion. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by that?
Your perspective and process is a compelling approach. I think it highlights the tendency to navigate between the extremes of dogmatic certainty and complete skepticism.
What I mull over the most in this conversation is the epistemic considerations. Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Merleu-Ponty argued that all reasoning is based on prior faith commitments to which one did not reason. In other words, our critical thinking and pursuit of knowledge will necessarily be based on "circular" foundational assumptions.
For instance, the dichotomy and boundaries of “things I know” and “things I don’t” and the implication that legitimate belief can exclusively be justified in the former category—these are ideas that have a lot of assumptions beneath them, which are, at the very least, contestable and unprovable.
And those assumptions (and our conscious reasoning) aren’t completely self-generated, but are contingent on social authorities, our communities, bodily experience, tacit knowledge, etc. (Michael Polanyi’s “Personal Knowledge” is good on this).
I think this is why Harari (and Nietscze and Derrida before him) minimized the dichotomy between secular humanism and religion. Taylor puts it somewhat like this: the unique thing about our Western, secular construction of humanism is that it contains a form of belief/faith that does not consider itself “belief/faith.”
The brass tax is there’s a more level playing field when it comes to belief and knowledge formation across worldviews. I believe this framing is faithful to how people process their understanding of the world.
The typical dichotomy between secular humanism and religion, or agnosticism and belief, tends to elevate the former with an epistemic certitude that I believe is unfounded. While various formal religions may have exclusionary doctrines and declarations that possess revelations of Truth, there tends to be an epistemic assumption that they are practically a “faith-based” worldview, among others (at least implicitly so!). I think the dichotomous framing I just mentioned tends to pass off modernity/secular humanism as a simple discovery that science or rationality has laid bare, as opposed to another construction or faith-based worldview among a plurality.
Even to the degree that secular “dogmas” are self-generated, I'm not sure it is so different from dogma imposed by religion. I think both forms of dogma are embraced through a mix of internal and external factors. Many modern people have embraced religious dogmas in a process very similar to your pursuit of truth, including a mix of critical thinking, research, and reasoning, among other factors.
Re: Nihilism and ontology
Regarding the topic of ontological questions permeating the landscape of secularism, let me clarify my point. I agree that the widespread presence of negative influences in our media and cultural narratives plays a significant role in nurturing a sense of nihilism. It's the absence of hope and meaning in these spheres that often leads to a collective sense of despair or purposelessness. Counteracting this with promoting positive beliefs is not just beneficial; it's crucial. By advocating for views that affirm life, purpose, and hope, we can effectively challenge the nihilistic tendencies that seem to be gaining ground in our society.
Secularism, while pursuing a separation of religion and public life, doesn't eliminate the human yearning for answers to profound questions about meaning, purpose, and ethics – areas traditionally addressed by religion. Observers like Tara Isabella Burton have noted an interesting phenomenon: even in pockets where secular or naturalistic worldviews are predominant, there seems to be a resurgence of what could be termed 'religious' activity. Burton points out that in the ostensibly “godless” Western world, younger generations are turning to practices like Wicca, self-care rituals, various ideologies, and personalized spiritual beliefs that mirror religious engagement in many ways.
Taylor's observation is resonant: in a secular age, doubt haunts the believer while the nonbeliever grapples with a sense of transcendence and latent belief. This duality reflects the complexity of human spirituality and the quest for understanding.
Your drive for knowledge, research, and critical thinking is commendable and highlights our innate drive to seek answers. One of the most important questions right now is how we, as a society or as individuals, can find meaning and establish ethics in our social setting without succumbing to the despair of nihilism—how we can bring light, hope, and meaning, even in the midst of a world that can often seem dark and confusing.
Humanism is getting back to basics. Religion was invented by humans as some way to run the world, and throwing it off would release us from the constriction it put us into. We’re stuck in original sin where original blessing would have us evolving happily and treating each other well – all those humanistic characteristics. To strip Jesus and other holy folk from being gods and seeing them as mystics, who have broken through the shell of materialistic reality to what encompasses it, is my advocacy. Anyone who, by psychedelics or near-death experiences or other ways they tasted what mystics are steeped in, knows that the humanistic way is the real deal that we're being challenged to move into now.
Original sin is an extremely powerful metaphor that forces us to accept that no one (namely me, myself and I) can be 100% righteous even if we were created in the image of God. (Note the dynamic tension: very important in human affairs.)
The metaphor of original sin also recognizes that humanity and its social systems will always be flawed. Religion is one of those flawed systems, but so are all the others: governments, marriages, families, and every ethical system we manage to come up with. These days the insights into the evolution of the species invite us to apply the metaphor to the dark, violent and tribalistic aspects of homo sapiens that allowed us to take over the world.
