Humanism, good without god

[Tessa James]

To keep her from being tormented by classmates and lectured by adults, I actually taught my daughter for many years to say she was southern baptist. I don't have anything against church or religious people and we had very little to gain and a lot to lose by being open about even agnosticism in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

Every state is different, and cities vary probably even more than states. Atlanta is more progressive than Bend, for example. For what it's worth.

Hey Felix I have family in Florida and Georgia and completely agree with your assessment.  Hotlanta seems a pretty different place from the small towns nearby.  Sounds like you know about our Bend cowboys too.  I also appreciate your dedication to your daughter's well being.  How is she feeling about the religious world now?

[Kia]

Humanism is soooo last century, it's all about transhumanism now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

[Tessa James]

Humanism is soooo last century, it's all about transhumanism now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

"Although some transhumanists report having religious or spiritual views, they are for the most part atheists, agnostics or secular humanists."  That is from the source you reference, Wikipedia.

Humanism is open to new ideas and is far from dogmatic even with a dated heritage.  One aspect of human evolution that has been resoundingly discredited is Eugenics and I speculate that some emerging concepts that suggest human improvements through technology might just find us a little less human as we become part machine?
Thanks for the post Kia, I like to explore these ideas.

[Kia]

I think that's kind of the whole idea of transhumanism it opens up what it means to be humanism, since humanism has it's roots in christian theology and the general anthropocentrism and sacred humanity that accompanies renaissance Christianity. Transhumanism is an attempt to redefine humanity in the context of new technologies that will surely change what it means to be human. We already have the technology and foundational science for a self-determined evolution, conscious selection instead of Darwinian natural selection. Eugenics was failed scientific pursuit because it was based on deep inherent genetic traits particular to human ethnic groups and those traits just aren't there, i.e. there is no superior aryan skull shape.

There are, however, genetic flaws in the body. Susceptibility to disease, various forms of deformities and disabilities, all sorts of things. Eugenics was meant to produce a specific population of humanity that would be superior to all others, the transhumanist ideal is using science and technology to remove all suffering from all people. Idealist for sure and I have my own qualms with it but it is if anything more inclusive than humanism. Are cloned humans actually humans? Do they possess the same human dignity as those humans who are created "naturally"? There are scientists who are dedicated to uploading the human mind into computers; if there is no physical body, or if that body is composed of processors and microchips  is that a human? transhumanism says yes, and I would have to agree.

As far as theism or divinity in transhumanism. Transhumanism could be seen as an attempt to "play god" a la Frankenstein (a great (trans)humanist story), I like to think (assuming there is a divine higher power) that maybe we were given these obnoxiously large and complicated brains so that we could piece together the ridiculous puzzle that is our existence. And now that we have pretty much figured out life and can start making some and altering it (again biological self-determination), it's kind of like an invitation to finish, or at least cooperate in the grand work of life. Like for the past millions of years of life god has just been grooming and guiding earth lifeforms and now god say "I've shown you the ropes, I'll let you take it from here."

We are just the universe experiencing itself and we're becoming self-aware and as we become self-aware then so is the universe itself and after self-awareness comes self-creation. Think of children; the younger years children usually just mirror and follow their parents. As they grow they start to form into there own person, first they start questioning and exploring (insert awkward middle school phase here) and then they find their passions and drives and they become a full on person no longer dependent nor emulating their parents. And if the universe is fractal, as the great mystics of history say "as above, so below" then it's entirely possible this is what is happening.

That of course is all just my own thoughts and in no way a statement of cosmic truth.

[Tessa James]

The ultimate cosmic truths remain to be determined, I agree and your efforts to explain transhumanism are appreciated.  Yes the nazi approach to eugenics ensured a closed door failure.
Without challenging you personally, I do wonder what those genetic flaws could include?  As you know many here at Susan's consider themselves flawed in one way or another and would readily have just lived life in the congruent gender.  It's speculation but could transhumanism lead to world with no more diabetes, cancer or transgender people?
The origin of consciousness is still not well explained but I like to think of us along the lines of Carl Sagan's starstuff becoming self aware.  I have yet to find a compelling reason to posit a god or supernatural sources for the multiverse and am excited by ongoing scientific research.  We do not, after all, even know what the dark matter in the known universe is?
I look forward to more answers and a deeper understanding of our place here.

