"What's a 'Humanist'?"
As a Humanist activist, it's a question I hear a lot. I'm not comfortable with the idea of trying to answer it on behalf of all Humanists, so I usually respond to the question by sharing the story of how I came to identify as a Humanist. And since yesterday was World Humanist Day, I got to thinking and I feel inspired to share just a small bit of it here. (There are many events that preceded this story but, well... I'll get to that later.)
The story of how I became a Humanist is a funny one to me in part because, after searching so long for an identity that affirmed my naturalistic worldview and compassionate ambitions, I found secular Humanism because of a Muslim.
After years of evading discussions about other people's religious identities or challenging religious dogma in my academic studies of religion, I faltered when it came to discerning how to identify myself. I used "atheist," "agnostic," "nonreligious," and "secular" interchangeably, but none of them really felt right; while each was accurate, they all seemed a bit inadequate -- more like descriptors than identities. None encapsulated how I saw the world; none felt like an affirmation of the values I held. So I just went about doing interfaith work without an affiliation, content to create opportunities for people of varying worldviews to engage with one another constructively. Still, I wasn't completely sure how to articulate my own perspective. I knew I didn't believe in God, but found the idea of declaring positive values much more daunting.
But through the process of doing interfaith work -- through building relationships of understanding and cooperation with religious people -- that began to change. Inspired by others' commitments to their varying worldviews, I began to more deeply consider my own. While interning at Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), my friend Eboo Patel introduced me to Greg Epstein's Good Without God and the works of other contemporary Humanists. From there, I began to devour Humanist literature; Confucius, Epicurus and Renaissance Humanism, up to more recent Humanist thinkers like Robert G. Ingersoll and Paul Kurtz. I read the various editions of the Humanist Manifestos and jumped up excitedly to repeat their words aloud: "Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity." This was what I believed -- particularly its emphasis on taking personal responsibility for the greater good of all -- but another person had written it down.
Inspired by what I'd read, I decided to act. Along with a group of other atheist friends, my friend Erik and I started up a group we called the Secular Humanist Alliance of Chicago (SHAC), to construct an egalitarian community of like-minded individuals. We planned service projects, hosted dialogue events with members of Chicago's Muslim community, and wrote blog posts. But more than anything else, we were a community.
Encouraged by the books I read and the subsequent conversations I had with these friends, I started see my Humanism as not just something I thought about, but something I needed to act upon. The positive orientation of my Humanism allowed me to frame the world through a constructive, optimistic lens, and it became an expression of my greatest ambitions -- one that sought out and celebrated the good in everyone, and encouraged me to act with love and compassion whenever possible, seeking to understand instead of dismiss.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt invested in a positive and deeply personal identity that pretty accurately mapped onto my own convictions. And, as is the case whenever I'm excited about something, I couldn't shut up about it.
So I started blogging at NonProphet Status (where this blog post originally appeared), then elsewhere (including here at HuffPost Religion), and then I started writing a book about the aforementioned "many events" -- about how I went from nonreligious to Evangelical Christian to openly gay atheist to Humanist and interfaith activist. That's coming out in November. I am also proud to work for a Humanist organization, the Humanist Community at Harvard, which works to provide resources for the nonreligious. After a year and a half as the organization's inaugural Interfaith and Community Service Fellow, I am transitioning into the role of Assistant Humanist Chaplain. Perhaps my favorite part of this job is getting to listen to Humanists talk about their stories, their values, and about how they understand Humanism -- and then moving, as a community, from talking about our values to putting them into action.
I keep talking and writing and listening and acting and asking about my and other people's Humanism because the idea of a nonreligious identity based in positive values gives me hope for our future -- a future in which everyone, nonreligious and religious alike, cares much more about the "good" than the "without (or with) God." Such a vision may sound overly optimistic to some, but if a devout Muslim can introduce an atheist like me to Humanism, then I believe anything is possible.
If you're a Humanist, please feel free to share the story of how you became one in the comments. If you're not, feel free to ask questions, or share a story about a Humanist that inspires you!
Want to get involved in Humanism? Check out the Humanist Community Project website for more!
