Humanism for Africa
Submitted by admin on 27 June, 2005 - 13:08.

* Sub-Saharan Africa
* Humanist Visions for Africa 2004
* Roy Brown (3)

Roy Brown (3)
Sub-Saharan Africa

Humanism for Africa
By Roy Brown

Source: http://www.iheu.org/node/1570


Africa and Human Development

We, the human race, first appeared in Africa over 100,000 years ago. Through migration over the following millennia Homo Sapiens came to dominate the entire planet. But as civilisation triumphed elsewhere, Africa lagged behind. The reasons why are complex, and the debate is muddied by the accusations of racism or neo-colonialism likely to be heard whenever a westerner dares to speak about Africa's problems. But the facts are there for anyone prepared to look. For whatever the reasons, sub-Saharan Africa lags behind every other continent in terms of human development.

What do I mean by "human development"? The Human Development Index, published annually by the UN Development Fund, is an attempt to provide a way of comparing the quality of life of the average man and woman in different countries. It measures average life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality, average income, average years of education for both boys and girls, and so on, and arrives at a composite figure that combines all of these into a single index. Top of the list this year is Norway, closely followed Iceland, Sweden, Australia and the Netherlands. Uganda comes in at 147th and Nigeria 151st of the 175 countries listed. All of the bottom 25 countries in the list are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Why has Africa lagged so far behind? The reasons include history, culture, colonialism, corruption and war, as well as environmental factors and lack of investment. And of course what progress we were seeing until the early 1990s has effectively been stopped dead in its tracks by the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

In one short speech I cannot begin to discuss in any depth the series of measures Africa needs to bootstrap itself out of trouble. But what I can do is suggest that some of the current trends that we are seeing are without question leading Africa in the wrong direction. One particular trend that I find wholly negative is the increasing influence of religion: of evangelical Christianity and radical Islam. As Leo Igwe pointed out in the May 2004 edition of International Humanist News:
", throughout history, religious mercenaries - evangelical Christians and Islamic jihadists who seek to convert Africans to the alien faiths - have invaded the black continent. They preach submission to the wills of their "Gods" and salvation in the afterlife as answers to Africa's problems. Yet Africa's problems still remain and in fact have grown and multiplied. Christianity and Islam have remained impotent in the face of Africa's troubles. Instead the two religions have contributed to Africa's woes, to its stagnation, alienation and general under-development. Indeed Christianity and Islam have thrived and flourished while Africans suffer, starve and die."

We only have to look at the overflowing churches and mosques and the increasing levels of religious violence: the riots, killing and burning, to see how true that is. Or to consider the contemptible lies spread by the Catholic hierarchy about the efficacy of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS - based not on medical science, but on the historical aversion of the church to contraception.

It is ironic that much of the current success of the twin superstitions of Christianity and Islam is based not on their "eternal truth", but on the profits from science and technology. The American people give about $60 billion a year to charity, almost all of which goes to churches and religious organisations, much of it to fund their evangelical activities around the world. Yet it was the scientific, rational revolution, the triumph of scientific naturalism, that fuelled the economic growth that created the wealth that finances their modern evangelism. The Islamic revolution has been financed by Saudi oil money. Oil that would never have found a market without the modern technological revolution. The Saudis are estimated to have spent over $100 billion on promoting Islam during the past 40 years. And now, instead of Africa being offered the benefits of the technological revolution, it is being offered the dross - the authoritarian, oppressive and inhuman alternatives of radical Islam and fundamentalist Christianity.

There is a better alternative. While Humanism may not have the financial resources to compete with Islam and Christianity, it does have, quite simply, a better message - a more humane and a more rational world view on which to build our understanding and our way of life. Humanism values altruism above selfishness; concern for others above greed; and the spirit of free inquiry above superstition. It is a world view that liberates rather than oppresses; that frees the mind from fear and guilt; and recognises above all that we share a common humanity.

The Humanist Worldview

For Christians, Muslims and most religious people, the material world that we touch and feel is only part of the story. There is another world, a spirit world, parallel to our own, inhabited by a god or gods, by angels, demons, djinns and the like. The inhabitants of this parallel world are in constant struggle for our souls. If the demons, the agents of Satan win, we are damned to burn for eternity in hellfire.
Such infantile ideas have no place in Humanism.

Bertrand Russell once wrote that he was never quite comfortable with Humanism. "Those who attempt to make a religion of Humanism, which recognises nothing greater than man, do not satisfy my emotions", he said. But in this, I suggest, he misunderstood the nature of Humanism. Humanism is not merely atheism, not merely rationalism, but rationalism in the service of compassion. From its concern for the well-being of others comes humanist morality, independent of any divine decree or threat of hellfire. And as Richard Dawkins has shown in "Un-weaving the Rainbow", a rationalist outlook can be deeply emotionally fulfilling.

For Humanists, there is indeed another world, but not a world inhabited by gods, angels and evil spirits, by forces that must be placated. Rather, it is the world of ideas and of emotions. It is the world wherein lies our understanding: the world of thought, of dreams and imagination. And it is in this world that the gods and spirits lurk, creatures of the human imagination, unable to harm us except through human agency, through the actions of the believers.

But the other world, the world of ideas, is also the world of science and mathematics. It is a world still being explored, a world we may possibly never come to know completely. But above all, it is a world of great beauty. Our sense of awe at the wonders of nature, our love for our families and for one another, is part of this other world. It is the world of human consciousness. It is an integral part of our nature, not separate from it. This other world owes nothing to any deity, it is an emergent phenomenon, a feature of the natural world.

The great appeal of Christianity and Islam lies in their ready answers to the great existential questions. The fact that their answers are unwarranted and unsupported by reason seems not to matter, such is our overwhelming desire for certainty in an uncertain world. But both Christianity and Islam - as preached by the evangelicals and fundamentalists - are exclusive rather than inclusive. Both pander to the superstitious instinct. Both use "miracle" cures as part of their stock in trade. They preach their own superiority and denigrate and demonise the non-believer and the different. We can see the results today in religious conflict in Nigeria, Uganda, and the Sudan, and in the ill treatment of minorities, unbelievers and "others" throughout Africa.

As Abdelfattah Amor, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief said recently, "All religions have a problem with women". This is as true of the traditional religions of Africa as it is with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. Humanism is unique in that it values all equally - both men and women. Humanism is founded in the worth, dignity and autonomy of every individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others.

What Africa needs is rationalism rather than superstition. Christianity and Islam both seek to replace one set of superstitions by another. And by asserting the superiority of the spirit world, both Christianity and Islam encourage neglect of the material world and seek to devalue both human life and human experience. Africa needs to retain its instinctive understanding of our oneness with nature, but to replace magic and superstition by rationalism and science. A continent weighed down by superstition does not need more of the same!

Humanism in practice

How does Humanism work in practice? For one telling example, we need look no further than the problem of HIV/AIDS. We know that sex is one of the great driving forces of human life. Yet for the Christian churches, Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical, sex is equated with sin. For most Muslims, sex is a private matter and to discuss such matters in public is considered shameful. So how do these two great religions address the problem of AIDS? Very badly. With the finger-pointing guardians of Christian and Islamic morality breathing down their necks, many African governments have refused to discuss the issue of HIV infection frankly and openly, and to offer advice to the public about unsafe sex. This has been a major obstacle to preventing the spread of AIDS. This folly has been compounded by the blind refusal of some leaders, for their own political reasons, to address the issue rationally.

