Literary Humanism is a devotion to the humanities or literary culture.
Renaissance Humanism is the spirit of learning that developed at the end of the middle ages with the revival of classical letters and a renewed confidence in the ability of human beings to determine for themselves truth and falsehood.
Western Cultural Humanism is a good name for the rational and empirical tradition that originated largely in ancient Greece and Rome, evolved throughout European history, and now constitutes a basic part of the Western approach to science, political theory, ethics, and law.
Philosophical Humanism is any outlook or way of life centered on human need and interest. Sub-categories of this type include Christian Humanism and Modern Humanism.
Christian Humanism is defined by Webster's Third New International Dictionary as "a philosophy advocating the self-fulfillment of man within the framework of Christian principles." This more human-oriented faith is largely a product of the Renaissance and is a part of what made up Renaissance humanism.
Modern Humanism, also called Naturalistic Humanism, Scientific Humanism, Ethical Humanism, and Democratic Humanism, is defined by one of its leading proponents, Corliss Lamont, as "a naturalistic philosophy that rejects all supernaturalism and relies primarily upon reason and science, democracy and human compassion." Modern Humanism has a dual origin, both secular and religious, and these constitute its sub-categories.
Secular Humanism is an outgrowth of eighteenth century enlightenment rationalism and nineteenth century freethought. Many secular groups, such as the Council for Secular Humanism and the American Rationalist Federation, and many otherwise unaffiliated academic philosophers and scientists, advocate this philosophy.
Religious Humanism largely emerged out of Ethical Culture, Unitarianism, and Universalism. Today, many Unitarian Universalist congregations and all Ethical Culture societies describe themselves as humanist in the modern sense.
onlooker wrote:To hold ourselves accountable.
The Secular Humanist tradition is in part a tradition of defiance, a tradition that dates back to ancient Greece. One can see, even in Greek mythology, humanist themes that are rarely, if ever, manifested in the mythologies of other cultures. And they certainly have not been repeated by modern religions. The best example here is the character Prometheus.
Prometheus stands out because he was admired by ancient Greeks as the one who defied Zeus. He stole the fire of the gods and brought it down to earth. For this he was punished. And yet he continued his defiance amid his tortures. This is one source of the humanist challenge to authority.
onlooker wrote: But I think Ibon does not mean religion in it's traditionally understood way. Rather a spiritual foundation is what perhaps could describe it. Something apart and above mankind.
Imagine how shocked a friend of mine was when I told her my view of "God's moral standards." I said, "If there were such a god, and these were indeed his ideal moral principles, I would be tolerant. After all, God is entitled to his own opinions!"
Only a humanist is inclined to speak this way. Only a humanist can suggest that, even if there be a god, it is OK to disagree with him, her, or it.
Deep ecology's core principle is the belief that the living environment as a whole should be respected and regarded as having certain inalienable legal rights to live and flourish, independent of its utilitarian instrumental benefits for human use.
I’ve written before about the root causes of religious conflict — in a nutshell: it is not about what many people would like you to think it’s about — but I realized recently that I had still been missing part of the picture picture, because I wasn’t accounting for what happens when people get caught up in narrowly tribalistic thinking. If there’s ever going to be a genuine, durable peace in the world, we have to overcome this tendency. And we atheists have to realize that we’re subject to the same pull of tribalism as are religious believers.
Yes, religion has been a source of conflict for millennia—but religion is just an especially organized form of tribalism. Human beings come by it honestly. As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt observed in his book “The Righteous Mind,” “our ancestors faced the adaptive challenge of forming and maintaining coalitions that could fend off challenges and attacks from rival groups” for eons. It may even be in our DNA.
New Atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Bill Maher — with their legions of followers, numbering in the millions just on Twitter — continue to employ the Us vs. Them rhetoric of tribalism. But what these New Atheists fail to realize is that even if their criticisms of religion are correct, pointing them out does nothing to combat tribalism—in fact, it only strengthens it. Their faith in the power of rationality, which is effective but not perfect, blinds them to the larger problem.
“I looked, and behold, a black horse; and ... a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying,
A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine.”
— Revelation 6:5-6
Pops wrote:LOL, there are maybe three carrots to religion; (i) the explanations, (ii) the group, (iii) the reward.
Ibon wrote:onlooker wrote:To hold ourselves accountable.
we need some incentives like consequences in order to do this.
You can organize a kyoto or Rio or Copenhagen event around hoding ourselves accountable to our beloved mother earth putting her back in the center and everyone will leave after the conference feeling smug about the consensus around the cerebral concepts discussed.
But low and behold, afterwards we all go back to the day to day grind of the unsustainable status quo and nothing that we achieved in this consensus can translate into any meaningful change.
Consequences of human overshoot introduces the physical constraints that give structure and backbone to any consensus around prioritizing ecosystems and our biosphere on equal footing as our narcissistic humanism.
We need limits and consequences to give skeletal structure to any consensus, as I have expressed a couple hundred times on these threads.
Outcast_Searcher wrote: I think Vonnegut was a particularly brilliant (though depressing) author.
One of his most insightful (of many) famous quotes is, IMO:
"I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead."
Plantagenet wrote:Outcast_Searcher wrote: I think Vonnegut was a particularly brilliant (though depressing) author.
One of his most insightful (of many) famous quotes is, IMO:
"I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead."
But what does behaving "decently" actually mean?
Plantagenet wrote:But what does behaving "decently" actually mean?
My point is that our ideas about what is "good and decent" behavior come from christian religious concepts.
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