Is there anything wrong with secular humanism?
https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/3260
>humanism
>>655551
That doesn't really illustrate a problem.
>>655547
I only ever see these people define themselves by what they are NOT, as if the logical conclusion is that they are everything else.
Saying, "I'm not stupid," does not make you smart.
>>655566
>I only ever see these people define themselves by what they are NOT
I defined myself by identifying with secular humanism and asked if there was a problem with that,
>Saying, "I'm not stupid," does not make you smart.
No one said it did.
>>655547
Umm.. ever read their manifestos?
Vague, eurocentric victorian mental masturbation working on truisms("it's be nice if people were compassionate to each other") that they themselves had to tacitly acknowledge as false, but quickly ignore afterwards to keep the whole things going.
I could go in a whole analysis on how applying the principles of classical humanism will result in some pretty scary conclusions, and it's impact as a philosophical POV in today's society determining why we changed our view on certain things, but i'll just say this:
secular humanism as a whole is a joke.
>>655547
Everything is wrong with it
"If God does not exist, everything is permitted"
(Dostoevsky)
>>655599
>Vague, eurocentric victorian mental masturbation working on truisms("it's be nice if people were compassionate to each other")
Wouldn't it be useful to society if people were compassionate towards one another? Being a truism doesn't mean something is not true.
>I could go in a whole analysis on how applying the principles of classical humanism will result in some pretty scary conclusions,
Could you expand?
>>655611
>If God does not exist, everything is permitted
And with 'God' on one's side?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gemma-simpson-death-man-admits-4815482
That is obviously just one frivolous example but believing the 'ultimate authority' is on your side of an argument is even worse than not being sure.
>>655657
I didn't say everything wasn't permitted,
just read the quote again.
>>655642
>
>Wouldn't it be useful to society if people were compassionate towards one another? Being a truism doesn't mean something is not true.
We have a saying in my country, taken as a mock version of what certain artists of a low-class musical genre say:"Let it be good for everyone, so it won't be bad".
If your worldview is that good things are better than bad things, and that it's better for people to be nice than be murderous psychopaths, you don't need a philosophy for that, since you don't add anything to the discussion.
It's #YOLO compared to ancient greek hedonism, a reductionistic pale shadow of twisted principles.
Btw, the truisms weren't what they had to abandon. It's certain things they said in their pre-WW2 manifesto that they had to quietly drop when they had egg on their faces from them being backfiring so hard, only to continue on with the same propaganda.
>Could you expand?
Well, if man and society are the benchmarks on how we should behave, then the mongols, vikings and other raiders did nothing wrong with killing millions of people, annihilating entire nations and kingdoms, and raping and enslaving so many, for example.
Or how the essential pillars of society are only to be viewed from if we can draw pleasure from them, not if they are useful. That means everything from the dignity of human life to other fundamental cornerstones of society are merely ignorable social conventions.
>>655700
>Well, if man and society are the benchmarks on how we should behave, then the mongols, vikings and other raiders did nothing wrong with killing millions of people, annihilating entire nations and kingdoms, and raping and enslaving so many, for example.
The last time I checked those cultures were all religious and were all certain they had their "God" on their side.
>>655700
They had their ideas, we have our own. We'll try to have our ideas become reality, just like they did.
Ethics doesn't describe how people behave nor can someone establish beyond doubt how one must behave. Even so, we are ethical. We act on our beliefs. So, any ethical system needn't be true to have value: there is no functional value in truth itself. An ethical system has value if people believe in it.
I'm not that anon, but I'm sympathetic to humanism even if I don't really buy into hard ideals. I'd like it to become a more widespread ideology and many other people will also do. Some people will work in a different direction, not because they have the ethical grounds to, but because they believe they do. It'll be like this until some people stop changing their minds and everyone else is dead.
>>655736
Do not twist it into blaming it on religion, because it won't work.
Vikings didn't go out to besiege Paris because of Thor, and the huns and mongols didn't really care who you worshipped, since their theology was shamanism that was tied to their native steppes.
But if you wish, we can go with the purely secular political purges amongst certain regimes and mock, communist or otherwise.
Answer the question about the principle of your reasoning, and stop commiting ad personams and tu quoques.
>>655599
Like the bible?
>>655788
>mongols didn't really care who you worshipped
>implying you dont worship based tengri
>>655724
I just said :
A :God does not exist => B :everything is permitted
But I didn't say B was false.
>>655786
You assume those ideas are products of a bygone age.
