Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists and other non-believers.

I have a question (and for the sake of not provoking HeatheNZ into making another drive-by screed at me about Atheism not being a belief system, I won?t include it here, so here goes).

How do ?Humanists? qualify as ?non-believers??

Thanks for the accommodation.

To answer your question (or not) I guess Humanists do not believe in gods. I don’t really know if that’s true – but the implication of your quote would suggest so.

A little research perhaps…

The following from Wikipedia would indicate that Humanists are indeed non-theistic, however is sounds like more of a secular ethos rather than one that deals with theistic belief per se.

I think you have a case for mis-categorization.

Humanism is a comprehensive life stance that upholds human reason, ethics, and justice, and rejects supernaturalism, pseudoscience and superstition. This article uses the words Humanism and Humanist (with a capital ‘H’) and no adjective such as “secular”[1] to refer to the life stance and its adherents, and humanism (with a small ‘h’) to refer to other related movements or philosophies. While this convention is not universal among all Humanists, it is used by a significant number of them, and for purposes of this article, helps distinguish between Humanism as a life stance and other forms of humanism.

Humanism has appeal to agnostics, atheists, empiricists, freethinkers, rationalists, and scientific skeptics. Humanism is non-theistic and secular.

Sorry, don?t know what happened to my first attempt at posting this.

Anyway,

Ok. Third time?s a charm (had an unclosed blockquote tag in the above two tries. Sorry ?bout that).

I think you have a case for mis-categorization.

Why thank you! Incidentally, my favorite, Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary?s 3rd definition of Humanism uses that problematic term doctrine in it as well:

3: a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially : a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason

I believe I’m on informed ground when I say that *most* humanists are also atheist; that is, they do not believe in a god, and generally reject supernaturalism in all forms.

But what do we *believe*? I helped to make up a flyer for a local AHA chapter years ago, and the group is still using the flyer today, so the following excerpts from the original draft of the flyer might be of benefit to the discussion. Disclaimer: for the sake of brevity, although the group was in general concensus as to the thoughts expressed in the full statements, the final, printed, version of the flyer was much briefer than I’m including here, although not changed in essence or scope.

***** *****

We [Humanists] believe in:

–autonomy of thought, the right of all human beings to enjoy full liberty of conscience, free from recrimination by irrational postures of authority

–a positive morality, based on situational ethics and amenable to the evolving human experience, free from absolutist structure or arbitrary edict

–a wholly natural universal reality, accessible to the ordinary person through observation and education, gained as real knowledge and developed as informed belief, free from theologic or mystic misinterpretation

–the benefit of healthy skepticism, being willing to explore any area of thought by way of critical inquiry, free to debunk all powers and forces, all spooks, specters, spirits and souls, all ghosts, goblins and gods, etc. etc. etc., where posited as real yet so far unproduced

–the forwarding of science and technology, in union with progressive social engineering through optimal democractic constitutional governance, as mankind’s best hope for acheiving global prosperity and peace, free from the Hydra-headed threat of personal and civil poverty and privation, economic exploitation, biological infestation, chemical contamination, nuclear devastation, genetic holocaust, or industrial self-annihilation

–the power of the human intellect to attain the necessary solutions to the problems that confront us, to define meaning and purpose in life, to recognize that we need look no further than ourselves as the ultimate source of satisfaction of our needs, free of false obligation to otherwise satisfy the desires of imaginary entities first

–laughter, joy, love, caring, friendship, fellowship, community, opportunity, philanthropy, vision, preparedness, the beauty of the world around us, the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, the arts, the lessons of history, a future of promise not despair, free from cynicism, pessimism, negativism, inhumanity, and mindless violence

Want to hear how stupid religious schooling really is!?

I’m lucky that my dad accidentally slipped me a dinosaur coloring book that said the earth was millions of years old when I was 3 or so, because they brainwashed me with peer shit for 10 solid years from preschool to 8th grade, and I wasn’t ever allowed (by my parents) to read Greek Mythology or to even pick up a Science book from the library because “science is boring”.

The only good thing I really learned was sharing and that germs are bad (in preschool), simple mathematics (m&m’s in 2nd grade), reading (it was “See Dot Run” in kindergarten and then memorizing the bible by grade 4), but that was about it! I remember that memory class was what I spent hours of my time on, learning the bible verses like the back of my hand so I could convert non-lutherans and non-christians that I came across.

In music class, we learned all about how to sing Hymnal songs. We always walked in single file lines everywhere we went (to Chapel and back), and lined up in alphabetical order when we did so. I remember vividly about prayer circles and always praying for old people in the hospital (I always thought that was a huge waste of time). Actually, I want my those 10 years of life back, dammit, I wasn’t even allowed to have friends from school over to my house (what’s up with that mom and dad?)!

[[[[Note: It's still an argument everytime I talk to my brothers and parents about science...."oh, [qf], that’s all just a theory that’s not true. theories are put out there by people, and people are fallable, but Jesus is perfect and he never made a mistake”

or

“you’re just reading propaganda that they want you to read, but we know it’s not true. you were raised a xian, so that’s what we want you to continue to be for the rest of your life. We always kept you away from the things that are going to harm you”]]]]

Everything else taught in school was about famous bible miracles that happened in history and how Jesus died on the cross and mysteriously came back to life and that somehow there is a corrolation between that and going to heaven (of which they didn’t even have any photographs).

Every time somebody tells me I’m sinning because I have no faith, it makes me cringe because I know, personally, that they are being a complete idiot!