What does Secular Humanism Mean to You?

[Will]

I've met a lot of people that identify themselves as secular humanists. They're not members of any organization or that have been convinced, necessarily by another secular humanist, but simply found that was the best label for themsleves to identify in the active (whereas atheism is passive). I like the idea of having a label that describes what I do believe instead of what I don't, but to be honest, I don't know a lot about secular humanism beyond what's in the wiki article.

The wiki article lists main tenants of secular humanism as follows:
Need to test beliefs â€" A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
Reason, evidence, scientific method â€" A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
Fulfillment, growth, creativity â€" A primary concern with fulfillment, growth and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
Search for truth â€" A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
This life â€" A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
Ethics â€" A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
Building a better world â€" A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

...and it lists ten ideals, as outlined in a Secular Humanist Declaration:
Free inquiry as opposed to censorship and imposition of belief; separation of church and state; the ideal of freedom from religious control and from jingoistic government control; ethics based on critical intelligence rather than that deduced from religious belief; moral education; religious skepticism; reason; a belief in science and technology as the best way of understanding the world; evolution; and education as the essential method of building humane, free, and democratic societies.
source

This all sounds wonderful, but since this is a wiki article, I wanted to get other people's input on what secular humanism means to them. I don't want to identify as something until I'm sure it accurately represents me.

So what's your take on secular humanism? Are you a secular humanist, and if so, what makes that the case? Do you disagree with any tenants or principles of secular humanism, be they listed above or elsewhere?

[Renegnicat]

Well, I disagree with the moral precepts of Secular Humanism. In my experience, reason unbound does more to strip morality of any comprehensibility and practicality than it does to enhance it.

Consider, the centuries old debate the unfettered reason has given us with regards to morality: Either there is a god that sets morality up, or everything is completely without natural morality, and thus, meaningless. Since, in secular humanism, "God" can hardly stand up to any reasonable scientific query, there is a strong pull, just as there always has been, towards individual nihilism and societal oppression.

Given this, the only plausible way we can establish our morality through reason alone is to assert that the morals and social mores of our society are to be accepted. But this presents it's own problem, because there is still no way to determine which morals society should set up. For example, why should slavery be abolished if it is allready an entrenched social custom? Indeed, there would be no reason to challenge slavery or any percieved societal injustices at all if all we relied on was reason. Given that we can't scientifically observe a god, thus reason leading us to nihilism, it's hard to imagine any more useless set or precepts on morality than the ones given through secular humanism.

I also disagree with the "search for truth" part. If one considers that something is "true" if it matches up with experience, a search for "truth" hardly needs to be given the elevated position that it recieves under the auspices of secular humanism. What a secular humanism means through searching for truth is that they would like to build a working model in their minds that succesfully explains all experience. This is actually quite disheartening and unreasonable, considering that we don't need a working model when we can simply observer experience ourselves. What's more, any working model that we can concieve in our minds will simply not have all the complexity and specificity that the reality does. A model is always simplified, and thus, much will be lost.

Not that models are not useful, mind you. Making models and using the scientific method is a great way to solve practical problems and understand individual sets of phenomena. But to expand this to an ever-moving goalpost such as "quest for truth" strikes me as very irresponsible.

And Finally, I have some reservations about the possible interpretation of the "building a better world" precept. There might be the expectation that an ideal utopia may someday be reached, and this is simply not true. The goal of improving ourselves and our society should be made with the qualification that perfection will simply never be reached. It is important to understand that just as change in the universe is ever present, so too, are problems which need to be fixed.

 

[Will]

Consider, the centuries old debate the unfettered reason has given us with regards to morality: Either there is a god that sets morality up, or everything is completely without natural morality, and thus...

What about evolutionary behaviorism, psychology, and sociology showing us strong and verifiable evidence that what we now generally consider to be morality came about as a result of millions of years of social development? I'd call that "natural morality". Things like sharing for the good of the group, self-sacrifice, humility, etc. are all rooted in generation after generation of pre-humans that were better fit for survival because of a healthy combination of selfish and altruistic behavioral tendencies. We can see the same phenomenon in all social species on the planet. Ants will sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony, wolves will hold back another predator so that the pack can retreat to safety, and occasionally I'll pull over to the side of the road to help push a broken car clear of traffic.

meaningless.

There is no meaning in life beyond subjective meaning, by my best understanding. I'm not familiar enough with Buddhism to know if that idea stands opposed to or in accordance with your beliefs, though. I should pop by the Buddhism thread!

[Whitney]

Well, I disagree with the moral precepts of Secular Humanism. In my experience, reason unbound does more to strip morality of any comprehensibility and practicality than it does to enhance it.

I completely disagree.
Consider, the centuries old debate the unfettered reason has given us with regards to morality: Either there is a god that sets morality up, or everything is completely without natural morality, and thus, meaningless. [/quote]

I don't think anyone who has seriously studied philosophy of ethics would say that the debate is settled nor that it is a question of god morality or no morality.  (You are forgetting the morality developed naturally out of survival need option.)