But then religious traditions also concern themselves with questions about how we can be collectively and individually be "good". Salvation is just a word for figuring out how to live a life that you can look back on as contributing something while trying not to add to the suffering of your fellow beings. Religion knows how to maintain paradoxes, and humanism will also have to learn how to do this.
Now this is a conversation. I argue with needing to be humble. It would be better if we were proud. Without the creation of humans, of things like religions to be able to coordinate ourselves, in our raw state of riding an evolutionary force at its upper edge as far as Earth is concerned, we are all glorious potential. Made of god stuff you could say. Sacred beings in a sacred universe. Everything sacred, by origin and not by decision. Science gives us facts and we create meaning. What flesh can we put on the bare bones of science? We need to be a cooperative humanity, and we'll get there better by appreciating each other than by struggling with each other, to speak in a little shorthand.
Yes, based on the language of your reply, I think what I’m about to say will make some sense to you. I’m exploring the concept of humility as a spiritual or contemplative attitude for entering into communion with nature. (... in this case we have to supply a corrective to Genesis by turning to Buddhist and Jain traditions.) I personally invoke this frame of mind with the verbal idea that I am a creature along with all the others who possess the miracle of life. For me, the idea of being created necessarily leads to the idea of a Creator, which gets us into the numinous or the woo-woo, depending on personal predilection.
Robust, mature religions require deep paradoxes / contradictions / tensions. Humanism-as-a-religion cannot be an exception. With regard to humility, practitioners would be exploring how on the one hand we can make use of our non-humble appreciation for humanity’s amazing creativity and intellectual capacity as a basis for deep respect for all humans; while on the other hand simultaneously pursuing the deep humility of being just another creature, no better and no worse than the rest of life with whom we share the planet. We’re departing from contemporary notions of logic and objectivity at this point: These are states of mind for which such words as “contemplative” “prayerful” “meditative” “holy” have been used. (Another requirement for an effective religion: there must be pathways to the spiritual, because somehow we evolved with this capacity along with a longing to exercise it.)
There's a whole other perspective involving humility, where discovering we aren't the only intelligence would humble us given the everyday arrogance with which we operate so cruelly. So pride in being human, humble in being part of the natural order, as you indicated. Religion by definition involves "the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods," so it's a stretch to speak of humanism as a religion unless you go very broad and are speaking of all of nature as being sacred -- what a miracle it all is -- and we all should be on our knees in deep respect for all that is. That includes the objective world and that noosphere that religions deal in, that mystics are attuned to (wouldn't it have been better to see Jesus as a mystic than as a god?), and that the rest of us can briefly touch, so we know it's there, with near death and psychedelics and just happenstance, that attest to how interconnected we all are as one humanity. These are profound subjects that this all just says a little about.
We spring from humanism. It's fundamental values, and religion can and should preach for them, but its empowering to practice them without humans we appointed to be intermediaries to the divine.
Hmmmm. I would claim that what I'm talking about is a step in our evolutionary process, where we shed what comes from more limited understanding, like the idea of a father god, as we go along.
Well I suppose I'm not convinced we'll shed the idea of a "father God" anytime soon. More religious people have more children, and most people stay with the religion they were born into. We are actually on track to produce more religious people than we are secular people.
That said, in 10,000 years will we still be holding onto such an ancient religion? If we are, I'm sure it will have evolved quite a bit (our modern religions have evolved very significantly in the last 1000 years)! I can't say what that will look like in the future, but I don't think I can say we are headed more in one direction or the other.
What a great post to start the year with. I like your concept of Humanism being complementary to religion. Having faith in our own capacity for goodness is the condition precedent for all acts of kindness.
Is Enlightenment humanism only possible because of Christianity's focus on a personal revelation? Chicken or egg conversation. But we forget our founding father's humanist ideals at our peril. It is perhaps a sign of privileged amnesia when the pendulum of public opinion begins to swing towards authoritarian certainties that ultimately rely on the passivity of the refrain "God's wills it so."
Authoritarian certainties also draw on the idea of "every man for himself" and even "survival of the fittest." The authoritarians asserting God's will are dying out: they don't even bother to justify themselves any more. (Christian Nationalism is a small aspect of larger global movements.)
Well, yes. I do think all philosophy is derived from all previous philosophy. It's an endless evolution of thought. But in this case, no matter which way your own personal philosophies evolve, Humanism still seems a uniting moral understanding!
Definitely agree that humanism deserves another day in the sun. Much like stoicism has re-entered popular culture in our collective search for meaning to fill the vacuum. Agree also with lots of what has been stated here about the need for story or ontology "upstream". Something like Thomas Berry's "The Great Work" might be cooking on that burner, so to speak.
