Let's face it, when old white men with money get together...things can go very very bad.
Let's face it, when women (of any denomination) with money get together...things can go very very bad, too!
So, the Humanitarian of the year is a very rich man that raised 10 million dollars to help rebuild a hitoric Jewish temple in.... Newport Rhode Island. Wow, count me underwhelmed. Mind you, the guy and his family donate a LOTTA LOTTA money to the Harvard Humanists group and even endowed the chapliancy. But a temple in Newport Rhode Island where the rich gather to live and play? How about Poland or even Brooklyn! But we all needed to clap and cheer for this man a long time.
Come, now. Even R.I. has a history
. And why wait until historic sites are way gone to preserve/rebuild them?
Part of what I love about TAM is how everyone just sits together
Not always.
and you never KNOW who you will end up next to. You know it will be really interesting! Heck, JREF wants the younger skeptics to get to know and be with the older skeptics. It's all about education and passing it on!
That's true, but I think that the reason why you saw it as "older-white-male-academia" like was...well, it was
Hah-vurd. That's as "older-white-male-academia" as you can get.
Old Dilbert joke:
(Swedish accent) "I did not go to Harvard. I vent to Yale. I yust got out yesterday..."
Pesta learns how the Colonial "pumped" it up. He is unimpressed.
I bet he thinks "Where the heck is the "Start" button?"
First, independent of the content / speakers / dinner caste system, I sincerely think Greg Epstein is outstanding.
He had 500 attendees as a first-time conference. He successfully mixed Nobel prize winners with people who’s claim to fame was starting a group on Myspace. He was forced to change venues more than once (How big was Tam 1? How many more big egos needed to be dealt with here!).
TAM1 was just under 200, but in some ways, it is more impressive that that many people - from all over the world - could gather around one small institution such as JREF. Harvard is, by far, much more known around the world than JREF.
I also suspect that "humanist" applies/appeals to more people than "skeptic".
(I'm in favour of architectural conservation up to a point. If the building is worth saving as a building, fair enough, whether mosque or museum. If it's being saved purely because it's a synagogue, I'm honestly baffled as to why it would be of interest to sceptics).
Not necessarily to skeptics, perhaps, but there is a great value in preserving for historical reasons. Shakespeare's birth place would not be a grand piece of architecture, and neither would the birth place of Jesus - in the event of actual physical evidence of him ever popping up, of course. Yet, they would definitely be worth preserving.
I wonder if this is a defensive reaction of prominent and potentially pilloried Americans to religio-political correctness Stateside? Pretend to be kinda 'into' the numinous, like some people are kinda into'' their spiritual side- because this gives one a belief structure- which is, by definition, safe from attack, because - hey, it's my belief structure, OK?
That's a valid point: Just how far back do we bend to accommodate a belief in something inherently supernatural?
It all sounds rather vacuous to me. Religion is wrong. Not morally wrong. Factually incorrect.
Did I miss something?
Yes.
Since religion deals with morality (Commandments, rules of conduct), and religion is factually incorrect (no evidence of any supernatural being), religion is morally wrong. Telling other people how to behave based on false beliefs is morally wrong.
I'm just a bit surprised by terms like "religious humanism" at all.
I thought Humanism was the precise opposite of religion. It seems oxymoronic to speak of "religious humanism" .
It is. Unless you put humans in the place of God. Making man God.
There are beliefs in religions that are factually wrong, but you can't just say that "religion is wrong" any more than you can say that "culture is wrong." Theism is, most probably, wrong.
Religions all deal with the existence of the supernatural - that's their raison d'etre, if you like. But, since we haven't found any evidence of their supernatural tenets (but found natural explanations for some of them), we can say that "religion is wrong".
Many people practice non-theist religions. Buddhism, for example, or secular Judaism.
If you remove the supernatural aspect of a religion, and still call it that, you render the term "religion" meaningless.
"Secular" specifically means non-religious.
Humanism places humans at the center of responsibility for what happens in human affairs. It is, essentially, a groundwork for secular morality.
I'd rather separate morality from both secularism and religion altogether. Being either secular or religious has nothing to do with whether you are moral or not.
They have as wide a range of belief as any group: Many are outright atheists, many are agnostic, and many do believe in a deity or collection of deities of some sort. There are even huge gray areas between those particular categories, that they can fall into.
However, Humanists recognize that the role of god should be relegated to more of a personal element, that is less relevant to the achievements of the entire human community.
If you want world peace, mutual tolerance and respect for all peoples and cultures, and a sustainable environment for all life on Earth, we humans are going to have to pull ourselves together, to achieve these goals. It is understood that God cannot be relied upon in these matters, and that empirical analysis is imperative for doing so.
I agree, but that means that e.g. the Catholic Church should have no political, economical or otherwise power. And how can you have a CC without those? How will you achieve it?
I believe we should fight for the rights of humans to believe in whatever religion they wish, as long as two factors hold true:
1. They are not hurting anyone, nor otherwise directly dangerous to life on the planet.
2. They do not try to make claims of fact that are demonstratably false.
I agree with the first point, to some degree, but the second would infringe on freedom of speech. Freedom of speech gives you the right to lie.