Anyway, I'll post more on this and the OP later...I'm supposed to be working.

[AlP]

I'm a member of the American Humanist Association. I don't self identify as "secular humanist" though. I'm a member primarily to support their works through membership fees and donations. For example, they take legal action against anti-secular projects. Their quarterly magazine for members is pretty good too.

The reason I don't self identify as "humanist" or "Humanist" is because I find their philosophical standpoint shallow. They state the outline of their beliefs in the Humanist Manifesto and other material. You could check out the AHA website if you want more of that. But they don't convincingly back it up with argument in my opinion.

I agree that morality is not contingent on religious belief. I also agree that psychology and other sciences reveal our ethical workings. Ditto for meaning being subjective. The last one is the most important to me. Humanism doesn't capture it. They are fixated on reason.

How about "free-thinker"? To me that's a much more powerful positive statement than "humanist". I think freedom is the most valuable "thing" we have. I don't mean liberty or free will. I mean the ability to choose.

I think these days I can comfortably identify myself as "some kind of existentialist". But not with enough confidence to update the world view in my profile.  

[templeboy]

I like the term "secular humanist." I think it describes my brand of ethical atheism well, and it is a far more positive term than "atheist" which emphasizes what I don't value, wheras "secular humanist" encompasses what I do value. Freethinker...I personally don't like using the term, it has an arrogance about it which, whilst being well founded, does nothing to improve our standing in the eyes of theists and fence-sitters.

If someone says something directly about god, then I'll say I'm an atheist, but if someone asks more generally what my religion is, I'd say something like "I'm not religious, I'm a secular humanist..." which is more discussion-arousing than "atheist" which can be a conversation-killer.

[zandurian]

Either there is a god that sets morality up, or everything is completely without natural morality, and thus, meaningless.

I don't think anyone who has seriously studied philosophy of ethics would say that the debate is settled nor that it is a question of god morality or no morality.  (You are forgetting the morality developed naturally out of survival need option.)

Of course we all know that when a creedal religionist says "God morality" they are generally referring to their written code which in the case of the "Big 3" would include theistic punishments for disobeying. I see this as the shallowest form of morality - enforced by threats.  

Since Renegnicat seems to be a Buddhist I would assume their definition of "god morality" would be more along the lines of a moral code which some Creator IMPLANTED in the mind/soul  through conscience (please correct me if I'm wrong on this).

If so - this would be my view as well, even though I would still call it a "natural" morality as it is naturally inherent in humans. So the only thing an atheist and I would disagree on are the origins of morality, conscience, empathy and ethics - not necessarily their content or how they have evolved over time.

Since I can't prove the actual origins I'm more interested in seeing what the universal body of ethics and morality looks like (worldwide) so that my budding social activism 'career' can be more effective  

I'm also of the opinion that pure logic and reason, though vital ingredients, are not by themselves sufficient to guide humanity but the manifesto in the OP includes "Building a better world â€" A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children" which sounds pretty darn good to me!

[Renegnicat]

Consider, the centuries old debate the unfettered reason has given us with regards to morality: Either there is a god that sets morality up, or everything is completely without natural morality, and thus...

What about evolutionary behaviorism, psychology, and sociology showing us strong and verifiable evidence that what we now generally consider to be morality came about as a result of millions of years of social development? I'd call that "natural morality".

Yes, well, you fail to make the crucial distinction that reason unbounded would demand justification for all that evidence and observation. After all, there certainly is much evidence being uncovered about how we "naturally" discovered our morality, but reason would reject that evidence without justification for it. How can we trust the evidence we see? After all, the evidence presupposes certain laws of consistency and causality, but there is no reasonable defense for these laws. And besides, if our natural morality developed from something that was itself based on untrustable experience, then how could we possibly "justify" that morality? After all, the basis for group survival, staying alive, with what justification can we prove that it is right and moral to stay alive? Certainly, we want to stay alive, and we've been programmed to want to, but in the end there is no reasonable and logical principle for it.

And so on, until reason devours itself in a horrible show of self-immolation. It's not pretty.

[Renegnicat]

I've been misunderstood.  

[Whitney]

I didn't leave out evidence for evolution. That kind of evidence is sustained through observation, and not reason.  

Actually, it's based on reasonable conclusions drawn from observation.....

Are you saying we can't trust our own ability to look at something and therefore observation is unreasonable?  Isn't that a bit extreme?

[Will]

But secular humanism isn't just reason, it also incorporates science and evidence.

[Renegnicat]

Oh. well, ok then.  

[McQ]

Good topic, Will. I'm not familiar enough with true Secular Humanism (at least beyond the manifesto) to have a firm opinion. Hopefully this thread will shed some light on it.

I also hadn't thought that deeply about Reason being sort of a one way street to nowhere until Renignicat brought it up. I think there is some validity to that.

[Renegnicat]

I didn't leave out evidence for evolution. That kind of evidence is sustained through observation, and not reason.