What is a Humanist?

[serryjw]

Can you be a humanist and a liberal at the same time? What do they belive that is different from liberal?

[mr_hat]

1. Humanists are more reviled by the religious right, liberals >

by the political.

Be both, score big!

[rzemanfl]

2. The way the World has been going since November 2000, my

questions are "what is a human?" And "WTF are all these other two legged creatures?"

[EST]

3. It's hard to be a humanist without being a liberal.

[Emit]

5. Agreed. n/t

[benburch]

4. A Humanist...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanist

Humanism is a broad category of active ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on our ability to determine what is right using the qualities innate to humanity, particularly rationality. Humanism is a component of a variety of more specific philosophical systems.

Humanism entails a commitment to the search for truth and morality through human means in support of human interests. In focusing on our capacity for self-determination, humanism rejects transcendental justifications, such as a dependence on faith, the supernatural, sacred texts, or religious creeds. Humanists endorse a recognition of a universal morality based on the commonality of human nature, suggesting that the long-term solutions to our problems cannot be parochial.

[serryjw]

11. Thanks everyone

I like this definition. While I was petitioning I got into one of my long winded conversations. Someone asked me IF I was a Democrat, I responded that I like the term liberal better and I was a DK delegate. He identified himself as a Humanist.

[LeftHander]

34. firewood....

For Calvinists and Catholics....

eveybody was burnin' em...

[Che_Nuevara]

6. Liberal is political; humanist is philosophical.

Check out www.americanhumanist.org

[applegrove]

7. I used to think you could be religious & humanist. You just had to

be liberal & walk the walk of compassion. I guess I was wrong. Humanists seem to have to be secular. Don't know why the term "secular humanist" would be so popular if that is the case. Seems redundant.

But yes - big oil & corporate America have funded a type of religion that despises "secular humanists" as the most evil.

Code word for "liberal" walking the walk, or writing the truth, in my mind. Philosophy is different from spiritualism. At least the last time I looked. But that was during the enlightenment and that is so over!!

Fun! "An offshoot of christianity that hates liberals"! Oh those bad boys & gals in the cluster **** of the GOP.

:banghead:

[Caoimhe]

18. Most idealogues reject the "live and let live"

mantra... but I see it in humanism. Maybe it should be called a "faith of naivite"

[fishwax]

28. religious humanists and christian humanists have been around for centuries

and aren't going away any time soon ... religious fundies often like to use the "secular humanists" label because it associates humanist with secularism, thus making it undesirable in the minds of their followers. Of course there are plenty of legitimately secular humanists, too, but the religious right would like everyone to believe they're the only kind :)

[EST]

29. The first time I was accused

(yer a secular humanist, aintchee?)I was surprised. I had no idea what a humanist was. I was holding forth on a subject with which I felt familiar: that the seeds of homosexuality and heterosexuality are in all of us. I had made my point that god exists, not really, and that any thinking person who had any inclination toward self examination would question his/her own sexuality and be willing to entertain a frank, honest answer--in private, of course. My thinking was that people were powerful and capable and if there were a god, she had a perfectly good reason for creating each person exactly as they are.

I had gotten through the part about "perfect" not meaning ideal, which it does not, but meaning "complete," which it does, and all of of are perfect as we are, not needing anybody's meddling to make us any different, when this lady (who'd evidently been recently talking to her pastor about me) came up with this curious question. She also informed me that she was not going to speak with me any further, as her minister had advised her not to. This proved to be just BS, because she started calling me again, a few days later (she wanted to get into my jeans something fierce.)

It took quite a while and much questioning of my religious acquaintances to determine what the hell she meant and to find out how grittily I'd been insulted. Yuck! Religious dogmatists can be such ______________. I can't fill in the blank; my mind won't deliver such stinky epithets.

[applegrove]

33. I don't know religious people like that. But then I live in Canada.

Actually - at a funeral - the gossip in my extended family was that the minister doing the service for this all important person in our lives - hated gay people. And we thought this was such a cureosity - "a minister who hates". Even the little old ladies in their 80s were rolling their eyes when this man's hate was mentioned. Though he didn't say anything about his hatred during our funeral.. we all thought it was such a odd duck "a minister who hates".