Eugenics was really popular and progressive in the recent past amongst all walks of life(it was still a gov. agency in Sweden in the 60s), and we reintroduced torturing our foes for information during the Irakian war without batting an eye.
>>655797
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
>>655788
I didn't twist anything into blaming religion. I have made no claims (at this point) about religions causing wars. You used a bunch of religious cultures and blamed their wars on not being religious, which is bizarre.
Then you used a source that says some wars are caused by religion to try and counter a point no one had made.
Thank you for your source that says some wars are caused by religion.
>>655816
>Eugenics was really popular and progressive in the recent past amongst all walks of life(it was still a gov. agency in Sweden in the 60s), and we reintroduced torturing our foes for information during the Irakian war without batting an eye.
How does that contradict anything I said?
Ideas are a product of their ages, to a great extent yes.
All those things you mentioned may still be "in" again, yes.
What is your point? Are you saying that those ideas are irredeemable in any context?
Personally, I don't like death and torture and will try to prevent those things to some extent, not one that is very costly to myself. If I was born in a different time, possibly the future, I might have different ideas. Either way, I'd stand by my ideas because, well, I want to.
>>655788
Useless chart with no source study.
>hundreds of thousands killed in the Vendée
>millions killed during dekulakization
>dozens of millions killed under Maoism
Secular humanists supported all those.
>>655871
And?
>>655879
I think condoming the murder of millions is worst than having imaginary friends.
>>655803
You will have to try again because = and > are two completely different things in both loigic and math.
I don't want to be rude but you aren't even making any sense.
>>655829
>You used a bunch of religious cultures and blamed their wars on not being religious, which is bizarre.
*facepalm*
I was talking about philosophical principles, and trying to make an interesting discussion regarding how a society views certain subjects.
I never talked about irreligiousness.
You are the one who takes it personally, and tries to frame it some dychotomic religion vs irreligion thing.
I'm just saying it's a deficitary philosophy based on principles that can go very wrong. This isn't in comparison to some religious principles or faith. Simply put, analyzed on it's own merits, i find it lacking.
>>655866
Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,
>>655866
I had the whole data lying around somewhere, but i can't find it.
Basically, they used 5 principles to determine if a war was religious or not.
>>655816
>religion
>not endorsing torture and genocide
What are you, a Jainist or something?
>>655884
At what point are you saying secular humanism is the same thing as Stalinism or Maoism or the Khmer Rouge? That is like saying Christians need to explain why [or take responsibility for] Al Quaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center. Your argument is clearly nonsense
>>655893
Whew lad.
I made a thread about secular humanism and the best argument you could make was to go on about Vikings.
Have you got any criticisms of secular humanism you would like to share?
>>655916
I'm not saying this.
I'm saying secular humanists supported Stalin over Kolchak, they supported Mao over Chiang and the Khmer Rouge over whoever opposed them.
Secular humanism clearly warps the judgement of people.
>>655909
tu quoque again.
Listen, if your reaction to any statement in this thread is "but X did the same", don't.
Save bandwidth and face.
>>655924
Well, i kinda disected it's philosophical principles in the past hour and declared them deficient, and you still haven't made an on-the-point reply to that, but whatever. Thank you for proving your unwillingness to debate the foundations of your worlviews, demonstrated by taking secondary snippets of my statements and attacking those.
I am forced to abandon this thread, since you have not made any objective replies, and i am wasting my time.
>>655941
>I'm saying secular humanists supported Stalin over Kolchak,
Are you slightly bonkers?
Do you even have any clue what secular humanism is?
Hint: it has nothing to do with either Stalin or Kolchak or Mao or the Khmer Rouge.
Have you got any criticisms of secular humanism you would like to share?
>>655971
Well then it's an absolutely useless philosophy.
>>655961
>Well, i kinda disected it's philosophical principles in the past hour
Lad, I don't want to be rude or be snarky or pick up on finer points of philosophy based on poor use of English, but you can barely read and write never mind grasp 'philosophical positions in an hour' and 'declare them deficient'.
>>655976
You will have to exapnd on that point.
>>655700
>Well, if man and society are the benchmarks on how we should behave, then the mongols, vikings and other raiders did nothing wrong with killing millions of people, annihilating entire nations and kingdoms, and raping and enslaving so many, for example.
Nothing compared to God who literally wiped out the entire world except a select few.
>>655893
>Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,
And how destructive were those wars in terms of casualties and other losses? The number of wars doesn't mean anything without their destructive context.
