A couple of days ago, a 21 year-old student asked me: “Is it a contradiction of terms to be a Humanist but not an Atheist?” I replied approximately as follows:
It depends on how you define your terms. I believe that the essence of humanism is a sense that humanity as a whole is more important than any of its subgroups. Basic to humanism is an attitude that starts with a sense of togetherness, a sympathy and a sharing, accompanied by a sense that you as an individual share responsibility for our collective future with all the rest of humanity.
If you believe there is a God specifically dedicated to the protection or care of the group you happen to belong to, whether that group is defined by religion or race or whatever, and that your god supports your group as opposed to other groups, I don’t think you can properly be considered a true humanist.
If you believe that there is a God up there someplace that you can invoke to alter specific things that are going to happen, you are not a true humanist. You are in effect passing the buck to an entity whose existence is unverifiable. The humanist says, in effect, the buck stops here.
If you don’t submit to either of those two beliefs, however, you can be a humanist in practice even if you choose to believe in some higher power. Some atheists might dispute this, but I believe they are being unnecessarily exclusive, and underrate the need for all of us to work together to combat the pernicious forces of the conservative religious types. Issues like the separation of church and state are very important, and non-believers need to work together with sensible believers to make sure we suffer no return to theocratic tyranny.
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To put it in technical terms, there is a great gap between theists and deists, where deists believe there is a power up there but basically we are on our own. That gap is far more important, in practical terms, than the gap in belief between deists and atheists. As long as you recognize that human destiny is made here on earth, by us humans, and that we are solely responsible for what happens, whether you believe in God (the deist approach) or don’t (atheism) is a matter of choice, and an individual seriously concerned with the future of humanity can go either way. A deist with strong humanist leanings is likely to be a person that makes a positive contribution to humanity as a whole. I am a humanist who prefers not to believe in any superior power, but I welcome humanism wherever I find it. We need each other.
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Hi Carl thanks for your info. My sister’s a humanist and I was just wanting to get a bit of background to her beliefs. You seem to be a very reasonable and pleasant bunch. I like your “the buck stops here” attitude. I considered myself an atheist for many years but it didn’t occur to me to pursue humanism. Too late now tho, I’m a theist – a christian. But I hope I’m the sort of theist who is humanist-friendly, certainly my sister and I get on very well together and I love her to bits. I don’t try to change her views either tho I have to admit I’d like it if she did; but I don’t see that happening soon, she’s pretty pragmatic. She recommended the movie “Paul” to me recently which was very funny. I could laugh because I don’t really fit the stereotype of the christians in it too well (tho I could relate to some extent, without the hysteria).
Anyway, nice chatting with you. I live in Australia btw, in a small country township up in the hills where the weather is wintry at the moment – sunny but cold. I assume you’re in the USA, right?
One difference between atheists and humanists is that atheists tend toward confrontation with true believers while humanists are willing to discuss the god question in a more relaxed way. As for me, I work it out this way: we don’t know what we don’t know and as long as we don’t know everything we cannot logically assert that such-and-such does not exist. We can, however, assert with some confidence that on the basis of what we do know, the existence of such-and-such has not been proven. We can go further and assert that on the basis of what we know, it appears highly improbable that we shall ever find proof that such-and-such exists. If you can accept the validity of this line of reasoning, why fight over whether such-and-such is highly improbable or whether it is truly non-existent?
I am of course willing to argue about whether the existence of God has actually been proven. It has not.
The proof is in the pudding as “they” say…I suppose both you and I will find out when our spirits leave our bodies. Unfortunately for you, if I, a believer turn out to be right, you are in for a rather unhappy surprise.
and unfortunately for you Mary, if you turn out to be wrong, you’re in for a hell of a shock.