Humanianity: The Religion for Humanity??

[Bill Van Fleet]

As I already pointed out this is insufficient.

I understand that you consider my description of Religion to be insufficient, because it is different than what you consider Religion to be, and you reject the idea of rethinking that along the lines that I advocate for. I believe my conception of what Religion is is a helpful conception and an accurate one, but I understand that you are unwilling to consider that it might be more helpful and accurate. You wish to retain your conception, and therefore definition, and therefore do not wish to reconsider (or upon having done so, you remain unconvinced). So we just continue to disagree.

I'm not sure if religious humanists have a religion or not. I understand that they've dropped their "religious trappings", whatever that means. I don't know what religious humanists are up to.

Primarily they are up to working on ethics that is not based upon obedience to a deity.

The fact that Humanianity relies on other religions to do action of binding of people together directly suggests that Humanianity is not a religion.

This again implies to me that you have not understood the concept of Humanianity as it is spelled out on the website.

Interesting. Does Humanianity have prayers, meditation, or any other religious practice? What do they do when they congregate?

Again, you seem not to understand the basic idea of the Humanianity concept. You are portraying Humanianity as something different than what is being presented.

What is the idea to which we are responding?

The metaphoric image presented on the website.

Hmm. I think it is accurate to say that the more effort I've put in, the less worthwhile the effort seems to be.

I understand. I do not understand why you are determined to portray the Humanianity concept differently than it is, and why it is such an unacceptable idea to you.

'codify' means 'to arrange into a systematic code. It's not a derogatory term. I read through. What was I supposed to get out of this? more effort -> less feeling that this is worth while

I understand. So I will understand if you wish to end discussion, since it must also be not worth while to you. Or, if you wish to continue discussion, perhaps you could clarify why doing so is worth while to you.

I don't understand either. You directed me to this page for some reason.

I'm lost here with regard to what you are referring to. Was what I referred you to a list of problematic behaviors of us humans many of which did not seem to fall under the category of "not being nice"? If so, it was my effort again to show how you were not portraying Humanianity consistently with how it is presented on the website.

The principle of being nice is to be nice. Even be nice for the sake of being nice. Just like everyone agrees you should be nice, everyone agrees you shouldn't engage in negative behaviors. It is superficial.
I'm saying the HUEP, as stated, is a weak principle just like nicism is a weak principle and I gave reason. Maybe my understanding is superficial. You directed my to various negative behaviors. What point were you trying to make?

See my last comment. Maybe that is what you were talking about. I don't know what you mean by a "weak principle." What would be an example of a strong principle, and what would make it "strong"?

It might help if you reviewed the concept of "legitimization of an ethical belief."

Interesting. So you are using the word religion in a sense particular to the website, perhaps in a way that only Humanians understand. Well, I guess it's on Humanians to rationalize that use. I can't rationalize it for them. Peace.

I don't believe that "only Humanians" can understand the concept. The term "rationalize" is usually a pejorative term referring to a non-rational explanation that is supposed to appear rational but is really engaged in for emotional reasons. I do understand that you regard me as being mistaken in some way with regard to the Humanianity concept, but so far I don't believe you have demonstrated that I am incorrect.

It seems to me that your main objection is the definition of "Religion" that is being used on the website, a definition that I believe is more accurate in that it applies to all of the cultural activities that we have pointed to and are pointing to and calling a "religion," namely, cultural activities the primary purpose of which is to work on personal ethics, i.e., on being a good person (by doing the "right" things). You seem to wish to make the definition include theism, supernaturalism, and/or belief maintained as an act of obedience, but there are things we call "religions" that this is not true of (though I agree it is true of most of them). I again refer you to the explanation of the use of the term "religion" on the website. But I know it is a lot of reading and that you are obviously losing interest in pursuing the discussion.

At any rate, thank you for your comments. And actually I made a slight addition to the website in response to our discussion, so you have helped me.

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

I have faith and conviction in the moral code i practice for myself, and i have a higher power i aspire to.

If religion is reliance, id say i am religious.

My higher power is very real to me in only one sense, i created it for myself.

My higher power has no physical existence, and no spiritual existence other than that it effects me, and inspires me powerfully.

Does that make me religious?

My simplest answer would be yes, in my way of looking at things, you would be manifesting a "religious" activity. But there are some complications and uncertainties in what you have written, perhaps easily explained.