No, but there's also nothing wrong with any way of life aslong as you're a reasonable, kind, understanding human being. So a humanist.
Secular humanism is just a type of humanism.
>>655788
durh, wars aren't religious, therefore region is good.
no, anything is good, as long as you are a good person, religion wont make you one.
>>656017
Eh, did the math sometime ago. Even taken like that, they aren't that remarkable.
>>655989
Well, if you have a philosophy that has no insight into guiding the behavior of anyone in the most populous, and the largest nation on earth, it's a pretty useless practical philosophy.
And it doesn't offer any technical insights or positions in the way of a specific philosophy, like Mathematical Intuitionism.
>>655885
>Not seeing that "=>" is a symbol for inference, and instead reading ">" and "=" separately.
Toppest kek, don't know if you're a troll or just a faggot
If there is no god, there are still morals.
>>656063
Then how do you justify them, good sir , with induction, or logic ?
>>656051
>Well, if you have a philosophy that has no insight into guiding the behavior of anyone in the most populous, and the largest nation on earth,
Ahem.
Have you read the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?
>>656041
>No, but there's also nothing wrong with any way of life aslong as you're a reasonable, kind, understanding human being. So a humanist.
Nope. Humanism is a specific post-renaissance philosophy and collection of principles. Goodness is ahistorical and varied.
>>656068
I am just, I have a moral standard. I got this from my understanding of what I deem good and bad, mostly from my environment and my conscience.
Given that I can't know if there is a God or not, I'll chose weak atheism (the belief you can't know anything of the existence of God, so you don't hold the positive belief of it.)
So, I therefore believe, I got my morals from no God, regardless of there is a God, I dont think it gave me my morals. Life evolved to intelligence, even animals can have morals.
A world with God, looks like one without God.
>>656054
Calm down Vlad "le Reddit" implier that is not a symbol recognised anywhere in the study of maths or logic.
>>655547
>Secular humanism
>im totes for thinking and reason, unless it leads to religion!
It offers a shitty standard for morals that anyone can reach
>>656196
Does it?
In what way?
What do you even mean by 'reach'?
>>656068
Appealing to a higher power is just a form of appealing to authority anyway. You can still be your own authority and behave according to your own moral principles.
>>656108
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_logic_symbols
Eat that, faggot, and die.
>>656223
How is acting accordingly to your principles moral ?
I don't want to be le Godwin guy, but....
>>656240
How is it not? Why must morality necessarily derive from an outside source?
>>656219
>In what way?
>Only consent matters, lol
>killin is wrong! (unless my will is restrained in some way)
>tolerate everyone (if it doesnt undermine my views)
> Be agnostic
> Look up my university's atheist and agnostic club
> Facebook page has them all posing with Richard Dawkins
Secular humanism it is, then.
>>656335
>needing a label at all
>>655657
>And with 'God' on one's side?
There are still do's and don'ts
Hitchen's idea falls apart because its the application of outside morality imposed into a moral system.
With Dostoevsky there is no morality there can be no imposing.
It bothers me when people retort with this empty rhetoric because it is completely illogical and just annoying and shows a lack of thought.
>>656355
If you don't label yourself, anyone you talk too will just label you anyway.
At least you get a say in the matter.
It's just a matter of picking a label that doesn't automatically make people hate you reactionary.
Either that or don't talk to anyone.
>reliable knowledge is best obtained when we query nature using the scientific method.
This sounds dangerously close to positivism.
On paper the pathing of the thoughts seem solid however the website looks like it's mostly about crusading against religion.
>>655611
>"If God does not exist, everything is permitted"
(Dostoevsky)
There are two problems with this quote. 1: Dostoevsky never said it.
2: Only IF there is a God than everything is permitted. If I think I am getting my orders from God, than I am acting under a higher moral authority, nothing you do or so can convince me otherwise because the Big Other is on my side, The tragedy of 9/11 was able to happen precociously because there is a God and he tells you to do this and so on and so on.
>>656406
Well the thing is, there's no reason to not mention it if you're actually questioned about it. But I don't see a need to preface it. It's not like you're going around obnoxiously stating you're atheist/agnostic like the Dawkins worshipers do everywhere they go.
>>656746
>Only IF there is a God than everything is permitted.
This presupposes a pretty recent conception of God, especially the God of the Abrahamic religions (maybe Islam tends to this conception, but it doesnt go far the rabbit hole), which holds that God acts reasonably and cannot make us do immoral things.
Also, Zizek a shit