[Kia]

Yeah reality is pretty wacky and exciting. I think transhumanism is an attempt to remove disease and dysfunction from human existence, but at the same time it's open to exploring new avenues for humanity. My understanding at least is that the transhumanist ideal doesn't involve some higher agency ordaining what qualifies as properly human. But each individual and/or community decides this for themselves. So while the ability to eliminate things like cancer and diabetes from the species an individual is free to not be cured. As far as trans* people in the transhumanist future, advances in technology and science could allow us to effect our body sex whether through some kind of body/mind transfer, organ transfers, maybe instead of hrt we'll be able to reverse the puberty process and implant glands that produce the proper hormones.

It also includes more cosmetic changes and additions to the body. Computers in bodies i.e. cyborgs, improved night vision, extra limbs, better brains, animal attributes, really if you can imagine it. One of my personal favorite ideas is: when humanity eventually moves out to settle other planets the general scifi consensus is that we'll terraform the planet making it habitable for humanity. But given our current advances it would be easier to change the properties of the settlers rather than the planet, humans who are built for higher/lower gravity, who breathe more efficiently or don't need oxygen at all, etc.

Another scenario would be if a group of hip young people decided to electively change their bodies in radical ways.Transhumanism would say that despite these varied differentiations on the old human form they are all humans and deserve the same basic human decency that we experience in the present.

I've always seen science and spirituality as inherently answering the same questions and in a lot of ways coming to the same answers. (Funny story about the connection between the two, Isaac Newton invented calculus for his own alchemical work and he ingested a bunch of mercury in his lifetime, because mercury is significant to alchemists.) Quantum mechanics shows us that experience is subjective and that depending on how an experiment is performed or observed can change the outcome of the experiment. Many of the world's esoteric schools and master mystics also say that experience is subjective and that we as observers or as beings are integrally entangled with the world around us. The idea of self-aware star particles sounds like a fruity hippy thing, but we know it's a fact. Hopefully in the future religion and science can get over it's superficial, mostly social, differences and coalesce into a super cool way of exploring not just the universe but ourselves in relation to it.

[FTMDiaries]

To keep her from being tormented by classmates and lectured by adults, I actually taught my daughter for many years to say she was southern baptist. I don't have anything against church or religious people and we had very little to gain and a lot to lose by being open about even agnosticism in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

It saddens me to hear that you need to do this for your daughter's safety. It reminds me so much of my childhood in uber-Christian South Africa. I came out as an atheist at age 9 and was bullied for it for the rest of my school career.

The default position in my country (UK) is to be a practising agnostic. Very few people attend church; in fact, it'd be consided a bit weird if someone born after the late 1950s were to admit to attending church on a regular basis. For most of us, we'd only ever enter churches for 'hatches, matches and dispatches'. In spite of this, the Church of England is actually part of our country's government and they receive money from every taxpayer, including me. Separation of church and state is a precious thing.

I'm a member of the British Humanist Association, whose members and supporters include Profesor Brian Cox, Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, Sir Patrick Stewart (yup, Captain Picard himself), Sir Terry Pratchett and of course, Richard Dawkins. With that kind of company, I can hold my head high whilst proclaiming my atheism in public, and it wouldn't be a barrier to public office either (our Deputy Prime Minister is an agnostic, for example).

Statistics show that America is becoming less religious too. It does get better.

[Tessa James]

Thanks again Kia for an intriguing set of ideas and an invitation to consider a "super cool way of exploring...."  Yes indeed "if we can imagine it."   I remember handling mercury that escaped from medical instruments and can only laugh at that connection to Sir Isaac Newton.

FTM you are quite correct that even the USA is steadily declining in religious affiliations and attendance at churches.  I am happy to be in a State, Oregon, considered the least church going.  I am also humbled and honored by association with the short list you gave us of illustrious British Humanists.  Fortunately for us, many of these supporters are outspoken proponents of science, evolutionary process and a rational view of the cosmos.

There is no end to our imagination and we will likely continue to create any manner of deities and supernatural concepts and sadly, as you say bullying.  A medical student told me years ago when frustrated by an inflexible attending; Today's dogma is tomorrows dog>-bleeped-<."  I notice that Zeus and Apollo are not gaining many adherents lately outside of the comic books;-)

[Kia]

There is current behind science and religion and inside of each person, this wonder and amazement at how awesome reality is. A singular facet or aspect can absorb lifetimes of study and curiosity and when you stack them all together it leaves us speechless. And that feeling of the incomprehensibility of existence along with wonder can produce fear, and some people respond to that fear by bullying everyone else who doesn't accept their worldview. A forest with one type of tree would be boring, it'd be a christmas tree farm. I love that there are so many different ways people perceive the universe; it's what got me into studying religions (that and less math ).