The statement "religion is reliance" is not understandable to me, nor I think to others. "Reliance" is certainly something that occurs independently from anything usually called "religion" or "religious." For instance, I might say, "Now I'm relying on you doing what you have said you will do." Or I might say, "I am relying on my GPS to get there."

The term "higher power" is very problematic, though widely used without concern about its meaning. The use of "power" is sort of metaphoric, at least as compared to the term used in the natural sciences, and the term "higher" means what? Higher than what? The self? What does that mean? Does it mean an "agent" other than oneself, that is more able to do things than oneself is able to do? Something like that? If so, what is the evidence for such? Or is evidence needed? Is it just a way to modify one's quality of experience? Etc.

And the whole concept of "real" is highly problematic and ambiguous, though accepted as understood by most people. The idea of "reality" is associated with the mind-body problem, an extremely complicated and influential problem, written and spoken about by many people, but never really satisfactorily. I have written a (free) book about this problem, that you may find interesting. And the problem is related to the term "existence," also a complex and ambiguously used term.

Link to the Mind-Body Problem (free) book

And in podcast form

One other issue is that you are describing something very solitary, with no input from others. I think the vast majority of activities by adults that are and/or have been referred to as "religion" or "religious" are activities in which adults study together in some way, or make use of the ideas of others. But when you describe your solitary activity, my guess would be that it has resulted from much exploration on your part of the ideas of others. In fact, that would be why you have arrived at ReligiousForums.com, I assume. So the question would be whether indeed your religious activity was actually part of a process of us adult humans studying together how to be good people, i.e., working together on the development of a personal, basic ethical philosophy.

Thank you for those questions.

Oh, also, the word "faith" is unclear, having different meanings at times. And what does "aspire to" mean here?

 

[osgart]

I aspire to divine justice, and love, that i can become more and more like the attributes of something far beyond me. No matter where im at in position of that standard i put up for myself. My religion is solitary in one sense, i am the only one who can control my own destiny on this journey. And i am the only one i subject to it. I try to become more selfless without neglecting myself.

The input i take is from trying to understand other people in relation to an ideal i have created. On the other hand i simply feel what i feel, and take people as they are, or seem to be, with no preconceptions.

The goal is to be truly free inside, and to give to people what they deserve. In short its all about the selfless motive of caring for others, and the self motive of truly caring for one's self.

I want to make peace with life and death. And i still do hope for something beyond this world, but if not, then i want to make peace with the end of my forever life.

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

osgart, I think you and I are pretty close in our thinking, though there are some different ways in which we use certain words, probably. There are some things, though, that are not clear to me.

I aspire to divine justice, and love, that i can become more and more like the attributes of something far beyond me. No matter where im at in position of that standard i put up for myself.

Here I have difficulty because you are saying that you are trying to become like "something far beyond me," but what is that in the sense of what are its attributes, such that you can try to become more and more like those attributes? My guess is that we both try to be good people as we consider "good" to be, but that you assign those traits to an entity much along the lines of what people mean by "God," whereas I do not. I try to make my decision-making be consistent with the HUEP as much as I can, but that HUEP is just arbitrarily chosen by me because it feels good to do so. I also think that most people, given adequate thought, would also feel good to use the HUEP as their ultimate ethical principle (if they gave up authoritarian ethics and tried to practice rational ethics as much as possible).

I also have a problem with the word "justice," not to mention "divine justice," whatever that might be. With regard to "justice," I see it as something like the fair distribution of resources and the fair distribution of punishment and revenge, and I think our approach to non-optimal behavior, i.e., punishment and revenge, is very non-optimal itself, though of course we can't suddenly switch to a more optimal approach, instead needing to work toward such.

My religion is solitary in one sense, i am the only one who can control my own destiny on this journey. And i am the only one i subject to it. I try to become more selfless without neglecting myself.

This sounds very close to what I endorse, though with a different way of stating it. You might take a look at the concept of "sphere of influence" that is on the GENERAL INTRO page of the HOME section of the humanianity.com website.

The input i take is from trying to understand other people in relation to an ideal i have created. On the other hand i simply feel what i feel, and take people as they are, or seem to be, with no preconceptions.

This sounds to me a lot like what I mean when I say that I try to remain as close to the "understanding" end of the continuum between "understanding" and "judgmental."

The goal is to be truly free inside, and to give to people what they deserve. In short its all about the selfless motive of caring for others, and the self motive of truly caring for one's self.