I haven't read that book, but I just checked it out and I'm excited to take a peek! I wonder if we could also qualify Pico Iyer's The Half Known Life? I'm reading that one now!
I love this, but I do wonder how we could ever possibly create a model of humanism that is actually as effective for subscriber retention as the current monotheistic MLMs are.
Like. “If you leave our tribe you will go to hell” is such a strong tactic that costs these ideologies $0 haha
Ha! But doesn't that make it so much easier to adhere to? Just making your corner of the world a better place seems a much lower bar than trying to avoid hell! "It's easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle" and all that....
I’m reading The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis for the first time. And although I expected it to be from the lens of Christianity (as he is famously a Christian apologetic), he claims in the book to be defending that humanity’s universal values are innately derived from within us in the form of Tao, regardless of religion. I’m not well-read on the subject and have yet to finish the book, but find it fascinating nonetheless. Being a good person to others is definitely something I can get behind haha. Thanks for sharing this article, Elle!
Hmm - that sounds interesting, especially from C.S. Lewis. Tao is also a religion, but it gets us past that pesky proposition about the existence of God that modern folks want scientific proof for. My impression of Taoist writings is that you're doomed if you try to put them in terms of any logical propositions.
Back when Dawkins and Hitchens were prominent atheists debating religious people, as a viewer, I saw atheism as active opposition to enemies of reason. I still think atheist has a place to keep religion in check in some ways, but gradually humanism, even during that time humanism was getting more popular. I think atheism just doesn’t have good press and at the end of the day, most belief sysytems are tied to tradition and ritual.
Humanism is a preferable way of conceptualizing our human experience that allows for more wonder than people think atheists have, so I’d agree that if we’re going to replace religion with humanism, I’d be much more comfortable governing a society on those principles than the ones we have now.
Right, with atheism there isn't really a any kind of principles you could govern a society with!
Sorry, part of that first paragraph was incoherent. Clumsy thumbs… I will say I identify as an atheist myself but it is lonely if you’re shunning community celebrations. I do teach my children humanist principles (of sorts) that are more intuitive and not anything I’ve read extensively. I think people want to do the right thing at the start and all these incentives not to get in the way. That or they learn that humanism doesn’t serve them as much as misanthropy.
Great post and discussion here!
My take: I love everything Elle writes about Humanism, but that all falls short of what Religion provides.
To paraphrase the great mythologist Joseph Campbell, Myth (or "Religion", we can say here) has several purposes. One is to tell us How to Live. Humanism as Elle describes it does that beautifully. But Myth also tells the human community Where We Come From. Where We're Going, and Why We're Here.
Secular Humanism just doesn't have those answers. Nor does Science. From all I can tell, if you peer deeply enough into Cosmology, Neuroscience, or Physics, the answers to those questions is always, "We don't know." or "Science can't answer that." So those of us who care about answering those questions must look again to Religion or Myth.
Thank you for contributing this idea in such a respectful manner! I can definitely appreciate those who want to look to religion or myth for those answers, and can see the beauty in having that. I love that Humanism provides us a middle ground where we can still meet, even if we turn to different places for different myths!
I like what you're pointing to here, and I'm a big fan of humanism and humanist thought.
I also think it's worth noting that *secular* humanism has had a poor track record when it comes to instituting religion in a traditional sense. Efforts like the religion of humanity from Auguste Comte or the church of humanity from Richard Congreve swiftly failed in the 1800s. And contemporary efforts like Sunday Assembly or Oasis have had lackluster results. To my knowledge, there's not a secular organization that has managed to replicate the communal strength of religion, especially when it comes to offerings for kids.
This isn't to say that secular humanism is wrong. It's just to say that spirituality and mythology seem like essential components when it comes to forming the types of communities that religions represent.
Well yes, I very much agree with you here. I'm definitely not advocating for some kind of Humanist Church, or alternative religion. What I am suggesting is a philosophy we can all live by personally. It doesn't need to be organized in any way! We just each make the world better where we can.
That makes sense. My driving question is how a personal approach helps with one of the primary benefits of church — namely alleviating loneliness and providing collective purpose. Can an individual, personal approach bring about a utopia? The connotations of utopia are about a collective, no?
(To be clear, I don't have answers here. I once thought I did, but now I'm just confused and perplexed by these questions.)
I don't know. My own personal experience is that, apart from leading a Young Life group when I was in my 20s, every religious community I have been part of has not been a positive experience. Perhaps because of this, I don't look to religious communities as the ideal to be replicated.