When George W. Bush visited Africa last year he pledged $5 billion over five years for the fight against AIDS. But ever mindful of his supporters on the Christian right, one third of this money was to be spent on "abstinence-only" education. This, despite overwhelming data that such programs are ineffective and that for many young African women abstinence is simply not an option. But what true believer ever let the facts stand in the way of religious certainty? One is forced to the appalling conclusion that many Christians would rather see millions suffer for their "immorality" than to permit them to be offered advice about safe sex.

The humanist approach: the approach promoted by the United Nations Population Fund, the International Planned Parenthood Federation and all responsible aid agencies - is called: ABC:
Avoid unprotected sex
Be faithful
Use a Condom.
This is the approach that was adopted several years ago in Uganda with results that speak for themselves.

The Principles of Humanism

The fundamental principles of modern Humanism are spelled out in the Amsterdam Declaration of 2002, adopted unanimously by the 15th World Humanist Congress and the IHEU General Assembly in July 2002. I recommend that document to you. Let me read some extracts that I find particularly relevant today.
Humanism is ethical. It affirms the worth, dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others. Humanists have a duty of care to all of humanity including future generations. Humanists believe that morality is an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others, needing no external sanction.
Humanism is rational. It seeks to use science creatively, not destructively. Humanists believe that the solutions to the world's problems lie in human thought and action rather than divine intervention.
Humanism supports democracy and human rights. Humanism aims at the fullest possible development of every human being. It holds that democracy and human development are matters of right.
Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world. Humanism is un-dogmatic, imposing no creed upon its adherents. It is thus committed to education free from indoctrination.

I would suggest that these are the qualities that Africa needs today. Nowhere on earth does the need for the humanist message seem more urgent: the message of our common humanity, of respect for the dignity and autonomy of the individual, and of the need for rationalism rather than superstition. Africa needs free minds and free bodies, not minds enslaved, nor bodies constrained by medieval customs and beliefs.

Africa needs Humanism.

Thank you.

Roy Brown is president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union

. . .this would make Humanism just another RELIGION which should replace existing religions. . . not so?

What nonsense!! This is so delusional and baseless it is beyond belief.

huxley:

The Principles of Humanism
Humanists believe that morality is an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others, needing no external sanction.

These guys really need to go and study human nature. Yes, we do have faculties that allow us to experience compassion but that is just one of loads of other tendencies in human nature. How do the humanists propose to make people compassionate and not their normal selfish gory destructive selves. What?! Appeal to their rationality?

Humanism is rational. It seeks to use science creatively, not destructively. Humanists believe that the solutions to the world's problems lie in human thought and action rather than divine intervention.

Oh, I get it! Human thought and actions are so rational. All you have to do it explain to them and they will understand. Someone should have just talked to Hitler and told him that killling Jews was not humanistic. He would have understood.

How naive is this doctrine of humanism!

Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world.

So how does humanism propose to deal with the multinationals and mega corporations that are daily reducing the value of live for most of the inhabitants of this planet?

Humanism is not merely atheism, not merely rationalism, but rationalism in the service of compassion. From its concern for the well-being of others comes humanist morality,

I can't believe how daft this is. What is the basis of this? Have the proponents of humanism done a proper and comprehensive study of human nature before spieling this rubbish? Have they made a proper study of the problem? such as where did the problems of selfishness, trashing the planet, greed, neurosis, war etc come from? Because I think you need to have a good understanding of these and why they arose before you start proposing solutions. Don't you think so?

Oh yeah! . . and the bit about rights . . . please don't go pilfering religious concepts that you obviously have no understanding of.

Pastor AIO:

What nonsense!! This is so delusional and baseless it is beyond belief.

I am very surprise you have taken a very vitriolic tone to this post. I fail to see why you say this philosophy is delusional and baseless, although it clearly states there that the premise of the position is founded on scientific rationalism and the human compassion (I suppose this could be extended to animal compassion, given our improved understanding of our relationship with animals). Like it said, the pillars of humanism are firstly humans, secondly seeking understanding of reality through scientific inquiry. This does not by any means claim that all knowledge of the human conditions and reality are known and will be known. But we can derive workable philosophies from what we already know. For instance, we do not know all there is about gravity. But we know enough to build aircrafts, builds, satellites, etc. With each passing day, a little more knowledge is uncovered.

Interesting to note that most of these advances have happened in the last 250 - 300 years. Although a lot was know about the nature of reality in the old days, there was little or no systematic methodology for investigating reality. With the advent of the scientific method, human understanding have improved many folds.

For many thousands of years, religion and superstitions held sway and persecuted proponents of scientific rationalism such as Galileo, Geordano Bruno, Darwin etc. Yet time has eventually proved these great deliverers from darkness true.

All religions eventually get found out and eventually die due to being found out to be false. Thousands of religions have suffered this fate and the contemporary religions are no exception and will too. The trend is inexorably down.

Pastor AIO:

These guys really need to go and study human nature. Yes, we do have faculties that allow us to experience compassion but that is just one of loads of other tendencies in human nature.

Like the article said, the humanist philosophy is founded on the understanding of reality through scientific rationalism. So humanism is informed by all the great works of scientific achievements.

How do you know they have not studied human nature? Interestingly, by which methodology do you propose such a study be undertaken? Glue - the options are science, religion, superstition, dreams, guesswork, abrahamic impositions etc.

Pastor AIO:

How do the humanists propose to make people compassionate and not their normal selfish gory destructive selves. [/b]What?! Appeal to their rationality?Oh, I get it! Human thought and actions are so rational. All you have to do it explain to them and they will understand. Someone should have just talked to Hitler and told him that killling Jews was not humanistic. He would have understood.

[b]How do the humanists propose to make people compassionate and not their normal selfish gory destructive selves. - The fact that you cannot see ways in which this might be achieved is a deficiency of your thinking, not an argument against humanism.

For a start - education - cross-cultural education. But this is not only a humanist value. Just see the global response to natural disasters in various parts of the world, the contribution to charities, the diffusion of tensions in regions of socio-political strife. These compassionate human acts have been achieved largely through education. Can we (humans) go even further than what has been achieved so far? Sure, we can. This is what the humanist theorist are calling for.

Take the case of the alleviation of diseases such as AIDS/HIV. Can proper education result in the reduction of the disease? Sure it can. 20 years ago, there were probably less than 500 cases of AIDS in African. Today, Africa leads the world in the incidence of the disease. One factor accounting for the rapid spread of the disease is the lack of education. Even worse, religious dogma has held to impede efforts at tacking the spread of AIDS. If AIDS is finally brought under control, it will be in spite of religion.

How naive is this doctrine of humanism!

I what way is humanism naive? Are its goals not intended to the betterment of the human conditions? Are these not achievable. I have to keep reminding you to look at the progress humans have made in the last 200 years with the decline of the suffucating stranglehold of superstitions and religions.

So how does humanism propose to deal with the multinationals and mega corporations that are daily reducing the value of live for most of the inhabitants of this planet?I can't believe how daft this is.

Have they made a proper study of the problem? such as where did the problems of selfishness, trashing the planet, greed, neurosis, war etc come from? Because I think you need to have a good understanding of these and why they arose before you start proposing solutions. Don't you think so?

