Humanism Part III: Missing the Boat
Finally, there are a few other aspects of Humanism I find to prove problematic upon inspection. Firstly, the Council for Secular Humanism asserts that it stands against any sort of authoritarian belief and yet I see no reason why. Now, if someone were to interpret "objective" or "absolute" moral laws as also authoritarian, I suppose that is a legitimate interpretation. However, we have already seen the problem in attempting to assert any moral statement at all without just such an absolute morality. Merely asserting that one does not see value in any authoritarian view of anything is not a premise for an argument, it is an opinion. And frankly, it seems like an opinion of someone who simply does not like God. Because God, if He exists, is the ultimate authority. And as Aldous Huxley rather openly and unashamedly admits in both Ends and Means and Confessions of an Atheist, he himself (along with many others) who argued for a philosophy without an absolute moral law did so on the basis that objective morality interfered with their sexual freedom.
And Humanist and Atheists are the ones celebrating their "Freedom" from the "shackles of religion" when the philosophy used to support it is not based on fact or reasoning, but on what you want to do. This is not freedom - it is slavery. Slavery to one's impulses and desires. Incidentally, this is the kind of slavery that Jesus said he wanted to free people from.
Humanism also must rely upon the "nobility of man," if human reason and inquiry are to be the basis of our rational, spiritual, and existential choices. And yet we see one thing that is certain about human nature, if nothing else, as we look back upon all of history; we see that human nature has not changed. It is still in our nature to commit murder. It is still in our nature to destroy ourselves. Therefore, any nobility in man is always tainted by the crassness of man.
When there is no God, then we will be forced to mistake man for God. And as we have discussed before on this blog, so I won't belabor the point, but this idea will not remain abstract; some actual men will become God - either Hitler or Hugh Heffner. Just look, for a moment, at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Dong, and those like them; it is a dangerous thing for man to play God.
"I'm a fan of man. I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist."
- Satan, The Devil's Advocate
And Humanist and Atheists are the ones celebrating their "Freedom" from the "shackles of religion" when the philosophy used to support it is not based on fact or reasoning, but on what you want to do. This is not freedom - it is slavery. Slavery to one's impulses and desires. Incidentally, this is the kind of slavery that Jesus said he wanted to free people from.
Humanism also must rely upon the "nobility of man," if human reason and inquiry are to be the basis of our rational, spiritual, and existential choices. And yet we see one thing that is certain about human nature, if nothing else, as we look back upon all of history; we see that human nature has not changed. It is still in our nature to commit murder. It is still in our nature to destroy ourselves. Therefore, any nobility in man is always tainted by the crassness of man.
When there is no God, then we will be forced to mistake man for God. And as we have discussed before on this blog, so I won't belabor the point, but this idea will not remain abstract; some actual men will become God - either Hitler or Hugh Heffner. Just look, for a moment, at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Dong, and those like them; it is a dangerous thing for man to play God.
"I'm a fan of man. I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist."
- Satan, The Devil's Advocate
posted by Brian at 8:33 AM
1 Comments:
That is awesome by definition. I am a person of philosophy, and of a wide open mind. I read that and was very surprised. I have thought of such things at times, but was never able to quite explain it in the depth and clarity you have put it into to. It makes you think of each thing with depth.
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