I have much better community with my friends now than I ever did with any kind of Church or religious community. But I still see the value of being united in some kind of collective purpose and perhaps the closest I've ever gotten to experiencing that was when I recently participated in a fellowship program with other progress writers who were pondering the same questions!
oh, this: "There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for *him*.”
Elle is directly addressing one of the conundrums that I've been thinking about quite a bit.
I lean in the direction of some kind of Gaiaism at this point: finding our core meaning in the planet and the universe and learning to appreciate our proper place within the web of life (a cliché - more language needed.) The greater good has to go far beyond our own species.
I'm 100% behind humanism, and I like that you present it as a system that can be complementary to religion instead of necessarily replacing it. But my point of view is a literary one, and I think the whole problem with religion, especially Western monotheistic religions, is a misunderstanding of fiction.
Unless we find a way to solve this problem, humanism is going to be a threat to those who are religious (not all, but definitely some, including those in power) because humanism has almost everything religion has, except none of the bad stuff.
The one good thing religion has is story.
As a novelist, I recognize the power of story. Humans need it. It's literally part of what makes us human, being able to share truths from one generation to the next. But before the development of journalism, it was all fiction. That doesn't mean these stories don't contain truth -- quite the opposite. It just means that certain events didn't necessarily happen. But if you try to explain to a religious person their scriptures are fiction, they usually take it as an insult.
The word "belief" has two meanings. To believe in something and appreciate it and identify with it is entirely different than believing something is factually true. No fan of Star Wars, the MCU, or Harry Potter thinks these stories aren't fiction -- they understand and appreciate them because they understand they are fiction. But plenty of monotheists think the stories of their gods are factually true, which is something they can't explain or justify, and therefore see some human progress, such as humanism or science, as a threat to their belief.
Anyway, I like everything you said about humanism, and it's inclusivity. I just wondered what your take on this angle is, and maybe there's a solution that doesn't sound like I'm trying to man-splain religion to the religious. :)
Yes, stories are important! A friend recently asked me why I still put a nativity set up in my home during Christmas time, I said because story of the birth is still a powerful one! Light entering the world! Whether or not someone takes a story as fictional or literal doesn't matter to me as long as it brings them hope and inspires them to treat others well.
Take all of the Greek and Roman gods, I have read old stories in which it seems philosophers thought they were actual real people, and I have read old stories in which philosophers clearly think them to be myth, stories to illustrate morals. I would argue both sets ultimately used those stories to behave more ethically. So does the fictional/reality of a story matter?
Yes, I think it matters. With the Greeks and Romans philosophizing about Greek and Roman gods, they're communicating ideas within their own culture, using their own language, so they get the context of the story. With the Judean-Christian bible, there are so many layers of culture and language spanning thousands of years that it's impossible to understand even half of it without knowing who wrote what when, how, and why. If you look at the stories of each book as fiction, then you're open to learning the context, maybe even the beauty of the language, and it can even become spiritual if you find that human connection. But religious scripture written as journalistic truth, as if written by a god that can't be questioned, devoid of the culture and the time at which it was written, doesn't contain the humanity that would make it appealing , or even useful.
I'm not even sure what the story of the birth is. You're talking about Jesus' birth? Constructing the myth of his mother being a virgin was popular at the time, but it's hardly useful now. There was a virgin mother that gave birth fairly recently in Africa, and that story was horrible and sad -- I don't think you want to know the details. But suffice it to say that "virgin birth" doesn't have the value that it used to have.
Or perhaps you just mean the family being poor and having to spend the night in a manger (so the lower classes could relate), yet also three magicians show up to offer expensive gifts because they knew he was special (so the wealthy class could relate). Then centuries later, churches described Joseph as a carpenter to make him and Jesus more relatable to the middle class (although he was closer to a lumberjack, and definitely part of the lower class, as the middle class didn't yet exist).
So I guess my point is that religious stories are interesting how they evolve over time, and retro-fitted from one culture to another, but that can only be seen if they're recognized as fiction. And when they're not recognized as fiction they can become dangerous, as authoritarian types use their own interpretations to control others.
Hmm.... well those are some interesting thoughts about the birth of Jesus that I've never hard before! In any case, you are right that religion has been used for a lot of nefarious purposes. But men can take a story and use it for good or use it for evil, so I'm not sure their take on the validity of the story matters so much as their own intention for using it does?
For instance, the bible can be used for crusades, or it can be used as a reason to be philanthropic. There are people who take the stories literally and people who take them figuratively that do both. So is it the story being fictional that matters? Or the intention of the user?