The quality of life of humans worldwide have improved many fold thanks to global cooperation, technology, etc. Think of the afflictions and deprivation most of the world suffered before the days of modern medicines, electricity, transport, etc. Many of the ills of the past are being tackled with not only technology and science, but with increased human cooperation. Globalisation and multinationals, overall have been a force to good. There have delivered goods, services and jobs in many parts of the world where such would not have been available ordinarily. (In fact, I am writing this post during my lunch break. I have spent all morning today working with colleagues in France, Brazil, Algeria and India. We are building and infrastructure for financial trading. My employers are one of the world's biggest banks, with massive investments all around the world, creating jobs and services for people in as diverse a culture as Georgia, India, Malaysia, Brazil, etc. The amount of capital invested in these countries measures in the trillion of dollars. This company also contributes greatly in humanitarian activities worldwide.)

Admittedly, there have been some devastating consequences of globalisation, like environment damage, etc, etc. But the challenge is not only on the humanist to deal with these. It is on the whole of society to find a better way of managing cross-border cooperation.

BTW, consider the massive investment that Japan made in countries like Malaysia and Singapore that has literally pulled these countries from middle-age societies to advance technological economies. Granted, the problem the world faces today is to marry up technological advancement with social and humanistic development. This is a challenge for everyone. This fact is recognised in the humanist philosophy.

On the other hand, religions are not primarily concerned about the state of humans on the here and now. They put much store on the afterlife. None of the problems you refer to are solvable by religious pontifications.

On the issue of morality, science is making great strides at understand its origins. Take a look at http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/21/healthscience/snmorals.php.

The humanistic philosophy has the advantage of being capable of admitting new understanding about reality and if anything can be said about the human conditions, it is that a lot more stands to be incorporated into humanism. Contrarily, the religious will inevitable re-interprete their dogmas and re-invent new gods as more and more is unveiled about the nature of reality.

@huxley
You talking about the kind of humanism that spreads HIV by means of the oral polio vaccine.

Pastor AIO:

Oh yeah! . . and the bit about rights . . . please don't go pilfering religious concepts that you obviously have no understanding of.

What are religious concepts? Are you implying that the so-called beneficial aspects of religion (or Christianity) were absent in pre-Christian Africa, India, and America?

If they were not absent, can it be said that these concepts are really religious?

BTW, did you read my thread about how Christianity plagiarised most of its tenets from the early pagan cult of the Roman empire (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-113860.0.html)?

Hi Huxley, I was going to take my time and properly respond to your above posts but it might take some time for me to compose myself properly so I'll just go ahead and give a cursory explanation of what I think and may the spirit guide me, as always.

I am very surprise you have taken a very vitriolic tone to this post. I fail to see why you say this philosophy is delusional and baseless, although it clearly states there that the premise of the position is founded on scientific rationalism and the human compassion (I suppose this could be extended to animal compassion, given our improved understanding of our relationship with animals). Like it said, the pillars of humanism are firstly humans, secondly seeking understanding of reality through scientific inquiry. This does not by any means claim that all knowledge of the human conditions and reality are known and will be known. But we can derive workable philosophies from what we already know. For instance, we do not know all there is about gravity. But we know enough to build aircrafts, builds, satellites, etc. With each passing day, a little more knowledge is uncovered.

First the basis of my saying that it is baseless and delusional is because based on my understanding of human psychology and motivations, compassion is but one of our faculties and one that does not play a big part in the character of most adults. Please excuse the Vitriol. I do have a loathing for ideologies that claim to be panaceas of all human ills and yet do not have any solid basis or foundation. This includes religious ideologies as well as secular ones. However I admit that I probably should have responded less aggressive afterall I do like you and I very much appreciate a lot of your posts and I've certainly learnt a lot from reading your posts and following your links.

Now you might say that it is my christian indoctrination that leads me to believe that wickedness in at the very core of man's being, but this is a belief that has been constantly demonstrated and still is being demonstrated before my eyes every day when I walk the streets. Perhaps your experience is different but me I don see with my koro koro eye say man no be better creature. And the last thing in the world that I want to subscribe to is an ideology based on Human-ism. You might as well called it Evil-ism.
As regards that stuff about technology, I don't see what difference that makes. What would you rather face? A caveman with a club or A cave man with a kalashnikov rifle. Oh yeah! there is no difference between that grunting growling caveman and modern man. There hasn't been much evolution since then and it is the same brain (go check the fossil records). Me, I don't think that learning technology is gonna change the basic nature of man.

There are many other points that you are making that I don't agree with but I won't address because I want this to be as brief as possible.

Like the article said, the humanist philosophy is founded on the understanding of reality through scientific rationalism. So humanism is informed by all the great works of scientific achievements.

Humanism proposes a type of human society does it not? There is nothing in humanism that suggests (from what I can tell) that a proper appraisal of humans and their motivations has been made. Let me give you an example. One key element of the human psyche is the need to achieve distinction and be regarded as different. We all need attention. Even if it is only from a few select people ( our closest friends and family), we need to know that other people are thinking of us and have us in their regard. There is even a special regard that we expect from at least one person (usually our spouse). When a child realises that he can get more of mom's good regard by doing something clever this motivates him to do more and more clever things. Everybody seeks to distinguish themselves in one way or the other in order to get some good regard from the public. When people fail to achieve this good regard the motivation gets twisted. The next best thing is Bad regard. They do something wicked just to get people's attention. I don't know if you've ever had a younger sibling. If you remember around that adolescent period of their lives they start trying harder and harder to be noticed by adults. They want to hang out with you and sit with you and your friends. The worst thing you could do at that point is to tell them to get lost. That is asking for trouble. "Ehn hen! Me! Get Lost!!" If you recall it is at the point that your little brother turns into the most obnoxious beast you can ever imagine. And you won't ever hear the end of it. You would have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you had just invited him out one night with your friends and allowed him to sit with you till he got bored and retired back to riding his bicycle. This urge to seek regard of any sort is often seen in some criminals who are often concerned with what impact their crimes made on society and if they made it onto the news. Often they show signs of pride with this occurs. All these people ever wanted was to be noticed and respected and as they realised that they couldn't get any good regard they went for the next best thing.
Now the other thing about regard is that from childhood you learn that certain aspects will get you good attention and others will draw bad attention such as a flogging. Since we all want to be held in high regard we learn very quickly to hide those aspects of our being that draw negative attention or even no attention at all and to display those things that draw a high regard. This means that falsity and mendacity have to be introduced into the human psyche at a very early stage. Psychologists have termed this display the Persona. I call it the egungun, or rather the Masquerade. We are all masquerading (don't deny it!). This mask and such devices that we use to attain social status is a great obstacle in spiritual development, but that is another subject. The real point that I want to make is that Humanity is by necessity Mendacious and rotten. This is a more accurate appraisal of a human being and his ability to create a fair and just society on the basis of the qualities found in him.

How do the humanists propose to make people compassionate and not their normal selfish gory destructive selves. - The fact that you cannot see ways in which this might be achieved is a deficiency of your thinking, not an argument against humanism.

Perhaps I'm just stupid then.

I what way is humanism naive? Are its goals not intended to the betterment of the human conditions? Are these not achievable. I have to keep reminding you to look at the progress humans have made in the last 200 years with the decline of the suffucating stranglehold of superstitions and religions.