Yeah - we were pretty naive. Us humanists. A neocon/republican operative patsy was burying my 100+ granny in rural Nova Scotia. That tells me something now. She was much closer to god her whole life than at the funeral. She deserved much better. So do we all.

[applegrove]

31. Thank you. I knew that religious could be humanist. Cause I've

seen it.

[Che_Nuevara]

30. There is also a segment called "religious humanists".

They're more or less humanists that also believe in god.

[applegrove]

32. There we go. Like the person above said humanist is philosophy

and that can mesh with spirituality.

[Boojatta]

8. What's an Alienist?

[benburch]

12. Archaic term for psychiatric physician. nt

[Boojatta]

15. Could someone have been both an Alienist and a Humanist?

[benburch]

20. I'd say yes. nt

[Boojatta]

21. Suppose you had been working as a Machinist for over ten years.

Would it be too late for you to become a Humanist?

[benburch]

23. Sounds like a good debate topic. nt

[saltpoint]

9. Handiest summary definition of 'humanist' I ever heard was by

American novelist and historian Paul Horgan:

"While admitting to the worst of all possible worlds, we must behave as if we could be the best of all possible people."

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Humanists have been debating their definition forever.

There are different varieties, such as secular humanists and religious humanists. The main theme in both sects (so to speak) is that people depend upon people to solve problems rather than a supernatural being.

More specifically, I refer you to the Humanist Manifestos I & II for what humanists endorse and promote as best as they can.
http://www.jcn.com/manifestos.html

[Solly Mack]

13. Solly Mack, aka Me, myself and I, is a humanist

Call me liberal, call me progressive - neither really adds to or subtracts from my core.

and at core, I believe in people. I believe in humans. I believe in humanity. (why do you think they call it "humanist"?) :)

I proudly wear the label secular humanist.

[Lefty48197]

14. It meant "not one of us" to the Reaganites.

To me it means, "not a turd".

[Caoimhe]

19. yes

having faith without hatred

[Caoimhe]

16. I had a Humanist wedding

my parents always expected me to be Baptist like them. I wanted to get maried in the front yard of my youth but my 'rents were upset that "you can't really be married unless if it's by an "approved" pastor". They suggested a pastor.. a man whose son had molested me when I was 6 and he was 13. They had no idea. The thought repulsed me. The idea that not only did they not know but they were trying to use this as some sortof collateral against me.. caused the dam to burst. I just said no. I looked into religions and officiation.. I found a wonderful officient in Beaverton, Oregon who was a beautiful humanist man, his interest was watching us to see if we were really in love.... and yes we were. He spoke of us very fondly at the ceremony, without any mention of God or Allah or anything like that. I consider myself agnostic, but if I had to choose a faith.. it would probably be humanism. faith in humans. it's all good.

[McCamy Taylor]

17. I am curious? Did someone say they were different?

[greendog]

22. From the Honorary President of the American Humanist Association

“We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife.”

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

[benburch]

25. Which is why Christians hate us so.

They seem to try to behave as badly and inhumanely as possible while still doing the bare minimum to get their reward in the afterlife.

[izzybeans]

24. It's a pesky philosophy that postulates such radical conditions as

equality. Those dasturdly turds I better put them on my most dangerous ideas list.

[Bucky]

26. It's possible for them to be opposed to each other

Humanists believe in the basic goodness (some would say "the perfectability of") human beings.

Liberals--at least those who derive their values from the Enlightenment like the Founding Fathers of the American republic (revolutionary liberals like Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton)--tend to see human actions as driven by self interest and in need of healthy restraints (hence the checks and balances of the US Constitution).

So one thinks we're all nice folks underneath it all, and the other thinks we need to be constrained by law from stickin' it to each other. But of course it's pretty easy to harmonize those two belief sets, as well.

[serryjw]

27. I think I am too cynical to be a humanist

I tend to agree with Jefferson. People need to be reminded to be good.

[SmokingJacket]

35. "Goodness" and "worth" aren't the same, though...

I believe in the worth of all people, but not in their goodness. I still think I'm a humanist!

[serryjw]

36. I could agree with that

even if I am a cynic