Again, this sounds similar to my efforts, though I describe it somewhat differently.

I want to make peace with life and death. And i still do hope for something beyond this world, but if not, then i want to make peace with the end of my forever life.

I think I understand and agree.

I hope you will check out the website and let me know what you think about the content, i.e., whether it seems clear and consistent with your way of thinking.

 

[osgart]

osgart, I think you and I are pretty close in our thinking, though there are some different ways in which we use certain words, probably. There are some things, though, that are not clear to me.



Here I have difficulty because you are saying that you are trying to become like "something far beyond me," but what is that in the sense of what are its attributes, such that you can try to become more and more like those attributes? My guess is that we both try to be good people as we consider "good" to be, but that you assign those traits to an entity much along the lines of what people mean by "God," whereas I do not. I try to make my decision-making be consistent with the HUEP as much as I can, but that HUEP is just arbitrarily chosen by me because it feels good to do so. I also think that most people, given adequate thought, would also feel good to use the HUEP as their ultimate ethical principle (if they gave up authoritarian ethics and tried to practice rational ethics as much as possible).

I also have a problem with the word "justice," not to mention "divine justice," whatever that might be. With regard to "justice," I see it as something like the fair distribution of resources and the fair distribution of punishment and revenge, and I think our approach to non-optimal behavior, i.e., punishment and revenge, is very non-optimal itself, though of course we can't suddenly switch to a more optimal approach, instead needing to work toward such.



This sounds very close to what I endorse, though with a different way of stating it. You might take a look at the concept of "sphere of influence" that is on the GENERAL INTRO page of the HOME section of the humanianity.com website.



This sounds to me a lot like what I mean when I say that I try to remain as close to the "understanding" end of the continuum between "understanding" and "judgmental."



Again, this sounds similar to my efforts, though I describe it somewhat differently.



I think I understand and agree.

I hope you will check out the website and let me know what you think about the content, i.e., whether it seems clear and consistent with your way of thinking.

I never looked at justice in terms of revenge. To be just is to be civil and peaceful. To be divine is to care about others as yourself.

I dont know how humanians deal with the problem of evil, or whether or not they see it as a reality to be met by ones morals and ethics.

Just reading the home page, i am aligned to those values in the HUEP. And im also aligned with being caretakers of those of less fortunate plights.

Charity, and benevolence are my highest values. And that starts in the heart and leads to sound reason. To lift up people, to enable people, those are ideals i care about.

I can only work within my sphere though.

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

I never looked at justice in terms of revenge.

Think about how people are likely to respond to the advocacy that those people who have done horrible things, e.g., killing children, should of course be quarantined to prevent danger to others, but should be given as good a life as possible while so quarantined.

To be just is to be civil and peaceful. To be divine is to care about others as yourself.

Those are not my associations to the terms. You could check the dictionary, which, of course only reports current meanings and usages. But I do share your valuing of being civil and peaceful. I don't see myself as "divine," however, using the usual meanings of the term.

I dont know how humanians deal with the problem of evil, or whether or not they see it as a reality to be met by ones morals and ethics.

I suggest reading the first page of the HOME section of the website more carefully, because it should answer that question.

Humanians, as defined on the website, may have a lot of different ways of trying to deal with those non-optimal behaviors of us humans that are what I assume you mean by "evil." Remember, Humanians, by definition, try to do that which is rationally consistent the HUEP, but there may be lots of difference of opinion as to what, therefore, should be done about any specific problem.

Just reading the home page, i am aligned to those values in the HUEP. And im also aligned with being caretakers of those of less fortunate plights.

Doesn't the second of those statements follow from the first, rather than being something in addition to what is stated by the HUEP?

Charity, and benevolence are my highest values. And that starts in the heart and leads to sound reason. To lift up people, to enable people, those are ideals i care about.

Are not charity and benevolence consistent with the HUEP? And does not the HUEP cover more kinds of problems than just those helped by charity and benevolence? In other words, I am guessing that the values that you say are your highest are actually maintained by you because they are consistent with the HUEP. Thus, it looks like you to a great extent are Humanian, by definition.

I can only work within my sphere though.

Yes, that is true for everyone, though sometimes we can do that which will increase our sphere of influence (especially these days with Internet technology).