Ah, you must be talking about the fact that we are much happier than we were in the past and that the air is much cleaner and we have more leisure time. NOT!!! those that have leisure time are starving because of it. A thousand and one technological inventions are not going to change anything. If a country(say the EC in the 1970s and 1980s) produce any surplus they just hoard it while people starve or they throw it away. Remember the milk lakes and the food mountains. Plus when a scientists invents a better crop or whatever, he is not thinking let me do this so that I can feed the world. His thoughts are usually much darker. But I don't want to make a sweeping indictment of all scientists, maybe there are some altruistic ones but most of them are thinking of the money they will make if they can find a cure for something or the nobel prize etc. And if the people who need the drug most cannot afford it then that is tough blockis.

Admittedly, there have been some devastating consequences of globalisation, like environment damage, etc, etc. But the challenge is not only on the humanist to deal with these. It is on the whole of society to find a better way of managing cross-border cooperation.

Please check out this site:http://www.storyofstuff.com/ I would like to know what you think.

The fact is the Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely. Not to mention money being the root of all evil. Combine these two and you have double wahala for deady body. Andy owner of deady body.
Fact is Religion is powerful for changing lives. The Romans noticed that and that is why they used it to rebuild their empire. However coming into contact with that money and power has a detrimental effect on anything and everything religion included. And Science included. Yes, science included.

Most scientific surveys are costly. Experiments costs millions sometimes billions. The days of an eccentric scientist discovering cures in his bicycle shed as long gone. Scientists need funding. He who pays the piper calls the tune. A scientist can never make a report that a drug has harmful side effects when the person paying for his research is the pharmaceutical company producing the drug. Today scientific discoveries are too influenced by the concerns of multinationals, Political correctness, and making sure not to step on the toes of big political powers. Like I said, anything that comes into contact with power and money gets twisted. But to be really honest, It is anything that comes into contact with humanity in this wicked base state that is corrupted even the Power and the Money.

I hope it wasn't too long sha! I hate long posts. I hardly ever read them myself.

Thankx for the post. You have got some good points. Was a bit long and have just finished reading it. Will respond in a moment.

huxley:

What are religious concepts?  Are you implying that the so-called beneficial aspects of religion (or Christianity) were absent in pre-Christian Africa,  India,  and America?

If they were not absent, can it be said that these concepts are really religious?

BTW, did you read my thread about how Christianity plagiarised most of its tenets from the early pagan cult of the Roman empire (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-113860.0.html)?

I am talking about Rights or even righteousness.  What is right?  Who determines what is right or what are rights?  In a random world why should anything be right while something else is wrong?  The basis of the Concept of Right is that there is a plan that has been set down by an Author.  To deviate from this is to be wrong and to be in this is to be Right.  There is no right or wrong with a plan that is the way things are MEANT TO BE.  Who means it to be any way?  The Author.  

So this talk about rights, human rights or whatnot, in a world without God is just ridiculous.  Who gives you the right to have anything, be anything?.  Any right.   If it is all just random then your lot is your lot and you have no claim based on any right.  

You see, you cannot separate the idea of Rights from the idea of Intentionality in creation.

I was so taken aback my your first post that I had to make this strong appeal to your "rational and sensible" side. You are one of the most level-headed people on this forum but the tenor of your first response really surprised me. I must say, my estimation of you went down a bit (that is not to say I am something ) but you have restored it.

My greatest fear was that, if I could not reason things out with you, then I stood no chance of reaching the sort of audience I want to reach.

Pastor AIO:

Hi Huxley, I was going to take my time and properly respond to your above posts but it might take some time for me to compose myself properly so I'll just go ahead and give a cursory explanation of what I think and may the spirit guide me, as always.
First the basis of my saying that it is baseless and delusional is because based on my understanding of human psychology and motivations, compassion is but one of our faculties and one that does not play a big part in the character of most adults. Please excuse the Vitriol. I do have a loathing for ideologies that claim to be panaceas of all human ills and yet do not have any solid basis or foundation. This includes religious ideologies as well as secular ones. However I admit that I probably should have responded less aggressive afterall I do like you and I very much appreciate a lot of your posts and I've certainly learnt a lot from reading your posts and following your links.

Now you might say that it is my christian indoctrination that leads me to believe that wickedness in at the very core of man's being, but this is a belief that has been constantly demonstrated and still is being demonstrated before my eyes every day when I walk the streets. Perhaps your experience is different but me I don see with my koro koro eye say man no be better creature. And the last thing in the world that I want to subscribe to is an ideology based on Human-ism. You might as well called it Evil-ism.
As regards that stuff about technology, I don't see what difference that makes. What would you rather face? A caveman with a club or A cave man with a kalashnikov rifle. Oh yeah! there is no difference between that grunting growling caveman and modern man. There hasn't been much evolution since then and it is the same brain (go check the fossil records). Me, I don't think that learning technology is going to change the basic nature of man.

There are many other points that you are making that I don't agree with but I won't address because I want this to be as brief as possible.
Humanism proposes a type of human society does it not? There is nothing in humanism that suggests (from what I can tell) that a proper appraisal of humans and their motivations has been made. Let me give you an example. One key element of the human psyche is the need to achieve distinction and be regarded as different. We all need attention. Even if it is only from a few select people ( our closest friends and family), we need to know that other people are thinking of us and have us in their regard. There is even a special regard that we expect from at least one person (usually our spouse). When a child realises that he can get more of mom's good regard by doing something clever this motivates him to do more and more clever things. Everybody seeks to distinguish themselves in one way or the other in order to get some good regard from the public. When people fail to achieve this good regard the motivation gets twisted. The next best thing is Bad regard. They do something wicked just to get people's attention. I don't know if you've ever had a younger sibling. If you remember around that adolescent period of their lives they start trying harder and harder to be noticed by adults. They want to hang out with you and sit with you and your friends. The worst thing you could do at that point is to tell them to get lost. That is asking for trouble. "Ehn hen! Me! Get Lost!!" If you recall it is at the point that your little brother turns into the most obnoxious beast you can ever imagine. And you won't ever hear the end of it. You would have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you had just invited him out one night with your friends and allowed him to sit with you till he got bored and retired back to riding his bicycle. This urge to seek regard of any sort is often seen in some criminals who are often concerned with what impact their crimes made on society and if they made it onto the news. Often they show signs of pride with this occurs. All these people ever wanted was to be noticed and respected and as they realised that they couldn't get any good regard they went for the next best thing.
Now the other thing about regard is that from childhood you learn that certain aspects will get you good attention and others will draw bad attention such as a flogging. Since we all want to be held in high regard we learn very quickly to hide those aspects of our being that draw negative attention or even no attention at all and to display those things that draw a high regard. This means that falsity and mendacity have to be introduced into the human psyche at a very early stage. Psychologists have termed this display the Persona. I call it the egungun, or rather the Masquerade. We are all masquerading (don't deny it!). This mask and such devices that we use to attain social status is a great obstacle in spiritual development, but that is another subject. The real point that I want to make is that Humanity is by necessity Mendacious and rotten. This is a more accurate appraisal of a human being and his ability to create a fair and just society on the basis of the qualities found in him.
Perhaps I'm just stupid then. Ah, you must be talking about the fact that we are much happier than we were in the past and that the air is much cleaner and we have more leisure time. NOT!!! those that have leisure time are starving because of it. A thousand and one technological inventions are not going to change anything. If a country(say the EC in the 1970s and 1980s) produce any surplus they just hoard it while people starve or they throw it away. Remember the milk lakes and the food mountains. Plus when a scientists invents a better crop or whatever, he is not thinking let me do this so that I can feed the world. His thoughts are usually much darker. But I don't want to make a sweeping indictment of all scientists, maybe there are some altruistic ones but most of them are thinking of the money they will make if they can find a cure for something or the nobel prize etc. And if the people who need the drug most cannot afford it then that is tough blockis. Please check out this site:http://www.storyofstuff.com/ I would like to know what you think.