(In case you were interested in fun facts I never get to use having pursued my graduate studies in Mariology (the study of the Virgin Mary): The "Virgin Birth" was never meant to be physical. The word used in the original Greek was "parthenos" which actually meant "unmarried." The same word was used at the time to describe the Egyptian Goddess Isis who had sexual intercourse with Osiris to give birth to Horus. The word was meant to denote the fact that she did not belong to any man (as married women were property of their husbands at the time), not that she didn't physically have sex.)
Your explanation of the virgin birth illustrates my point, that unless Christians know this, they're not going to understand. They will, instead, worship the venerability of abstinence and demonize sex, even including (ironically) demonizing single mothers.
The 1966 article "Shakespeare in the Bush" comes to mind, that no matter how great the story or the writing, no one will understand the story unless they understand the culture (and language and time) within it was written. This is what separates higher learning from church. In churches they just tell you what they want you to hear, whatever is best for the church, and more often than not they get the original story wrong.
So I can't see how religious institutions can have any moral value. Why not replace them with institutions of learning?
To answer your last question, I don't think we can replace religious institutions. They will be part of humanity for the forseeable future, for better or for worse. Which is why I would advocate for, rather than replacing them with institutions of learning, layering on some kind of philosophy that unites us?
I think your idea is admirable, layering a philosophy onto religion that unites the religious and non-religious. The only thing I can think of if is the examination and study of scripture as literature. Maybe both sides could get behind that.
I don't think the point of religion is to make the world a better place, or to make people better. The point is to simply recognize and celebrate the existence of a certain god or gods, just like Bigfoot Societies recognize and celebrate the existence of Bigfoot. And if you think "God" (or Jesus, or Bigfoot) is the messiah that will save the world, then that's all we need -- any attempts to improve the world, or yourself, without such a messiah would be foolish. And sadly, this is why conservative politics all over the world have such a stronghold in the face of most people wanting progression, because those in power can dump money into pro-religious political campaigns to convince them that doing nothing is best for all.
So even humanism, as a philosophy and/or spiritual guide, would be seen as sacrilegious to the religious because it omits the only thing they really believe in. Maybe, hopefully, I'm wrong. I also think religion won't last forever, but I honestly didn't give political institutions enough credit decades ago for their part in keeping it afloat.
There are unitarian or universal churches who thrive by (a) replacing the word "god" with the word "love" and (b) not mentioning the bible or any stories in it. It's great if you just want social communion, but I'd rather commune in a craft brewery, a martial art dojo, or on a trail in the wilderness.
Appreciating and identifying with stories goes further - it becomes part of one's personal framework of meaning. Stories and metaphors help us out with symbols—cognitive tools, as it were—to make sense of our lives. If I used to believe that being an Aquarius meant that I was interested in to helping humanity, then that was a projection of something deeper within my personality that couldn't be verbalized. Objective, critical thinking is not enough for living a full, human life.
Ever since I discovered that some of the old ladies in a Presbyterian women's circle I used to visit believed in reincarnation, I've been wondering to what extent people through the ages really do take the stories and dogmas literally. Certainly the threat of hellfire can get your attention, but how many Catholics through the ages grew up and figured that there were inconsistencies in the image of such a vengeful god? Religious threats might make us "be good" when we're kids, but as we gain wisdom we understand how the ethics we inherited from our culture work in society, usually to keep it a bit more peaceful. The fact that religions are always splintering is an indication that people have always been thinking about what they're taught to believe.
Excellent post, Elle. Thanks for reminding us to care for ourselves and for others. The Golden Rule says it all. “ If we are ever in doubt whether something is the Humanist thing to do, we have only to look to the Golden Rule which has become the banner of Humanist thought. Do unto others what you would have done to yourself, it asks.” So very true!
There’s a few ideas I’m batting around after reading the piece.
The first regards humanism and dogma. A significant theme of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens is that humanism is ultimately as "religious" as the traditional religions.
The notions that humans are equal, that we should uphold justice and care for the marginalized, that actions are best informed by reason, and the progression of humanity are, in a significant way, dogmatic. They can’t be empirically established or reasoned towards without making faith assertions.
Harari’s assertion is uncommon in my experience. What is more common is what the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor calls a “subtraction story”: the secular outlook is simply what was left after science and reason we have subtracted our former belief in the supernatural. Once that superstition is gone, we are able to see things that had been there all along—that reason alone can establish truth and the humanistic values of equality and freedom. The problem, as Saudi anthropologist Talal Asad puts it in his work Formations of the Secular, is that this process entails shedding one set of unprovable assumptions about reality for another. To that end, your words on the various creeds we embrace resonated.
The second was your compelling engagement with nihilism. I suppose one reason nihilism has become a default is that many find it a logical conclusion to the materialist view of the world. They may be able to generate rationalizations of meaning and universal benevolence, but it nonetheless feels like a conscious larp.
