Eight weeks ago I wrote about False assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today. Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them. Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view. These are:

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

Ethics - A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.

Ethics is a major branch of philosophy. I simply cannot do it credit in a brief summary and so must assume that everyone has some basic idea of what is ethical and what is not. Secular ethics are one particular branch of the larger philosophy. In short the idea of secular ethics is based on a commonality of human experience. Humans, being social animals with the same basic physical and mental processes, have similar needs and desires.

• The pagan tribes of Norway had a greeting ‘Flag, Flax, Fodder and Frigg’ which roughly equates to a blessing for home, clothing, food and love, our basic needs as humans.
• The Christians have the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Which is an essentially reasonable idea also known as the ethic of reciprocity that most religions adhere to in one form or another.
• The Baha’i have “And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself.”
• Confucius said: “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.” - Analects XV.24. Hindus have “That man who regards all creatures as his own self, and behaves towards them as towards his own self, laying aside the rod of chastisement and completely subjugating his wrath, succeeds in attaining to happiness”,
• Muslims have: “Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you.”
• Even the famous Satanist Aleister Crowley said “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” and places the idea of Sin as a restriction binding people to certain actions. In discarding Sin satanists become free to love without bounds.

There is a commonality of ethics throughout human religion but it is clearly not bound to religion. Secular ethics are obviously not drawn from religion but are drawn from the common idea that religions enjoy. In fact the Dalai Lama said, when discussing human values like affection and compassion “We need these human values. I call these secular ethics, secular beliefs. There’s no relationship with any particular religion. Even without religion, even as nonbelievers, we have the capacity to promote these things.”

Yet some theists like to maintain that belief in gods, whether theirs or another, is a requirement for ethics and for good, moral behaviour. They claim that without heaven as a reward or hell as a punishment there can be no control on the negative actions of people. I have only one thing to say beyond the utter refutation of this: If you need to believe in God to stop you raping, murdering and stealing then I am glad that you have that belief. I do not need it because I, like most people, can act morally without regard to religion.

Beyond this basic idea that humans decide for ourselves what is ethical behaviour those who self define as secular humanists also seek to discover what actions can improve life both for themselves, for society and, by extension, the world. This could be a material improvement through sharing resources, new technology or medicine or an idea. I know it is a bit of a stereotype but we embrace the idea of science being used to make things better for ourselves. For example without agricultural techniques and machines we’d only be able to feed 1% of the current world’s population.

We also follow the very simply idea that what is good feels good to do. Helping others feels good, seeing people benefit from your aid gives us a warm glow of happiness. Doing harm to others or causing suffering feels bad so we seek to avoid it. It is a rare individual who does not have these feelings. Moreover we encourage or reinforce good behaviour in our children and peers and discourage bad behaviour if for no other reason than we want to mix with others who we can trust to help us if we ever need it.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Six weeks ago I wrote about false assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today. Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them. Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view. These are:

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

This life – A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 51% [?]

I want to try an experiment.  Mike spoke about spirituality last week last week and about how it is difficult to explain and understand.  I see spirituality as a connection to something greater that yourself, a way of being more that just the one human mind in your head.  This experiment requires a little creativity on my part and some expenditure of effort on the part of the reader.  Please bear with me.

Imagine that you’re in a rowing boat on a lake.

It’s summer, early in the morning.  The sun is barely breaking through the landscape and long, tiger stripes of shadow punctuate the light.  The rays warm your skin as you drift serenely through them.  The shadows are cool but not chilly as you pass through the slices of day and night in the early dawn.  You can hear the clear, sharp, clean sound of birds singing.  There’s no background susurrus of daytime sounds yet, just the birds and the soft slosh of mini waves as they push against the sides of the boat.

You reach over the side and the shock of cold water kisses your skin.  The bob of the lake rolling beneath the boat plays across your knuckles.  A chilly rhythm of water.  Languidly you pull your arm back enjoying the hint of an ache in your fingers.  Holding out your hand, you close your eyes and feel the cling of water resist the gentle pull of gravity as the liquid finds pathways across your skin.  They fluidly build themselves into droplets and, when heavy enough, they fall.  Each drop taps. Tap.  A new sound in the arena.

Now, right on that tap - stop.  Stop imagining.  Here is the real game.  This is the thing that is overlooked while being obvious and frightening at the same time:  the lake in my head, the same lake I was imagining.  That lake has become the lake in your head.  It doesn’t matter that you never know me, or never know anything about me.  In a thousand years after I’m dead, if language can carry this message forward it won’t matter.  Think carefully on this, beyond the obvious sense to the huge and amazing miracle hidden inside.  The lake in my head has become the lake in your head.