The fact is the Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely. Not to mention money being the root of all evil. Combine these two and you have double wahala for deady body. Andy owner of deady body.
Fact is Religion is powerful for changing lives. The Romans noticed that and that is why they used it to rebuild their empire. However coming into contact with that money and power has a detrimental effect on anything and everything religion included. And Science included. Yes, science included.

Most scientific surveys are costly. Experiments costs millions sometimes billions. The days of an eccentric scientist discovering cures in his bicycle shed as long gone. Scientists need funding. He who pays the piper calls the tune. A scientist can never make a report that a drug has harmful side effects when the person paying for his research is the pharmaceutical company producing the drug. Today scientific discoveries are too influenced by the concerns of multinationals, Political correctness, and making sure not to step on the toes of big political powers. Like I said, anything that comes into contact with power and money gets twisted. But to be really honest, It is anything that comes into contact with humanity in this wicked base state that is corrupted even the Power and the Money.

Like I said, technology does not answer all of human problems. The tools we have are science, technology, philosophy.

Would these feed into the humanist agenda. You bet.

On the question of the basic human need of self-esteem, yes, the science of psychology would identify such need and develop rational ways of deal with this need. In fact, there is a body of work by the eminent psychologist Albert Ellis, that deals with such things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ellis).

Worth noting that science by itself has no agenda, but the practice of science can be perverted by all sort of egotistical, political, percuniary agendas.

huxley:


On the question of the basic human need of self-esteem, yes, the science of psychology would identify such need and develop rational ways of deal with this need. In fact, there is a body of work by the eminent psychologist Albert Ellis, that deals with such things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ellis).

Fair enough but I don't think that anything short of a Lobotomy is going to change basic human characteristics.  Perhaps one day Humanism might be developed into something that I could take seriously but at present it has a hell of a long way to go before it can come close to proposing an alternative way of life. 

ps. Did you check Storyofstuff.com

Please do because I want to know what you think, especially in view of the fact that you are working for some global financial institutions.

Pastor AIO:

Fair enough but I don't think that anything short of a Lobotomy is going to change basic human characteristics. Perhaps one day Humanism might be developed into something that I could take seriously but at present it has a hell of a long way to go before it can come close to proposing an alternative way of life.

ps. Did you check Storyofstuff.com

Please do because I want to know what you think, especially in view of the fact that you are working for some global financial institutions.

I agree. The most difficult challenge in "human engineering" is changing peoples' minds, but I believe the goals of humanism are achieveable. Just look at how minds have been (and are being) changed about slavery, discrimination on race, gender and sex. The Zeitgeist of enlightened contemporary societies and communities will drive this change.

I also to agree with your opinion about the word "humanist". I am not a great fan of the word, although I subscribe to the philosophy. MAny a would-be humanist shy from describing themselves as such for the same reason.

Yes, I did check out that site. I like it a lot and it puts into context the wasteful of the modern technological age. We got into this mess due to greed and environmental shortsightedness. The irony is that, the so-called underdeveloped world is aspiring the standard of living of the rich world with little attention paid to the side-effects of such development.


One other point I was going to make earlier but forgot is this. You have too appreciate that as humans, we are at the infancy of our development. It is not long ago that we enslaved our neighbours, fought bitters wars with other nations/tribes, left twins out in the wild to die, practised human sacrifices, hunted other animals to extinction, etc, etc. As we develop better understanding of ourselves, these hideous acts are being consigned into history. As Christopher Hitchens would say, "We are still animals with large adrenal gland"

huxley:
Humanism is rational. It seeks to use science creatively, not destructively. Humanists believe that the solutions to the world's problems lie in human thought and action rather than divine intervention.

Humanism is grossly incorrect.

If humanism was right in holding that man is born to be happy; he would not be born to die.

@huxley
just for the records, are you against RELIGION as a whole or just simply against christianity, i hardly see anything from you against any other religion or can that be taken to mean that you are only familiar with christianity and ignorant of other relgious beliefs?
Nevertheless your arguments almost always have cogent points and you are almost making Humanist out of me.just that i dont fancy your being strictly anti-christian, i think your rationality should take you beyond partisanism.
keep the posts coming though,they are quite enlightening.

huxley:


One other point I was going to make earlier but forgot is this. You have too appreciate that as humans, we are at the infancy of our development. It is not long ago that we enslaved our neighbours, fought bitters wars with other nations/tribes, left twins out in the wild to die, practised human sacrifices, hunted other animals to extinction, etc, etc. As we develop better understanding of ourselves, these hideous acts are being consigned into history. As Christopher Hitchens would say, "We are still animals with large adrenal gland"

I would like to say something about Process. Not any process in particular, such as human history, evolution or development, but just Process as an abstract concept. There are two possible types of processes. One is called a linear process that has a starting point and proceeds in a single direction towards it's destined point. These processes can be described by mathematical equations that are called linear equations. eg. y=2x
The other one is called cyclical processes. These don't really have a starting point or an ending point but rather by constantly changing direction contrive to end up where they once were. Such processes can be described by equations such as polynomials or even just the sine curve equation. ie. y=sin(x) This can be drawn on a graph as a wave function.
To shift from maths to physics: It will be noted that in nature there are very rarely any linear equations. I say very rarely just to cover my arse just in case you know one, but the truth is I am not aware of any one single process in nature that can be described by a linear equation. Nature it seems is ruled by cycles. day and night, months, seasons, these are all cyclical processes.
While I do not have hard evidence for it I very much suspect that the evolution of human society is likewise a cyclical affair. empires will rise and fall and another will rise and then fall, and civilisations will come and then go. My intuition tells me that this linear progressive vision of the course of human history is flawed because it will be subject too, to the processes of growth and decay.

Now slave trade is rife again in Europe, especially in england. It makes the news almost everyday when they get caught. It's mostly eastern european children that are trafficked for the sex trade but there are other forms. People are told that they have to pay off the debt of the cost of bringing them to england but it is a debt that never gets paid. Even as a child I remember a man from Cotonou bringing his 'niece' to our house to do housegirl. However when it was time for my mother to pay her the wages the man would come and collect the money. And this girl never had any money. When my mom remonstrated with the man the man just took his 'niece' and left. Was that not slave trade? Does it not still go on in Africa. What about the children that work in mines for those big international diamond companies? Is that not slave trade? I'm not sure that the callous exploitation of human labour for nothing has stopped or will ever stop, whether or not it goes by the name of slave trade or not.
What was it that Olufela Kuti once said about what he called the 2nd slave trade. "First slavery they came to take you away by force. Second slavery, you buy your own ticket!".

imhotep:

Humanism is grossly incorrect.

