Antitheism?

[Augustus]

I'm not sure that you're representing humanism accurately.

I'm really representing individual Humanists.

Of course there are a range of views as it is not an exact ideology, I tend to find the things I mentioned tend to be common enough among Humanists though. Just my perspective.

• We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
• We believe in optimism rather than pessimism... and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.

I think we have a reasonable understanding of what science is and does, and what the limits of its methods are. We're not looking to science for anything except to study nature and develop a useful body of knowledge about it to best understand it, to predict it, and at times, control it. Science brings us the Internet, but will not prevent it from being used to disseminate fake news, for example.

The techniques of the natural sciences can only be applied in limited situations, and produce a certain type of knowledge. Giving such information automatic primacy over all other types is foolish though. This tends to be something that I see most commonly from Humanists.

Much of what we know about day to day life is learned from experience. In the old days, you didn't learn chemistry to learn how to make glass, you learned through apprenticeship. Advocates of scientism also tend to overstate how much we learned from formal science, and underestimate how much we learned by trial and error, experience, chance, industry, etc.

The philosopher Michael Oakeshott divides knowledge into 2 types technical and practical.

Technical knowledge can be explained and codified, turned into rules and procedures.

Practical knowledge is that which cannot be rationalised or explained. Science cannot explain the superiority of a Stradivarius violin over any other high quality violin, but the difference exists. That someone has the technical knowledge to make an identical violin does not make up for the lack of practical knowledge to execute it to the same degree.

Scientism leads us to devalue practical knowledge as it is 'unscientific' and therefore inferior.

Oakeshott would classify religions as being part of practical knowledge. Some people have used the Lindy effect to argue that while they may be 'irrational' religions must work in some real way to have lasted for so long.

They Humanist would contend that we can 'rationally' choose the good and get rid of the bad, although this is a process that changes an ideology from being based on practical knowledge to one based on technical knowledge.

Now I'm not religious so I'm not saying religion is all fantastic or essential to human well being, just that the Humanist tendency is to give at least an implicit primacy to technique over practical knowledge. This is the basis of Rationalism.

Who's opposed to irrationality?

Many Humanists. It's not too uncommon on RF to see someone claiming that irrationality is intrinsically harmful, rather than simply being harmful when it causes harm.

I think that you overstate the optimism in humanism. Humanists simply hope to make the world as good a place as it can be, whatever that is. We understand that there will cabals and cartels, and people conspiring to wage war or damage the environment for profit. Humanists don't expect to eradicate that from the earth, just to minimize it to whatever extent is possible.

"We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair"

'Theologies of despair" are pervasive among most pre-modern belief systems, they aren't really theologies of despair though, just realisations that certain flaws are innate to our nature, just as much as our virtues are.

I mentioned in another thread about Enlightenment Values that the idea of progress is one of the few things that seems to be a genuine Enlightenment Value.

This can take the form of a moderate meliorism of the kind you are proposing. It can take extreme forms such as in Marxist Communism or factions of the French Revolution. It can take detached 'scientific' forms like Huxley's social Darwinism, the belief that inferior races were bound to die out just like inferior species do in nature.

In Humanists though it often seems to reflect the idea that a large amount of the world's problems are caused by 'primitive' ideologies such as religions which divide people who would otherwise live in harmony.

Progress is retarded by 'ignorance' which for some leads to an intellectually elitist attitude. The clearest example of this is the Enlightenment ideologies where 'smart' people should really have control in society so the uneducated masses can be saved from themselves.

A form of this was apparent in the aftermath of the Trump victory and was certainly visible on RF (also see Brexit). The only reason people could think differently from the educated progressives was ignorance, naivety or stupidity.

I know this isn't true for all, but it is an enduring strand of thought in the post-Enlightenment intellectual tradition.

I don't think that calling oneself a value pluralist is enough to define an ideology or worldview. Nor do I see it as making you a non-humanist. Humanism accommodates value pluralism. It supports tolerance and pluralisitic societies.