Follow Chris Stedman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChrisDStedman
Islamic ethics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Spirit of Islamic Humanism (Ebrahim Moosa) - Academia.edu
Many faith based people (including myself) are often hesitant to work with Humanists, as we often conflate New Atheism with Humanism. Your article did a great job in clearing up misconceptions and providing common ground where Humanists and those of other philosophies/religion can work together.
Humanists tend not to be real big on conceptual conjecture.
(Any answers you get to that question will, of course, simply be someone's opinion.)
For example, the most humanists would agree that the Golden Rule is a worthy and good thing. Yet when one traces the reasons for why this is so, without God, one winds up with various forms of self interest or herd instinct that just don't seem to completely justify the Golden Rule in and of themselves.
It renders Christianity as a cultural historical invention, as it does with Buddhism, or any other religion.
G_d could really just mean all of humanity realizing how we are interdependent and working together in harmony with us and reality = G_d. "to hold G_d above all else and to have no other G_ds before me" is to hold what I wrote in the first sentence to be absolutely true
In fact, I think Judaism tried to get people beyond the concept of G_d as some being outside of themselves that they can foist off responsibility to...
And as for G_d as creator...Physicists are the modern theologians of that idea now...they just don't call it G_d because it's not precise enough...
Also, religion I think is an art, where art is where we create meaning (which works well with science, because science is where we find out facts)...and meaning is vitally important...we've created amazing things like beauty, justice, mercy...
And different people find different things to be meaningful...the spice of life
What is happening now is that a Global Ethics is being hammered out that everyone is going to have to follow, regardless of personal religion, belief, worldview...
Or something like that
As a Marxist, eco-pantheist I consider humanists to be conformist, legalistic and moderate to such a degree that they are incapable of having a radical thought.
A Marxist, whose mind be communist "must be stalled in thoughtless mechanical mode" to be calling his "mental cousin," the Humanist, "incapable of having a radical thought."
Teilhard de Chardin both agreeing that nature was a machine (gift from god or natural resources) to be exploited.
They shared an anthropocentric cosmic vision which perverts nature into an insignificant slave of their visions.
Also in collusion they redefine ideological worldviews as moral puzzles thus excluding any perspective which aims at overthrowing the status quo.
Humanism in collusion with theism is a form of bourgeois moderate reformism, an unwitting ally to theists in keeping a pantheistic vision at bay. A vision which which threatens their theistic anthropocentric absurdities and also the reductionist arrogance of the scientific humanists.
We're all involved in humanism, whether there is superstitious baggage to impede it or not.
Religious institutions can learn much from humanists, but of course likewise, humanists can learn much from the great spiritual teachings of many but not all of their prophets. It won’t happen often, as the human ego on both sides wants to be known for knowing and special.
I am still waiting for humanists to explain dark matter and dark energy and to create in their labs enough vitality from stardust to keep one cell alive. Just one cell is that too much to ask. :-)
A humanist to me is saying, "throw the baby out with the bathwater" no one creates more atheists than the Catholics.
The human ego takes to guilt and culpability and blameworthiness like a duck takes to water. Religion depends on that human ego to keep their religious institutions intact.
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It should read:
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity -- without recourse to supernaturalism.
Strictly speaking "humanism" is not a philosophy. It simply rejects the claim theistic claim that a code of ethics and self-evident truths require a higher sanction for validity.
"Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience." -- Albert Einstein.
I mean by that, that human being is the greatest and honorable part of all in this world.
“Well in this case I thought we're talking about moral questions, of course there are other aspects to our actions.”
I posit that looking at actions only as right OR wrong doesn't fit or harmonize with actual empirical existence.
Here are some ferinstances:
A lioness' feeds her hungry cubs by killing a gazelle. She must, or the cubs will starve.
Nearly all life on Earth was wiped out by life as life itself started producing at toxic and corrosive gas, Oxygen.
WWII many, many people died. But out of that many technologies were made, including some of them from the Nazis, so now we can better save drowning victims...
If one thinks of these actions as right or wrong, there are two answers. If one can break free of that, then the possibilities open up wider, showing the actual contingent nature of existence...