If humanism was right in holding that man is born to be happy; he would not be born to die.

Having a discussion with you is like talking with an automoton trained to spout out scripted text. For example, you make the statement "Humanism is grossly incorrect." but you provide no arguments for why it is incorrect. IS there anything to be learned from such a statement?

Where are your arguments for advancing these views. Your immersion in the religions culture has taught you to accepts dogma and facts without questioning and argument and this is becoming very obvious in your post.

Please, try and do better. You are letting your side down.

reindeer:

@huxley
just for the records, are you against RELIGION as a whole or just simply against christianity, i hardly see anything from you against any other religion or can that be taken to mean that you are only familiar with christianity and ignorant of other relgious beliefs?
Nevertheless your arguments almost always have cogent points and you are almost making Humanist out of me.just that i don't fancy your being strictly anti-christian, i think your rationality should take you beyond partisanism.
keep the posts coming though,they are quite enlightening.

Yes, you are right. I am not so much against Christianity as am against religion. Basically, I am against any form of superstitious and authoritarian thinking. This elements feature greatly in all religions. Am an advocate for rationalism through science and critical inquiry.

I am more familiar with the Christian tradition, having been brought up in that culture. But my the thrust of my criticism should go equally well to all religions.

I am glad to learn you find my post enlightening and to be sure you will certainly be seeing some more.

Check out the site: http://reasonworks.com/BS%20Your%20Parents%20Never%20Taught%20You.html

I'll have to agree with Huxley and say that humanism and rationalism should be the way forward for not just Nigeria but the world. I don't really agree that man is instrinsically wicked and evil. I do believe however that man is pushed by basic needs for food, water, self esteem etc and in the quest to achieve this things man may do "bad" things. This should actually be the point of humanism, it should be man sitting together to say ok I want food, my neighbour wants food, the guy in the next country needs food, how can we all get food without shooting each other. Religion certainly has not been able to achieve togetherness among all persons if anything it's encouraged diviciseness.

Humanism will not solve all this problems at once, but it will be a starting step in the right direction. Definitely there will still be people who are intentionally evil. People who will go for their own personal gain without concern for the general good. Humanism should however reduce drastically the damage that is caused by lack of enlightenment and lack of knowledge. Perhaps with time law enforcement will improve enough to curb the evil some large corporations are causing. This sort of people are simply greedy and totally selfish. They certainly don't represent the nature of all man. The process of bringing up a child in most societies already involves teaching kids to think about others and not be totally selfish.

Okay, let us say that I buy  into the Humanism project.  Here we are, I am a humanist.  Hypothetically, that is.   I want to make a better world based on Human compassion.  My first step I believe is to assess the present situation.  How did things get to such a pass?  What is it about humans that make them cock up so much?  I have already talked about the basic psychological fact that we are walking about as egunguns. 

Another trait I notice is the human instinct of distinguishing a certain element of any experience or set of events and imbuing it with greater import than the other elements of the experience.  Let me give an example from the psychology of music.  I hope we all know what a metronome is.  This is a gadget that musicians use to keep in time when they are practicing.  It just goes click click click evenly at a steady beat.  Now there are things called auditory illusions.  An example of one is observed in an experiment where someone is played the even clicking of a metronome and asked to identify the strong beat.  In music there are strong beats and weak beats, for example the One is usually the strongest.  True enough, everybody that listens to a metronome will hear some of the clicks louder than others.  Usually people exposed to western music with it's basic four four structure will hear the strong beat every fourth click. 

Like this:  ONE two three four ONE two three four ONE two three four. 

But the clicks are even, non is louder than the other.  Why does the human ear hear one louder than the others.  This is an auditory illusion based on the brain imposing structure on something that is essentially musically structureless.  The most common example of this is the tick tocking of a clock.  Clocks don't go Tick tock.  They go tick tick tick.  But we hears some as ticks and others as tocks.  The effect is created in the brain, it makes the ticking of the clock more musical.
Please bear with me.  There is a reason for all this.  This argument is going somewhere but it's just taking a while to get there.

My point is that it is a human instinct to impose structure and order on an experience whether or not that event actually has an intrinsic structure or not.  It is called making sense of something.  It is an active process that the brain does.  This leaves us with 3 options when someone is talking to us.  first is to get the meaning that the person intends.  the second is to get a meaning  that however was not the intended meaning.  and third is to get no meaning from it at all.  But the creation of meaning (or structure) is a spontaneous instinct that might or might not tally with the intended meaning of the person speaking. 
Meaning is created, as in the metronome experiment,  by the elevation of certain elements of the event to a position of greater import.  This distinguishing of some elements from others is at the core of structure creation.  or meaning creation.  Take for example the events of a man's day.  Ask your friend to tell you what happened to him today.  Bearing in mind that in the course of the day so many different random events occur and really a day is just a chaos of events, is it not interesting that when your friend tells his story the story is themed.  There will be one specific event in the course of the day that will be given greater import than all the other events.  This event could be whether he asks his girlfriend to marry him or not.  That event is the ONE of the musical beat to which everything now relates and derives its meaning and relevance.  All other events are now judged in their relevance to the theme of his story.  This is the difference between a story and a recounting of random events.  Stories have a theme and meaning and they can engage you while a random recounting of facts will bore you to death. 
Now the fact that your friend misses the early bus in the morning has significance/meaning in his story.  That means that he will be late to see his girlfriend who might be upset and thus spoil the opportunity for a proposal.  The fact that he bumps into another friend who gives him a lift becomes relevant in that it helps him to meet his girlfriend on time.  Yet the fact that this other friend wanted to first drop something off at his aunt's house is also relevant because of it's relation to the theme.  That could make him late to see his girlfriend. 
Once a theme (or what I call the principle) has been established then everything in the course of the day derives it's VALUE from it's relation to the theme.  Schopenhauer wrote an interesting essay on this phenomenon that I will seek out and post later.

The point I am trying to make involves these three terms.  1)Meaning.  2)Structure.  3)And Value.  They are all instinctively created effects of the brain.  Structure is created by elevating one element above all others.  Then everything derives it's Meaning and it's Value from it's relationship with the Principle(or theme). 

If you have kept reading and have made it thus far then I must congratulate you. But there is more.

'What does all this have to do with my Humanism experiment?', I hear you ask.   I am trying to understand human psychology.  This instinctive creation of a principle out of any experience is totally arbitrary.  What one person hears as the principle (or musically as the strong beat) is not what another person will hear.  It thereby follows that the structure created will differ and also the Values perceived will be totally arbitrary too.  In other words Meaning and Value are a function of Context.  You will share a table of values and meanings with someone that shares the same context as you.  If the other persons head is in a different space then you can't.  the Yoruba have a proverb:  Ija li o de, li orin di owe.  This meanings that when something is afoot that is when meaningless ditties become heavy proverbs.

Let me explain.  Imagine you have a friend that has done something terrible to you that you are as yet unaware off.  In his head he is wracked with guilt.  When you meet up and you are in a cheery mood you might start whistling a tune that means absolutely nothing, yet your friend will start trying to decode and make exegesis on the implications of your whistling.  You see, due to his head being in a different context from yours your meaningless whistling has become a powerful proverb for him. 