For most cultures/worldviews throughout time and place, meaning and ethics are downstream from ontology. In some ways, secularism was particularly constructed to isolate these elements of the human experience (in part to quell the religious wars of Europe). But that leaves modern Westerners in a unique position.
I’ve seen humanistic ideals unite folks along the moral level. But, the ontological questions can’t help but seep into the conversation, or at least our consciousness. And if you leave a vacuum regarding these questions, it will fill up in ways that are often unexpected (Tara Isabella Burton’s Strange Rites does a great job of documenting how this manifests in our secular age).
Nevertheless, I think the draw to nihilism begs the question of whether secular ontologies have the resources to generate secular humanisms, especially over the long haul.
P.S. I am wrapping up my draft for a delinquent “curation assignment #5” on David Perrell’s Why You’re a Christian (https://perell.com/essay/why-youre-christian/). That’s one of the reasons this conversation is very fresh on my mind. After reading this essay, I think you’re critical feedback would be really valuable if you had the opportunity! Either way, I'll be sharing the essay soon and this discourse is really helpful in me processing the content of the piece~
Well written essay Elle! looking at some of your linked, prior pieces now on this subject!
I too have the problem with ontological questions. If meaning and ethics are downstream from ontology, the ontology is often just "given" by the culture and few question it. Perrell is right on track about how our humanist thinking has been passed down through the ages as the West wrestled with Christianity and Judaism in many different historical and cultural contexts.
I'm not sure how we can replace the ethical impact of believing we are created in the image of God, not to mention what it means to respond to the idea that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
Very interesting thoughts! Thank you so much for contributing to the discourse!
As for your secular argument, this is why I am personally agnostic. I do not know beyond what I know. So in this case I am not swapping one unprovable belief for another, I am merely stating that I do not know and I am choosing to focus on the things that I do know.
In my case, I do believe that all human beings are deserving of human flourishing, and that humans have it our capacity to work toward that, and you're right. You could certainly argue that that is dogmatic. I guess I am not thinking of it that way because it is a self-established dogma as opposed to one imposed by religion. (The "unquestionable" dogma?)
As for nihilism, I personally think it has become a default belief, not just because we have removed all positive beliefs, but because we have added a lot of negative ones (nearly everything one could want to read or watch is negative). In this case, I am advocating for another positive belief we could turn to.
I'm not sure what you mean though about ontological questions seeping into the vacuum of secularism though? I personally entered my own secularism through the addition of knowledge and research and critical thinking (not less), so in this way I feel my questions are more answered now than when I attempted to answer them with religion. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by that?
I'll be curious to see your draft!!!!!
Re: Belief, knowledge, dogma
Your perspective and process is a compelling approach. I think it highlights the tendency to navigate between the extremes of dogmatic certainty and complete skepticism.
What I mull over the most in this conversation is the epistemic considerations. Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Merleu-Ponty argued that all reasoning is based on prior faith commitments to which one did not reason. In other words, our critical thinking and pursuit of knowledge will necessarily be based on "circular" foundational assumptions.
For instance, the dichotomy and boundaries of “things I know” and “things I don’t” and the implication that legitimate belief can exclusively be justified in the former category—these are ideas that have a lot of assumptions beneath them, which are, at the very least, contestable and unprovable.
And those assumptions (and our conscious reasoning) aren’t completely self-generated, but are contingent on social authorities, our communities, bodily experience, tacit knowledge, etc. (Michael Polanyi’s “Personal Knowledge” is good on this).
I think this is why Harari (and Nietscze and Derrida before him) minimized the dichotomy between secular humanism and religion. Taylor puts it somewhat like this: the unique thing about our Western, secular construction of humanism is that it contains a form of belief/faith that does not consider itself “belief/faith.”
The brass tax is there’s a more level playing field when it comes to belief and knowledge formation across worldviews. I believe this framing is faithful to how people process their understanding of the world.
The typical dichotomy between secular humanism and religion, or agnosticism and belief, tends to elevate the former with an epistemic certitude that I believe is unfounded. While various formal religions may have exclusionary doctrines and declarations that possess revelations of Truth, there tends to be an epistemic assumption that they are practically a “faith-based” worldview, among others (at least implicitly so!). I think the dichotomous framing I just mentioned tends to pass off modernity/secular humanism as a simple discovery that science or rationality has laid bare, as opposed to another construction or faith-based worldview among a plurality.
Even to the degree that secular “dogmas” are self-generated, I'm not sure it is so different from dogma imposed by religion. I think both forms of dogma are embraced through a mix of internal and external factors. Many modern people have embraced religious dogmas in a process very similar to your pursuit of truth, including a mix of critical thinking, research, and reasoning, among other factors.