It's not a worldview. There just isn't a label I'm aware of for my worldview (not that it is particularly unique)

Value pluralism is not really compatible though. It accepts a diversity of values only insofar as they fit in the overall framework of Western democratic liberalism (many,but not all, Humanists also consider this to reflect a 'universal' morality)

Value-pluralism is not the diversity of moral opinion but the truth that humans can
flourish in a variety of ways. The human good cannot be fully realized in any one
individual or society, and when a choice must be made between ways of life none is
bound to be best for everyone...
The central thesis of
value-pluralism is that such universal values can be identified and are often at odds...
Contrary to moral relativists, there are generically human goods and evils; but such
universal values do not amount to a universal morality, for there is no right way of
settling their conflicts... Crowder argues that it is only if value-pluralism is conflated
with cultural relativism that value-pluralism can threaten liberalism. Actually value pluralism
is bound to undermine liberalism, for it subverts all universal moralities.
Those who cling to the moral safety of liberalism must face the fact that they cannot
do so while accepting value-pluralism. (John Gray - Reply to critics, in The Political Theory of John Gray)

 

[Cephus]

And, in truth. We humans seem conflicted between emotion and reason and need the referee of the "parent" to try and effect balance, not always very successfully.

Unfortunately, those of us who try to play that "parent" role usually get attacked by those who need it the most, those for whom emotion is all and reason is ignored.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Science and reason are value neutral, which is why the Enlightenment gave birth to (what would later become) Secular Humanism, alongside the Reign of Terror, scientific racism and Marxist Communism.

The Reign of Terror was more of a reaction to the Enlightenment than the product of it, IMO. While there was more to it than just religion, a fair bit of it was Robespierre's attempt to pull France back from the brink of atheism.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So you deny things like the entire field of psychology and its findings?

You're really claiming that "the entire field of psychology and its findings" imply that mind-brain dualism is correct?

 

[1137]

You're really claiming that "the entire field of psychology and its findings" imply that mind-brain dualism is correct?

I'm informing you that psychology is one of the biggest threats to the religion of material reductionism.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm informing you that psychology is one of the biggest threats to the religion of material reductionism.

Sure it is.

"Religion"?

 

[1137]

Sure it is.

"Religion"?

Yep. Just imagine a world where counselors accepted such a position! "Cmon Joe, you've got to up your serotonin dammit!" Or let's pretend that things like self regulation did not exist, would the world look anything like what we see today? Another way to see is to say we start prescribing drugs but don't recommend therapy along with it, would you be OK with such a doctor or psychiatrist? Let's just get down to it, if psychology is an invalid field do show why it has such success.

 

[Augustus]

The Reign of Terror was more of a reaction to the Enlightenment than the product of it, IMO. While there was more to it than just religion, a fair bit of it was Robespierre's attempt to pull France back from the brink of atheism.

The reign of terror was mostly carried out against poor people for minor rules transgressions, and Robespierre was very much a man of the enlightenment who favoured a civic minded deism based on reason.

But for the sake of discussion let's assume you are right. If Robespierre was "anti Enlightenment" simply for for opposing the atheists, then the atheists must have been better representatives of "enlightenment values". They literally worshipped Reason.

Robespierre opposed them because they were too politically extreme. His opposition to atheism was its connection to extremely violent political factions. The atheists (Hebert, Momorro, etc) in turn called him a moderate because he wanted to reign in their violent anti-clericalism.

Robespierre was a bit of a wishy-washy pinko fop in the eyes of the major atheist revolutionary factions. I wouldn't count on them to demonstrate the benign nature of Reason.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I'm informing you that psychology is one of the biggest threats to the religion of material reductionism.

What is the religion of material reductionalism? How long are its services. Do you have to tithe? What are its rituals? What is its ethical system? Where can I get a copy of its holy book and scriptures in order to read about its god? Can I become ordained in it?

How is this religion threatened any more by psychology than Christianity or Islam?