Now to arrive at my point.  The table of values adopted by a people determines the culture of the people.  These values being arbitrary are also different from culture to culture.  The other thing about values is that though they are arbitrary they feel absolute.  It seems obvious to each person that his values and his ideals are universal.  'well everybody that's sane thinks the way I do, don't they'.  Well the answer is no.  And also it is inevitable that the interaction of different value codes will result in conflict. 
Example.  two people with two different mindsets live on a mountain.  The mountain is full of diamonds and it is very green full of all sorts of trees and nature.  One of the people highly appreciate calm and clean environment while the other's highest good is the making of money.  They both want to put the mountain to it's best use.  Tell me will there not be conflict.  The Money man wants to dig mines and sees the Ecology guy as a nuisance and a retard who does not appreciate the opportunity presented to them.  The Ecology guy sees the Money guy as an evil capitalist who wants to destroy the environment.  How do we avoid Conflict of this sort in a Humanist world?

@ Pastor AIO

Pastor AIO:

How do we avoid Conflict of this sort in a Humanist world?

Get your point. Answering the above question, how about with round table discussions. What I mean is isn't it possible for the ecology man and the money man to sit together? The ecology man expresses his concerns and the money man talks about his plans to make money. Then they consider how the money man can operate without to much damage to the environment. I believe oil companies try to do more of that nowadays and aid development of areas where their drilling may have caused damage. This may be a problem in Nigeria because of corruption but I'm sure its workable in decent countries. Isn't this sort of conflict resolution possible?

Pastor AIO:

Okay, let us say that I buy into the Humanism project. Here we are, I am a humanist. Hypothetically, that is. I want to make a better world based on Human compassion. My first step I believe is to assess the present situation. How did things get to such a pass? What is it about humans that make them cock up so much? I have already talked about the basic psychological fact that we are walking about as egunguns.

Another trait I notice is the human instinct of distinguishing a certain element of any experience or set of events and imbuing it with greater import than the other elements of the experience. Let me give an example from the psychology of music. I hope we all know what a metronome is. This is a gadget that musicians use to keep in time when they are practicing. It just goes click click click evenly at a steady beat. Now there are things called auditory illusions. An example of one is observed in an experiment where someone is played the even clicking of a metronome and asked to identify the strong beat. In music there are strong beats and weak beats, for example the One is usually the strongest. True enough, everybody that listens to a metronome will hear some of the clicks louder than others. Usually people exposed to western music with it's basic four four structure will hear the strong beat every fourth click.

Like this: ONE two three four ONE two three four ONE two three four.

But the clicks are even, non is louder than the other. Why does the human ear hear one louder than the others. This is an auditory illusion based on the brain imposing structure on something that is essentially musically structureless. The most common example of this is the tick tocking of a clock. Clocks don't go Tick tock. They go tick tick tick. But we hears some as ticks and others as tocks. The effect is created in the brain, it makes the ticking of the clock more musical.
Please bear with me. There is a reason for all this. This argument is going somewhere but it's just taking a while to get there.

My point is that it is a human instinct to impose structure and order on an experience whether or not that event actually has an intrinsic structure or not. It is called making sense of something. It is an active process that the brain does. This leaves us with 3 options when someone is talking to us. first is to get the meaning that the person intends. the second is to get a meaning that however was not the intended meaning. and third is to get no meaning from it at all. But the creation of meaning (or structure) is a spontaneous instinct that might or might not tally with the intended meaning of the person speaking.
Meaning is created, as in the metronome experiment, by the elevation of certain elements of the event to a position of greater import. This distinguishing of some elements from others is at the core of structure creation. or meaning creation. Take for example the events of a man's day. Ask your friend to tell you what happened to him today. Bearing in mind that in the course of the day so many different random events occur and really a day is just a chaos of events, is it not interesting that when your friend tells his story the story is themed. There will be one specific event in the course of the day that will be given greater import than all the other events. This event could be whether he asks his girlfriend to marry him or not. That event is the ONE of the musical beat to which everything now relates and derives its meaning and relevance. All other events are now judged in their relevance to the theme of his story. This is the difference between a story and a recounting of random events. Stories have a theme and meaning and they can engage you while a random recounting of facts will bore you to death.
Now the fact that your friend misses the early bus in the morning has significance/meaning in his story. That means that he will be late to see his girlfriend who might be upset and thus spoil the opportunity for a proposal. The fact that he bumps into another friend who gives him a lift becomes relevant in that it helps him to meet his girlfriend on time. Yet the fact that this other friend wanted to first drop something off at his aunt's house is also relevant because of it's relation to the theme. That could make him late to see his girlfriend.
Once a theme (or what I call the principle) has been established then everything in the course of the day derives it's VALUE from it's relation to the theme. Schopenhauer wrote an interesting essay on this phenomenon that I will seek out and post later.

The point I am trying to make involves these three terms. 1)Meaning. 2)Structure. 3)And Value. They are all instinctively created effects of the brain. Structure is created by elevating one element above all others. Then everything derives it's Meaning and it's Value from it's relationship with the Principle(or theme).

If you have kept reading and have made it thus far then I must congratulate you. But there is more.

'What does all this have to do with my Humanism experiment?', I hear you ask. I am trying to understand human psychology. This instinctive creation of a principle out of any experience is totally arbitrary. What one person hears as the principle (or musically as the strong beat) is not what another person will hear. It thereby follows that the structure created will differ and also the Values perceived will be totally arbitrary too. In other words Meaning and Value are a function of Context. You will share a table of values and meanings with someone that shares the same context as you. If the other persons head is in a different space then you can't. the Yoruba have a proverb: Ija li o de, li orin di owe. This meanings that when something is afoot that is when meaningless ditties become heavy proverbs.

Let me explain. Imagine you have a friend that has done something terrible to you that you are as yet unaware off. In his head he is wracked with guilt. When you meet up and you are in a cheery mood you might start whistling a tune that means absolutely nothing, yet your friend will start trying to decode and make exegesis on the implications of your whistling. You see, due to his head being in a different context from yours your meaningless whistling has become a powerful proverb for him.

Now to arrive at my point. The table of values adopted by a people determines the culture of the people. These values being arbitrary are also different from culture to culture. The other thing about values is that though they are arbitrary they feel absolute. It seems obvious to each person that his values and his ideals are universal. 'well everybody that's sane thinks the way I do, don't they'. Well the answer is no. And also it is inevitable that the interaction of different value codes will result in conflict.
Example. two people with two different mindsets live on a mountain. The mountain is full of diamonds and it is very green full of all sorts of trees and nature. One of the people highly appreciate calm and clean environment while the other's highest good is the making of money. They both want to put the mountain to it's best use. Tell me will there not be conflict. The Money man wants to dig mines and sees the Ecology guy as a nuisance and a retard who does not appreciate the opportunity presented to them. The Ecology guy sees the Money guy as an evil capitalist who wants to destroy the environment. How do we avoid Conflict of this sort in a Humanist world?

Pastor AIO, to be honest, it was really hard to following the thrust of your argument. You seem to go round and round only to settle on the point right on our noses " How do we avoid Conflict of this sort in a Humanist world?". What happened to the terseness you displayed in you other posts?

