RE: Secular Humanism and Humanity: What are they?
March 16, 2015 at 10:31 am
(This post was last modified: March 16, 2015 at 10:32 am by Whateverist.)
(March 16, 2015 at 9:38 am)Ignorant Wrote:(March 15, 2015 at 3:22 pm)whateverist Wrote: I would also like to know how the person asking the question answers it himself. In particular, I'm interested to know whether your answer is drawn from personal reflection or taken whole cloth from authoritative sources.
Really? People who ask questions are expected to already have an answer to the question they are asking?
Not at all. Of course a person can ask a question without already knowing the answer, or even just ask it rhetorically. Nothing wrong in either case.
(March 16, 2015 at 9:38 am)Ignorant Wrote: The truth is that I am still working out the best way to explain what I think a human being is. Is that ok?
Of course, how could it not be okay?
(March 16, 2015 at 9:38 am)Ignorant Wrote: And, whateverist, the "answer" I am trying to formulate is being drawn from my own personal reflection of my own human experience together with what I find to be the best of the descriptions which have come before me. Shoulders of giants, as they say.
It has been my hope that some insights might come from asking the question in the OP.
Well best of luck with that. I don't count myself as a secular humanist so I can't help with that part. As for "humanity" I usually stop at the featherless biped level of description. So I don't think I have any help to offer.
The more I thought about morality as an undergraduate the more I felt like the effort to formalize and abstract a moral code was superfluous. It would be like formalizing the rules of bipedal locomotion. It doesn't seem to be the kind of knowledge which has much utility, unless perhaps you're working on robotics.