Re: Nihilism and ontology
Regarding the topic of ontological questions permeating the landscape of secularism, let me clarify my point. I agree that the widespread presence of negative influences in our media and cultural narratives plays a significant role in nurturing a sense of nihilism. It's the absence of hope and meaning in these spheres that often leads to a collective sense of despair or purposelessness. Counteracting this with promoting positive beliefs is not just beneficial; it's crucial. By advocating for views that affirm life, purpose, and hope, we can effectively challenge the nihilistic tendencies that seem to be gaining ground in our society.
Secularism, while pursuing a separation of religion and public life, doesn't eliminate the human yearning for answers to profound questions about meaning, purpose, and ethics – areas traditionally addressed by religion. Observers like Tara Isabella Burton have noted an interesting phenomenon: even in pockets where secular or naturalistic worldviews are predominant, there seems to be a resurgence of what could be termed 'religious' activity. Burton points out that in the ostensibly “godless” Western world, younger generations are turning to practices like Wicca, self-care rituals, various ideologies, and personalized spiritual beliefs that mirror religious engagement in many ways.
Taylor's observation is resonant: in a secular age, doubt haunts the believer while the nonbeliever grapples with a sense of transcendence and latent belief. This duality reflects the complexity of human spirituality and the quest for understanding.
Your drive for knowledge, research, and critical thinking is commendable and highlights our innate drive to seek answers. One of the most important questions right now is how we, as a society or as individuals, can find meaning and establish ethics in our social setting without succumbing to the despair of nihilism—how we can bring light, hope, and meaning, even in the midst of a world that can often seem dark and confusing.
And awesome! I will send you a draft!
Also LOVE the "literary salon" -- describes my ideal view of comment sections haha
Yay!!!!! Me too. I really appreciate you joining in the discussion!
Humanism is getting back to basics. Religion was invented by humans as some way to run the world, and throwing it off would release us from the constriction it put us into. We’re stuck in original sin where original blessing would have us evolving happily and treating each other well – all those humanistic characteristics. To strip Jesus and other holy folk from being gods and seeing them as mystics, who have broken through the shell of materialistic reality to what encompasses it, is my advocacy. Anyone who, by psychedelics or near-death experiences or other ways they tasted what mystics are steeped in, knows that the humanistic way is the real deal that we're being challenged to move into now.
Original sin is an extremely powerful metaphor that forces us to accept that no one (namely me, myself and I) can be 100% righteous even if we were created in the image of God. (Note the dynamic tension: very important in human affairs.)
The metaphor of original sin also recognizes that humanity and its social systems will always be flawed. Religion is one of those flawed systems, but so are all the others: governments, marriages, families, and every ethical system we manage to come up with. These days the insights into the evolution of the species invite us to apply the metaphor to the dark, violent and tribalistic aspects of homo sapiens that allowed us to take over the world.
But then religious traditions also concern themselves with questions about how we can be collectively and individually be "good". Salvation is just a word for figuring out how to live a life that you can look back on as contributing something while trying not to add to the suffering of your fellow beings. Religion knows how to maintain paradoxes, and humanism will also have to learn how to do this.
Now this is a conversation. I argue with needing to be humble. It would be better if we were proud. Without the creation of humans, of things like religions to be able to coordinate ourselves, in our raw state of riding an evolutionary force at its upper edge as far as Earth is concerned, we are all glorious potential. Made of god stuff you could say. Sacred beings in a sacred universe. Everything sacred, by origin and not by decision. Science gives us facts and we create meaning. What flesh can we put on the bare bones of science? We need to be a cooperative humanity, and we'll get there better by appreciating each other than by struggling with each other, to speak in a little shorthand.
Yes, based on the language of your reply, I think what I’m about to say will make some sense to you. I’m exploring the concept of humility as a spiritual or contemplative attitude for entering into communion with nature. (... in this case we have to supply a corrective to Genesis by turning to Buddhist and Jain traditions.) I personally invoke this frame of mind with the verbal idea that I am a creature along with all the others who possess the miracle of life. For me, the idea of being created necessarily leads to the idea of a Creator, which gets us into the numinous or the woo-woo, depending on personal predilection.
Robust, mature religions require deep paradoxes / contradictions / tensions. Humanism-as-a-religion cannot be an exception. With regard to humility, practitioners would be exploring how on the one hand we can make use of our non-humble appreciation for humanity’s amazing creativity and intellectual capacity as a basis for deep respect for all humans; while on the other hand simultaneously pursuing the deep humility of being just another creature, no better and no worse than the rest of life with whom we share the planet. We’re departing from contemporary notions of logic and objectivity at this point: These are states of mind for which such words as “contemplative” “prayerful” “meditative” “holy” have been used. (Another requirement for an effective religion: there must be pathways to the spiritual, because somehow we evolved with this capacity along with a longing to exercise it.)