Allow me to make the following comments:

You seem to be making a fundamental mistake of understanding. You are taking the ideas of humanism in a very presciptive sense, much like a religionist sees their set of laws, rules or commandments as absolutes.

To go from the supernatural world to the naturalistic world is to go from a prescriptive world (with the rules defined by a super-being) to a self-defining world (can't think of a better word). So together as a society, we define what is good for us and our environment using the means of scientific rationalism SR (I use SR here in a very broad sense as to include also aspects of existence that contribute to well-being)

Bear in mind that the challenge you identify is a challenge in any worldview you care to mention - whether you are theistic or non-theistic, you shall have to find a balance between achieving material progress, human well-being and preservation of the environment.

Humanism does not claim to offer a solution to all of human ills, but it clearly recognises that some of the solution being tauted today are ineffective at best and delusionary at worst.

Tasma:

@ Pastor AIO
Get your point. Answering the above question, how about with round table discussions. What I mean is isn't it possible for the ecology man and the money man to sit together? The ecology man expresses his concerns and the money man talks about his plans to make money. Then they consider how the money man can operate without to much damage to the environment. I believe oil companies try to do more of that nowadays and aid development of areas where their drilling may have caused damage. This may be a problem in Nigeria because of corruption but I'm sure its workable in decent countries. Isn't this sort of conflict resolution possible?

But we live in a world of mutual exclusivity.  In some things, in most things, you simply can't have your cake and eat it.  It is impossible to pursue two different value systems.  One must supercede the other.  Further, in order for the round table discussion to take place it is important that each sees the other's point of view.  However all value systems are imbued with an absoluteness.  You see it every minute on Nairaland were two people cannot even make one single exchange of ideas because their ideas are based on totally different premises.

huxley:

Pastor AIO, to be honest, it was really hard to following the thrust of your argument. You seem to go round and round only to settle on the point right on our noses " How do we avoid Conflict of this sort in a Humanist world?". What happened to the terseness you displayed in you other posts?

Allow me to make the following comments:

You seem to be making a fundamental mistake of understanding. You are taking the ideas of humanism in a very presciptive sense, much like a religionist sees their set of laws, rules or commandments as absolutes.

To go from the supernatural world to the naturalistic world is to go from a prescriptive world (with the rules defined by a super-being) to a self-defining world (can't think of a better word). So together as a society, we define what is good for us and our environment using the means of scientific rationalism SR (I use SR here in a very broad sense as to include also aspects of existence that contribute to well-being)

Bear in mind that the challenge you identify is a challenge in any worldview you care to mention - whether you are theistic or non-theistic, you shall have to find a balance between achieving material progress, human well-being and preservation of the environment.

Humanism does not claim to offer a solution to all of human ills, but it clearly recognises that some of the solution being tauted today are ineffective at best and delusionary at worst.

Sir, I am aware that the post did ramble on a bit and while writing I allowed myself to do so because I wanted to cover a few other things that I know if this discussion continues in the direction I feel it might then I will need to raise those points. They are all tied together but I wanted to be as abstract as possible so that the argument could be applied to a wide range of situations. That is why I gave examples from the psychology of music and the Psychology of Story telling as well as cultural issues. Perhaps I could sum up the entire contents of that post with this little passage:
Noting that humans have an instinct to impose structure on their experiences in an arbitrary manner, and that the same goes for the structure of their moral and cultural values, and further noting that the Structure thus perceived is believed to be absolute, How do we resolve the inevitable clash of value systems that will occur when people meet each other?

Of course the liberalist thinks that he is so worldly and understanding of foreign cultures, but how true is that? His liberalism is imbued with it's own value code. A liberalist has his own things that he values highly and when faced with, say, authoritarianism he will be just as intolerant to the 'evil' authoritarian as the authoritarian is to his 'lack of discipline'. Everybody has a value code and though it might evolve when it is in any particular term it is just as absolute as anyone else's value code.

If you do not think that your values are absolute then why are you making an attempt to impose, or convince us with, what you think will be Good (a value term) for the world and humanity. You just like everyone else (about their ideals) is absolutely convinced that humanism is better than religion.

huxley:


Bear in mind that the challenge you identify is a challenge in any worldview you care to mention - whether you are theistic or non-theistic, you shall have to find a balance between achieving material progress, human well-being and preservation of the environment.

True, which is why there has always being conflict. And it is not just between material progress and human well being etc. It is just simply because some people value somethings more than others.

Humanism does not claim to offer a solution to all of human ills, but it clearly recognises that some of the solution being tauted today are ineffective at best and delusionary at worst.

and I fear that Humanism will not fare much better, in fact it might even fare a whole lot worse simply because it has not taken into account certain basic instinctual functions of the human brain. ie. to create order and structure, and to create a moral system of values.

I've found the schopenhauer essay. I'd quoted it in another essay I'd written so you'll find my comments interjected in amongst his words.
[b]"On
an Apparent Intention in the Fate of the Individual":

"Everyone, during the course of his lifetime, becomes aware of certain
events that, on the one hand, bear the mark of a moral or inner
necessity, because of their especially decisive importance to him, and
yet, on the other hand, have clearly the character of outward, wholly
accidental chance. The frequent occurrence of such events may lead
gradually to the notion, which often becomes a conviction, that the
life course of the individual, confused as it may seem, is an
essential whole, having within itself a certain self-consistent,
definite direction, and a certain instructive meaning - no less than
the best thought-out of epics. . ."

But is it that our lives have a structured, meaningful direction, or
do we simply arrange the chance occurrences in our minds so that it
appears to. Schopenhauer continued:

"Rather, one is moved to believe that - just as in the cases of those
pictures called anamorphoses, which to the naked eye are only broken,
fragmentary deformities but when reflected in a conic mirror show
normal human forms - so the purely empirical interpretation of the
course of the world resembles the seeing of those pictures with the
naked eyes, while the recognition of the intention of Fate resembles
the reflection in the conic mirror, which binds together and organizes
the disjointed, scattered fragments."

In other words, whether our lives make sense to us or not is simply a
matter of the way in which we view it. While life's events might seem
random and lack coherence, if we recognise a central theme or purpose
in life, that helps to give everything a place and a meaning.
In other words, it makes our universe a Cosmos (an ordered universe),
rather than a Chaos?[/b]

I've put my interjections in Purple.

huxley:


You seem to be making a fundamental mistake of understanding. You are taking the ideas of humanism in a very presciptive sense, much like a religionist sees their set of laws, rules or commandments as absolutes.

To go from the supernatural world to the naturalistic world is to go from a prescriptive world (with the rules defined by a super-being) to a self-defining world (can't think of a better word). So together as a society, we define what is good for us and our environment using the means of scientific rationalism SR (I use SR here in a very broad sense as to include also aspects of existence that contribute to well-being)

I don't quite agree with that distinction between the supernatural and the natural. There are many naturalistic ideologies that dictate laws to people. Stalin's communism, Mussolini's fascism, Hitler's National Socialism . . . to name but a few. These guys do not have to resort to a supernatural world to impose restrictive prescriptions on their people. Similarly many people may believe in a supernatural world yet still act in contradiction to what they believe is the will of God or spirits etc.

Again, I repeat that SR has never and will never play a part in how the human mind defines what is good. (for us or for our environment).

I was hoping for some feedback from my earlier posts but I suppose you are still mulling them over.

You wanna know humanism,,, study Islam