We can counter that, by pointing out the disadvantages of giving up our rationality and critical thinking. There is also the aspect of consumer protection: We can't stop people believing that e.g. homeopath(et)ic remedies (I hesitate to call it "medicine") actually cure diseases, but we can damn well prohibit "cures" that don't cure at all.
Freedom of speech gives you the right to lie, but not to cheat.
I'm not sure all of those things are mutually compatible. Some aspects of some cultures are intolerable to some aspects of others. In those cases, one, or both must either compromise or go under. There are people and there are cultures. Human behaviour which is best for humans may not be best for the cultures. Also what's best for humans may not be good for "all life on Earth." If it's humans, or wolves, trust me, it won't be wolves.
The inherent problem with religious beliefs is that you can't really just hold your faith to yourself, can you? If you truly believe in a supernatural, all-knowing, all-powerful being, and hence hold the explanation to the whole universe, how can you reconcile that with other people's different beliefs?
I'm unlikely to be a humanist then. I would prefer to see all religion simply left behind , along with other superstitions.
That's the challenge for us: To explain that there is absolutely no difference between a belief in a God, and a belief in fairies, goblins, homeopathy, dowsing, faith healing, astrology, clairvoyance, or any of the other supernatural and paranormal beliefs.
Once people of belief understand why they don't believe in other supernatural stuff (be it gods or supernatural/paranormal abilities), they also understand why I don't believe in what they believe in. That's a very strong point. I just believe in one god less than they do.
FWIW, I tend to agree with the new humanism. I generally don't give a rats ass about what most other people believe unless it interferes with my rights.
It doesn't stop there, I'm afraid. It isn't just about individual rights, but also a responsibility towards everyone else.
If indeed our worldview is correct, it's apparent that just the logic of it is not enough to convince the vast majority of people that theism is irrational. So, I don't see the in your face approach as being all that productive in converting "joe six pack". I do think the in your face version is critical whenever people in power push religion on the masses (e.g., stem cell research or gay marriage).
So, I think there's a niche for the kinder and the rougher approaches to atheism. I personally would rather market skeptics as normal people who exist in large numbers, and then let the strength of our worldview be something that people stumble upon. It seems like the better strategy in most cases-- versus telling people they're stupid for their beliefs (like the school geek telling off the football jock; don't be surprised if you get punched!).
It is quite alright to tell people they are "stupid" for their beliefs, as long as we explain
why we think so. If they don't know that it's silly to believe whatever they believe in - e.g., because they haven't heard of Avogadro's number, and they don't understand the implications of "water memory" - then we should teach why they are wrong - but they are not stupid as such. Ignorance isn't stupid.
But if they, after learning and understanding why they are wrong, still cling on to their beliefs,
then it is fair to call them stupid.
Actually, it's worse than being stupid - it's being
willfully stupid. They choose deliberate ignorance over knowledge.
And, are we not justified to call that immoral?
But, it is intolerance that Humanism seeks to weed out. If one of our goals is mutual tolerance and respect for one another, that implies any elements of intolerance in anyone's culture would have to go bye-bye, while the more benign elements can remain.
Perhaps you might think such a goal is ultimately unachievable, but at least we can try. And, waving a blatant flag of disrespect is not the way to go about doing it.
How can one religious belief not be disrespectful of other religious beliefs? Either you believe that you hold the one true belief, or you have to acknowledge that your religious beliefs about how the universe is, is solely your perception of it - and hence, you can't claim an ulterior god.
There is a balance we must achieve, to maximize a payoff for all parties involved. And, sometimes, in the long run, what is good for the wolves will, in fact, be better for the humans, even if that is not true, in the short term. We humans are going to have to develop policies to strike a balance in these decisions and matters.
It is worth noting that a "sustainable environment" is probably going to have to include a small, natural level of extinction, for some species. Extinction is a natural process. Humans may have exacerbated the process, but it is always going to happen to some degree, anyway. So, when I said "all life", perhaps it would have been more accurate to say "the maximum amount of life realistically achievable in a world that can be a real bitch, sometimes".
The difference is that extinction in nature is not as such a human-guided/controlled process (other than when we are the cause). Species go extinct without the interference of humans. But if religions - or some of them - are to become extinct, it will only happen if we choose to make them extinct.
A sense of spirituality is part of our long evolutionary heritage. Although there are many who no longer need any semblance of religious elements in their lives, to be a good person; there are still those who simply find themselves more comfortable incorporating certain religion-like psychological elements into it. Humanism must try to cater to all those needs. Even if it is merely a matter of diplomacy. I doubt we can begin to achieve any of our moral goals, without some level of respect to all flavors of belief, as long as the above two points hold true. (No one is getting hurt, and no one makes any false "facts".)
Rather than saying that spirituality is a part of our long evolution heritage, I would say that it is a bad side effect of our evolving into humans. When humans evolved, and began to have a language and a consciousness - for lack of better word - they began to invent supernatural explanations for the events they couldn't explain otherwise. Lightning became the wrath of gods. Floods became punishment, dished out by gods. A sudden influx of game became a reward for believing in the gods.
It made sense at the time: They got an explanation, and a feeling that someone was in control. We like it when things are under control.
We have since evolved from believing that Thor causes lightning. We should evolve just a bit more, from believing that there are gods who rule our world.
We should try to communicate the awe of true science to everyone. But sometimes, that alone will not satisfy some people.
Unfortunately not.