Imagination is so important because it's like a large hadron collider for ideas, we can smash together all kinds of things and new beautiful thoughts show up. It provides the necessary diversity of thought that is needed to make breakthroughs in human understanding.

[BunnyBee]

I consider myself a humanist, but I feel the philosophy (or whatever) will never catch on in a major way because humanists tend to see shades of grey and the fluidity/non-existence of truth, which means it is hard for them to present a consistent ideal or worldview.  Most people like to have a simple rigid structure they can easily understand and connect with and have a seriously hard time with big swirling blobs.

I love humanists precisely for being a big swirling blob of ideology though, so don't go changing

[Kia]

No we're a precisely defined cube!

[Tessa James]

No we're a precisely defined cube!

I hope that is not the BORG coming to assimilate us!

I consider myself a humanist, but I feel the philosophy (or whatever) will never catch on in a major way because humanists tend to see shades of grey and the fluidity/non-existence of truth, which means it is hard for them to present a consistent ideal or worldview.  Most people like to have a simple rigid structure they can easily understand and connect with and have a seriously hard time with big swirling blobs.

I love humanists precisely for being a big swirling blob of ideology though, so don't go changing

Swirling blobs of ideology?  Hmmm perhaps a movie title from the 1950s or a new rock band name?  I can't argue with love tho.....

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

If you think about it  ....We are all humanists and practice humanism...Some are just better at it than others 

Meta Zenda

[V M]

The big red zero has spoken

'Swirling Blobs of Ideology' is now the name of my new band... Sounds good to me

[Anatta]

"Free your mind and your ass will follow"  -Jimi Hendrix

Hmmm, does this sound familiar?

Kia Ora J,

And look where that got poor Jimi...

The mind's already free, only most people have yet to discover this....

Metta Zenda

[FTMDiaries]

I hope that is not the BORG coming to assimilate us!

Not a problem: Locutus himself is on our side. 

[Anatta]

Kia Ora Tessa,

I hope you don't mind...I just thought some of your thread followers would be interested in this (However if you feel it's inappropriate  I'll delete this post and start another thread)

What would fellow humanists' ten commandments be ? (a few examples)

Richard Dawkins The alternative to the Ten Commandments

1.   Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

2.   In all things, strive to cause no harm.

3.   Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

4.   Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

5.   Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

6.   Always seek to be learning something new.

7.   Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

8.   Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.

9.   Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

10.   Question everything.
Dawkins uses these proposed commandments to make a larger point that "it is the sort of list that any ordinary, decent person today would come up with." He then adds four more of his own devising:

•   Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none of your business.

•   Do not discriminate or oppress on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species.

•   Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

•   Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.



The late Christopher Hitchens on the Ten Commandments

1.   Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or their colour.

2.   Do not ever even think of using people as private property.

3.   Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations.

4.   Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.

5.   Do not condemn people for their inborn nature. ("Why would God create so many homosexuals, only to
torture and destroy them?")

6.   Be aware that you, too, are an animal, and dependent on the web of nature. Try to think and act
accordingly.

7.   Do not imagine you can avoid judgment if you rob people [by lying to them] rather than with a knife.

8.   Turn off that f*cking cell phone.

9.   Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions and terrible sexual repressions.

10.   Reject any faith if their commandments contradict any of the above.

•   In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.


Metta Zenda

[Tessa James]

Kuan Yin thank you so very much for that addition.  I admire Richard Dawkins and can readily accept his alternatives.   Christopher Hitchens adds a bit of comic relief to his assertions and I like thinking about alternatives that are fun and positive.  And then when we get right down to it some things really are just a big no no?

[Anatta]

Kuan Yin thank you so very much for that addition.  I admire Richard Dawkins and can readily accept his alternatives.   Christopher Hitchens adds a bit of comic relief to his assertions and I like thinking about alternatives that are fun and positive.  And then when we get right down to it some things really are just a big no no?

Kia Ora Tessa,

We all have a built in moral compass that tends to guide us...Only at times it can be a bit (Basil) faulty (Fawlty) 

Metta Zenda