Heartless Humanism?

[mralstoner]

GetMeRex, despite his poor communication, raised some valid points. The last thread degenerated, so I've started a new topic.

Rex's main gripe with atheism/humanism is that it is unemotional, individualistic, disorganised, negative/reactionary, philosophically backward, etc.

These are all valid concerns and they have been noted by academics such as Alain de Botton, Jonathan Haidt, Paul Kurtz, Frans de Waal, etc.

Alain de Botton's Atheism 2.0 TED talk is an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oe6HUgrRlQ

And down through history, we have had philosophers who acknowledge the heart as well as the head e.g. David Hume "slave of the passions", Epicurus "pleasure is our first and kindred good", Jeremy Bentham "nature has placed mankind under the governance of ... pleasure and pain", Bertrand Russell and desires, Aristotle and eudaimonia, Plato and his horses, etc

And among neuroscientists and psychologists there is widespread acknowledgement of the motivating role of emotions.

So it's not true that humanism is completely unemotional and philosophically backward.

However, there is a problem at the heart of humanism, and it's the reason humanism is not well developed and organised. The problem is that human nature is geared towards assimilating into a specific culture/tribe with strict beliefs, and yet humanism acknowledges wide cultural variation, and so has a hard time advocating a specific way of life for its followers.

Most of the atheists on this forum (and the internet) are rabid anti-authority individualists, and these people welcome anarchy. So you won't find much recognition of this problem here. But smarter people know that individualism is a recipe for civilisational suicide. It is only cohesive groups that survive in a competitive world.

How humanism overcomes cultural variation, I don't know. Humanism will probably have to factionalise and offer the masses a more supportive and articulate community with a more specific culture/lifestyle.

So there's a long way to go before humanism becomes a flourishing movement. But it's not as gloomy as Rex thinks it is.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

The thing is, atheism is the absence of belief in a god. If you want to add things to it, it takes on some sort of ideology and you're going to have to call it something else other than atheism.

I've seen some of the talk, I don't quite agree with it but I will concede that some of what he said may be necessary in our society today. Not just to atheists or to people who do not have access to religion, but to everyone. Here's my problem with it: sermons and repetitions. (I didn't watch all of it) It sounds like brainwashing. In my home country, we had moral classes since primary school and more of these types of moral teachings in high school. I hated it, it was basically this is right and that is wrong and that's that, no need for them to explain themselves. They even taught that women are subservient to men, these are secular teachings. That's the problem you run into when you start creating dogma, things are no longer moral because of a valid reason, they're moral because you said so. So if you say well ok, we won't create dogma, then you don't achieve the "cohesive groups" you talked about.

Personally, I get my morals from reading a lot of books, as weird as that sounds. The more you expose yourself to the lives of others, imagined or otherwise, the more you know what to do. The more knowledge you have, the better you are at actually achieving what you set out to do. Most religious people these days have good intentions, but all the wrong methods, because they believed in the wrong things. I would argue that they are more in need of guidance than atheists.

Oh and, one more thing. Atheism doesn't say anything about emotions. That doesn't mean atheists do not value emotions. Atheism doesn't say anything about fashion either but that's not the same as saying atheists all have a bad sense of fashion.

[theyear12013]

Most of the atheists on this forum (and the internet) are rabid anti-authority individualists, and these people welcome anarchy. So you won't find much recognition of this problem here. But smarter people know that individualism is a recipe for civilisational suicide. It is only cohesive groups that survive in a competitive world.

How humanism overcomes cultural variation, I don't know. Humanism will probably have to factionalise and offer the masses a more supportive and articulate community with a more specific culture/lifestyle.

So there's a long way to go before humanism becomes a flourishing movement. But it's not as gloomy as Rex thinks it is.

Absolutely agree. Humanism also needs a foundational epic story. It already has future oriented epics such as Star Trek + Star Wars etc, but it lacks an epic that incorporates the latest science on evolution into a founding story for all of humanity and civilization. Many people I meet who first toy with atheism revert to their birth religion because it gives them a thousand year old story that ties them to their family and nation. But when you tell them that human civilization is 10,000 years old and we have 500,000 years of homo sapien, it is a much more epic and inspiring idea than their particular national manifestation. And I have successfully reached people this way. It would be great if there were more books, movies, youtube videos that told the story of human evolution as an epic story with relateable drama incorporated into it.

[Kayenneh]

I agree wholeheartedly with Piney. I have seen the TED Talk, and though his points were somewhat admirable, they were too close to organized religion in my opinion.

Most of the atheists on this forum (and the internet) are rabid anti-authority individualists, and these people welcome anarchy. So you won't find much recognition of this problem here. But smarter people know that individualism is a recipe for civilisational suicide. It is only cohesive groups that survive in a competitive world.

I think we need a poll for this one, because I disagree with you. I don't think that the majority of us atheists on this site are hardcore individualists, but I don't have the statistics for that either.