RE: Meaningful ideas and quotes
August 18, 2019 at 8:24 am
(This post was last modified: August 18, 2019 at 8:42 am by Belacqua.)
(August 17, 2019 at 8:43 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: The fact than human existence predates religion. This is a hard fact, and is not subject to reasonable objection.
Boru
Yes, but it has nothing to do with Hitchens' claim.
Unless he's defining "humanism" in some extremely broad way, so as to define himself into correctness. If it just means "good stuff about society that isn't religious" then yeah.
But if he's just saying "all human values derived from the desire to make things better, which predates religion, and religion hijacked that," then it's not a very informative sentence, is it? Is that really what he means by "humanism"? What does "religion" mean? Does it include ancient hunter/gatherers kissing amulets or thanking the spirits of the animals? When exactly did that start?
If we're thinking about some early anthropoid who wants to improve his tribe's condition, is this "humanism"?
As you know, the term was begun in the 19th century to refer to an emphasis on Greek and Latin learning. Since then it has been used in various ways, sometimes to contrast rational values vs. superstition. Do you think that cavemen made a distinction between rational values as against superstition? Or did they just try to explain stuff, with as yet no particular distinction -- we say some of their beliefs were superstitious because we don't believe them any more. But I'd be very surprised to find documentary evidence that early humans believed in some kind of primitive science first and then later added some new category called "religion."
If perhaps Hitchens is repeating the false theory (sometimes repeated on this forum) that the Greeks and Romans were all nicely rational thinkers until the evil Christians came along, then he's just being silly.
E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational
(You might enjoy reading about Dodds, but the way. He was an Irishman who knew Yeats and the other literary figures of the day, who made significant contributions to our understanding of Greek literature and thought. He also served well during WWII. His autobiography is a pleasure to read. As an example of a real scholar and careful thinker, he provides a useful contrast.)
The fact that none of this is clear from Hitchens' statement, and there is no reason to think it is true, is an example of his confusing polemics with reason.
The only book of his that I've tried to read is the one about God. I'm old fashioned, in that I think authors should make some small effort to check their facts, so I didn't like it.