Secular Humanism and Humanity: What are they?

[Ignorant]

---

Your original reply DID, in fact, offer a brief (and admittedly non-robust) description of what you think distinguishes humans from other animals. I was interested in exploring that description, but it seems that you are not. That is perfectly fine. All you have to do is say so, which you actually did in this post.

I'd be interested in exploring two particular parts of it. First what makes us human is a matter of degree when we are compared with out animals. The makes it hard to pin down just at what point evolutionarily, people became people. It also creates problems at the margins. Require too much empathy or rationality and you begin suggesting mental deficient people or sociopaths aren't human. That's not a road I want to go down.

---

Second, the question of why it matters. People matter to people. That is a fact. But most species are primarily concerned with members of their own species. Given how evolution and genetics work, that's no surprise. In other words, while it can be fun determining just how people differ from the rest of the animal kingdom, it is not anything that makes us cosmically special, just very special to ourselves.

Is it not more than just fun? Is it not also important for social life? For example, wouldn't it be silly to have intense discussions about extremely complex issue like human rights if nobody could articulate what it was that made a person human and therefore guarantees them rights?

---

So, how do you define human? Seriously. It's a question that anyone asking should be expected to have an answer to.

Really? People who ask questions are expected to already have an answer to the question they are asking?

The truth is that I am still working out the best way to explain what I think a human being is. Is that ok? 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.

---

I expect you to have some ideas. It is after all a question about the basic nature of the species to which you belong. And a discussion requires give and take. Ask but don't answer is an interrogation, not a discussion.

Well sure, I do have some ideas, but my ideas are heavily influenced by years of philosophical and theological reflection that are quite different than the perspective given by the atheist (particularly secular humanist) one (and those ideas are currently developing and probably wouldn't stand up under scrutiny in their present formulations). I began this thread as a question posed to them to provide a description. You didn't have to provide a response (you are not even a secular humanist as you made abundantly clear), and you chose to anyway for which I am thankful.

If asking clarifying and critical questions about another person's worldview is an interrogation, then it seems like a large number of threads are interrogations, and I have been interrogated several times already. I apologize if you don't like that approach, but you don't have to interact with me if you don't like the way I investigate other people's thoughts.