Behind the one hundred and ninety words that make up my description there is some kind of flow.  A stream of pure conception.  Something with no mass, no matter, no gravity and beyond time itself.  A stream of consciousness that can only be seen if we choose to look beyond the words, beyond the meaning and into the process itself.  Look at it at just the right angle and you’ll see my imaginary lake becoming yours.  We have made a connection that might be described as spiritual.  Maybe but not yet.  For that we need to go a little further.

Next try to visualise all those streams of human interaction.  All those communication links where imagination is passed from one mind to another.  Linking in and out and between people.  Not just the lake in the description but every concept, every idea that is shared and transformed and shared again.  Every text, every picture, each bar of music, every spoken word, knowing look, smile or tear.  Streams through casual contact, shared memories, witnessed events, past and future touching, cause meeting effect in billions of different ways.  Try to imagine this immense latticework of lakes and flowing streams, grasp a sense of it’s vastness and awesome complexity. The reach of this is nearly infinite and yet it remains rich with every experience that humanity has chosen to share.  This waterway of conceptual paradise mixing all information, all identities, all societies and selves forever and beyond time and space.  More than any single mind can hope to grasp.

Spirituality for me is when I catch a glimpse of that vast connectivity.  Some might call it God but for me it just doesn’t have words that are adequate.  It is my hope that this experiment has let you share it with me, even if just for a moment.  Let me know what you think.

Back to Secular humanism next week.

Popularity: 51% [?]

Four weeks ago I wrote about false assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today. Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them. Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view. These are:

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

The search for truth is something that both secular humanists and those who belong to one theistic group or another can appreciate. Secular humanists, I think, take a slightly different stance to it though. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 33% [?]

Three weeks ago I wrote about false assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today. Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them. Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view. These are:

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

This week I wish to discuss why secular humanists value fulfilment, growth and creativity in life. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 29% [?]

Two weeks ago I wrote about false assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today.  Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them.  Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view.  These are:

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

This week I wish to discuss why reason, evidence and the scientific method are important to our world view.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11% [?]

Last week I wrote about false assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today.  Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them.  Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view.  These are:

1. Need to test beliefs
2. Reason, evidence, scientific method
3. Fulfillment, growth, creativity
4. Search for truth
5. This life
6. Ethics
7. Building a better world

The first one I wish to discuss is the need to test beliefs.

Need to test beliefs – A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 18% [?]

I’ve always imagined that Christians feel a lot of guilt.  I’m not exactly sure what Christians feel guilty about but I’m sure it’s something.  It could be a passing rude thought about the checkout girl or boy.  It could be over a greedy thought of undeserved wealth.  I might even be a hidden desire for one more piece of chocolate cake.

I’m sure you’ve got them.

As you know, we atheists have our guilt gland removed when we deconvert.  It’s better that way because it stops all those annoying thoughts of edible babies and 24 hour orgies from interfering with our devil worship.
OK, not really but I do think that without the added impetus of a watchful father figure atheists do experience a lower aggregate guilt quotient.

So, in the spirit of lighthearted and cheeky cooperation I’d love to hear what your guilty pleasures are.  Go on, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’ve written an entry over at the eBay atheist site on how the figure of Jesus used stories in his lessons.  I thought it would be interesting for Christians to know how an atheist like me views the parables.

I’m picking one at random from the 33 listed on the wikipedia page, the Parables of Jesus, to give my interpretation.  I’m taking the Parable of the Guests because it’s both straightforward and short. :) 

Luke 14:7-15 (New King James Version)

Read the rest of this entry »

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Richard Dawkins wrote that the God of the Old Testament was:

arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully¹

Thomas Jefferson even described the God of Moses as “a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.”¹

There is little chance that a believer in God will accept that this is a fair assessment of the divine character.  A Christian might even be offended by such a callous description.  The argument is that this isn’t the God that is worshipped or that this was the God that was needed for humanity of the times.  There may be other explanations or justifications beyond these, I don’t know.  I suspect that the mythology of flood stories and creation arose from other religions, that they were borrowed from Egyptian, Persian and Greek myths.  If not then it is almost guaranteed that the oral histories were corrupted and exaggerated over time.

Whatever the truth I think it is fair to regard the Old Testament reports on the character of God as a product of the times.  Harsh realities make for harsh gods after all.  Actually, that’s a little unfair.  Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, Numbers, Exodus.  They have the real dodgy stuff in.  They show the patriarchal, limited view that the human writers put forward as gospel.  It really is no wonder that the New Testament is where Christians concentrate their beliefs. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 8% [?]