There's a whole other perspective involving humility, where discovering we aren't the only intelligence would humble us given the everyday arrogance with which we operate so cruelly. So pride in being human, humble in being part of the natural order, as you indicated. Religion by definition involves "the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods," so it's a stretch to speak of humanism as a religion unless you go very broad and are speaking of all of nature as being sacred -- what a miracle it all is -- and we all should be on our knees in deep respect for all that is. That includes the objective world and that noosphere that religions deal in, that mystics are attuned to (wouldn't it have been better to see Jesus as a mystic than as a god?), and that the rest of us can briefly touch, so we know it's there, with near death and psychedelics and just happenstance, that attest to how interconnected we all are as one humanity. These are profound subjects that this all just says a little about.
Whether religious or mystical or neither, I do think we can have humanism in common!
We spring from humanism. It's fundamental values, and religion can and should preach for them, but its empowering to practice them without humans we appointed to be intermediaries to the divine.
That's definitely the way I prefer it, but I know others prefer something different and I wouldn't claim that I have the right of it 😊
Hmmmm. I would claim that what I'm talking about is a step in our evolutionary process, where we shed what comes from more limited understanding, like the idea of a father god, as we go along.
Well I suppose I'm not convinced we'll shed the idea of a "father God" anytime soon. More religious people have more children, and most people stay with the religion they were born into. We are actually on track to produce more religious people than we are secular people.
That said, in 10,000 years will we still be holding onto such an ancient religion? If we are, I'm sure it will have evolved quite a bit (our modern religions have evolved very significantly in the last 1000 years)! I can't say what that will look like in the future, but I don't think I can say we are headed more in one direction or the other.
Go Thomas Paine! “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”
Happy New Year, Elle!
Thomas Paine was the close of my year-end message: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again." https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/goats-for-the-greater-good
Beautiful! Paine inspired my entire Substack project. Thanks for sharing your post!
Ok wow that is a great quote! He really is awesome.
Elle,
What a great post to start the year with. I like your concept of Humanism being complementary to religion. Having faith in our own capacity for goodness is the condition precedent for all acts of kindness.
I think we can all get on board with that!!! 🥰
Is Enlightenment humanism only possible because of Christianity's focus on a personal revelation? Chicken or egg conversation. But we forget our founding father's humanist ideals at our peril. It is perhaps a sign of privileged amnesia when the pendulum of public opinion begins to swing towards authoritarian certainties that ultimately rely on the passivity of the refrain "God's wills it so."
Authoritarian certainties also draw on the idea of "every man for himself" and even "survival of the fittest." The authoritarians asserting God's will are dying out: they don't even bother to justify themselves any more. (Christian Nationalism is a small aspect of larger global movements.)
Well, yes. I do think all philosophy is derived from all previous philosophy. It's an endless evolution of thought. But in this case, no matter which way your own personal philosophies evolve, Humanism still seems a uniting moral understanding!
Definitely agree that humanism deserves another day in the sun. Much like stoicism has re-entered popular culture in our collective search for meaning to fill the vacuum. Agree also with lots of what has been stated here about the need for story or ontology "upstream". Something like Thomas Berry's "The Great Work" might be cooking on that burner, so to speak.
I haven't read that book, but I just checked it out and I'm excited to take a peek! I wonder if we could also qualify Pico Iyer's The Half Known Life? I'm reading that one now!
I love this, but I do wonder how we could ever possibly create a model of humanism that is actually as effective for subscriber retention as the current monotheistic MLMs are.
Like. “If you leave our tribe you will go to hell” is such a strong tactic that costs these ideologies $0 haha
Ha! But doesn't that make it so much easier to adhere to? Just making your corner of the world a better place seems a much lower bar than trying to avoid hell! "It's easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle" and all that....
Yeah I mean. I support this. You have my vote haha
I’m reading The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis for the first time. And although I expected it to be from the lens of Christianity (as he is famously a Christian apologetic), he claims in the book to be defending that humanity’s universal values are innately derived from within us in the form of Tao, regardless of religion. I’m not well-read on the subject and have yet to finish the book, but find it fascinating nonetheless. Being a good person to others is definitely something I can get behind haha. Thanks for sharing this article, Elle!
Hmm - that sounds interesting, especially from C.S. Lewis. Tao is also a religion, but it gets us past that pesky proposition about the existence of God that modern folks want scientific proof for. My impression of Taoist writings is that you're doomed if you try to put them in terms of any logical propositions.
Oh yes, exactly! It's entirely universal!