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three humanisms (Read 998 times)
freediver
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three humanisms
Aug 15th, 2018 at 8:25am
 
Extracts from Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari


Our current assumption that we do not know everything, and that even the knowledge we possess is tentative, extends to the shared myths that enable millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. If the evidence shows that many of those myths are doubtful, how can we hold society together? How can our communities, countries and international system function?

All modern attempts to stabilise the sociopolitical order have had no choice but to rely on either of two unscientific methods:

a. Take a scientific theory, and in opposition to common scientific practices, declare that it is a final and absolute truth. This was the method used by Nazis (who claimed that their racial policies were the corollaries of biological facts) and Communists (who claimed that Marx and Lenin had divined absolute economic truths that could never be refuted).

b. Leave science out of it and live in accordance with a non-scientific absolute truth. This has been the strategy of liberal humanism, which is built on a dogmatic belief in the unique worth and rights of human beings – a doctrine which has embarrassingly little in common with the scientific study of Homo sapiens.

But that shouldn’t surprise us. Even science itself has to rely on religious and ideological beliefs to justify and finance its research.

Modern culture has nevertheless been willing to embrace ignorance to a much greater degree than has any previous culture. One of the things that has made it possible for modern social orders to hold together is the spread of an almost religious belief in technology and in the methods of scientific research, which have replaced to some extent the belief in absolute truths.

...

Humanist Religions - Religions that Worship Humanity

Have in common: Homo sapiens has a unique and sacred nature that is fundamentally different from the nature of all other beings and phenomena. The supreme good is the good of humanity.

1. Liberal Humanism

'Humanity' is individualistic and resides within each individual Homo sapiens.

The supreme commandment is to protect the inner core of freedom of each individual Homo sapiens.

2. Socialist humanism

'Humanity' is collective and resides within the species Homo sapiens as a whole.

The supreme commandment is to protect equality within the species Homo sapiens.

3. Evolutionary humanism

'Humanity' is a mutable species. Humans might degenerate into subhumans or evolve into superhumans.

The supreme commandment is to protect humankind from degenerating into subhumans, and the encourage its evolution into superhumans.

...

...

Hitler dug not just his own grave but that of racism in general. When he launched World War Two, he compelled his enemies to make clear distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Afterwards, precisely because Nazi ideology was so racist, racism became discredited in the West. But the change took time.

...

The last 300 years are often depicted as an age of growing secularism, in which religions have increasingly lost their importance. If we are talking about theist religions, this is largely correct. But if we take into consideration natural-law religions, then modernity turns out to be an age of intense religious fervour, unparalleled missionary efforts, and the bloodiest wars of religion in history. The modern age has witnessed the rise of a number of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and refer to themselves as ideologies. But this is just a semantic exercise. If a religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order, then Soviet Communism was no less a religion than Islam.

Islam is of course different from Communism, because Islam sees the superhuman order governing the world as the edict of an omnipotent creator god, whereas Soviet Communism did not believe in gods. But Buddhism too gives short shrift to gods, and yet we commonly classify it as a religion. Like Buddhists, Communists believed in a superhuman order of natural and immutable laws that should guide human actions. Whereas Buddhists believe that the law of nature was discovered by Siddhartha Gautama, Communists believed that the law of nature was discovered by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The similarity does not end there. Like other religions, Communism too has its holy scripts and prophetic books, such as Marx’s Das Kapital, which foretold that history would soon end with the inevitable victory of the proletariat. Communism had its holidays and festivals, such as the First of May and the anniversary of the October Revolution. It had theologians adept at Marxist dialectics, and every unit in the Soviet army had a chaplain, called a commissar, who monitored the piety of soldiers and officers. Communism had martyrs, holy wars and heresies, such as Trotskyism. Soviet Communism was a fanatical and missionary religion. A devout Communist could not be a Christian or a Buddhist, and was expected to spread the gospel of Marx and Lenin even at the price of his or her life.

...
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freediver
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Re: three humanisms
Reply #1 - Aug 15th, 2018 at 8:25am
 
Religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order. The theory of relativity is not a religion, because (at least so far) there are no human norms and values that are founded on it. Football is not a religion because nobody argues that its rules reflect superhuman edicts. Islam, Buddhism and Communism are all religions, because all are systems of human norms and values that are founded on belief in a superhuman order. (Note the difference between ‘superhuman’ and ‘supernatural’. The Buddhist law of nature and the Marxist laws of history are superhuman, since they were not legislated by humans. Yet they are not supernatural.)

Some readers may feel very uncomfortable with this line of reasoning. If it makes you feel better, you are free to go on calling Communism an ideology rather than a religion. It makes no difference. We can divide creeds into god-centred religions and godless ideologies that claim to be based on natural laws. But then, to be consistent, we would need to catalogue at least some Buddhist, Daoist and Stoic sects as ideologies rather than religions. Conversely, we should note that belief in gods persists within many modern ideologies, and that some of them, most notably liberalism, make little sense without this belief.

...

Even though liberal humanism sanctifies humans, it does not deny the existence of God, and is, in fact, founded on monotheist beliefs. The liberal belief in the free and sacred nature of each individual is a direct legacy of the traditional Christian belief in free and eternal individual souls. Without recourse to eternal souls and a Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens.
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cods
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Re: three humanisms
Reply #2 - Aug 15th, 2018 at 8:30am
 
oh gawd shouldnt this be in philosophy???

deep thinking   or even monks place... Smiley Smiley

shouldnt you be trying to  get into one or two of your members heads fd? Cheesy Cheesy


just sayin
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Re: three humanisms
Reply #3 - Aug 15th, 2018 at 8:36am
 
Roll Eyes Roll Eyes Roll Eyes Roll Eyes Roll Eyes
really fd...?
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Re: three humanisms
Reply #4 - Aug 15th, 2018 at 9:06am
 
freediver wrote on Aug 15th, 2018 at 8:25am:
The liberal belief in the free and sacred nature of each individual is a direct legacy of the traditional Christian belief in free and eternal individual souls. Without recourse to eternal souls and a Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens.


I must say I haven't come across many liberals (libertarians) who are devout christians. I wonder what "superhuman order" belief underpins these liberal's ideology - if not traditional Christian belief?

That said, I've always felt that mainstream teachings and practices of the Abrhamic religions to be somewhat more "anti-liberal" than perhaps what the actual religious texts intended. Certainly in both the Gospels and the Quran there is a strong slant towards liberal humanism. Perhaps not so much in the Old Testament - though I'm not overly familiar with it.

What are your thoughts on all this FD?
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A resident Islam critic who claims to represent western values said:
Quote:
Outlawing the enemy's uniform - hijab, islamic beard - is not depriving one's own people of their freedoms.
 
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freediver
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Re: three humanisms
Reply #5 - Aug 15th, 2018 at 9:21am
 
It's interesting. I "don't disagree" with most of it. These particular extracts are largely tautology.
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