 

[Ponder This]

I understand that you consider my description of Religion to be insufficient, because it is different than what you consider Religion to be, and you reject the idea of rethinking that along the lines that I advocate for. I believe my conception of what Religion is is a helpful conception and an accurate one, but I understand that you are unwilling to consider that it might be more helpful and accurate. You wish to retain your conception, and therefore definition, and therefore do not wish to reconsider (or upon having done so, you remain unconvinced). So we just continue to disagree.

Very well.

Primarily they are up to working on ethics that is not based upon obedience to a deity.

So... you discuss ethics. That would be an accurate description of what you do?

This again implies to me that you have not understood the concept of Humanianity as it is spelled out on the website.

The concept of Humanianity appears to be spelled out. It simply doesn't involve any religious practices as far as I can tell.

Again, you seem not to understand the basic idea of the Humanianity concept. You are portraying Humanianity as something different than what is being presented.

Something different? You work on ethics. Is that not accurate?

The metaphoric image presented on the website.

I said I didn't understand the metaphoric image. What is it supposed to mean?

I understand. I do not understand why you are determined to portray the Humanianity concept differently than it is, and why it is such an unacceptable idea to you.

I think it's fine that you are working on rational ethics. It's a perfectly acceptable study. That you call yourself a religion, I find questionable. That you could replace religion, I find amusing.

I understand. So I will understand if you wish to end discussion, since it must also be not worth while to you. Or, if you wish to continue discussion, perhaps you could clarify why doing so is worth while to you.

I like it when I'm directed to relevant information, less so when the information is not relevant.

I'm lost here with regard to what you are referring to. Was what I referred you to a list of problematic behaviors of us humans many of which did not seem to fall under the category of "not being nice"? If so, it was my effort again to show how you were not portraying Humanianity consistently with how it is presented on the website.

?

See my last comment. Maybe that is what you were talking about. I don't know what you mean by a "weak principle." What would be an example of a strong principle, and what would make it "strong"?

The core principle does not appear to be a statement of the trueness of a thing. Instead, it presents itself as a sort of goal that fulfills itself without achieving anything

An example of a statement about the trueness of a thing would be, "God is not necessary to legitimize rational ethical beliefs."

Your core principle is along the lines of:

"WE SHOULD DO THAT WHICH WILL PROMOTE NOT ONLY THE SURVIVAL OF OUR SPECIES,"​

Promote survival

"BUT ALSO AS MUCH JOY, CONTENTMENT, AND APPRECIATION (JCA) AS POSSIBLE"​

promote being nice

"AND AS LITTLE PAIN, SUFFERING, DISABILITY, AND EARLY DEATH (PSDED) AS POSSIBLE, FOR EVERYONE, NOW AND IN THE FUTURE."​

don't promote not being nice.

Your core principle is not a statement of the trueness of a thing. You require extensive codifying even to make sense of your core principle. Your core principle is a goal or possibly a commandment.

You should do this and not do that.​

It might help if you reviewed the concept of "legitimization of an ethical belief."

Okay... more reading... and seemingly irrelevant. What belief are you legitimizing?

I don't believe that "only Humanians" can understand the concept. The term "rationalize" is usually a pejorative term referring to a non-rational explanation that is supposed to appear rational but is really engaged in for emotional reasons. I do understand that you regard me as being mistaken in some way with regard to the Humanianity concept, but so far I don't believe you have demonstrated that I am incorrect.

The Humanianity concept as far as I know means whatever you decide it means. I'm mostly interested in why you would claim to be a religion. It seems that a Quaker sitting in silence for an hour has more religion...

It seems to me that your main objection is the definition of "Religion" that is being used on the website, a definition that I believe is more accurate in that it applies to all of the cultural activities that we have pointed to and are pointing to and calling a "religion," namely, cultural activities the primary purpose of which is to work on personal ethics, i.e., on being a good person (by doing the "right" things). You seem to wish to make the definition include theism, supernaturalism, and/or belief maintained as an act of obedience, but there are things we call "religions" that this is not true of (though I agree it is true of most of them). I again refer you to the explanation of the use of the term "religion" on the website. But I know it is a lot of reading and that you are obviously losing interest in pursuing the discussion.

Theism is not a religion; it is insufficient. I do not claim theism is a religion.
Supernaturalism has to be better defined to have a coherent conversation about it.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'Belief maintained as an act of obedience'.

Your use of the term 'religion' on your website is consistent with the use of the word 'philosophy' as in 'a theory or attitude held by a person or organization that acts as a guiding principle for behavior'.
To quote:

"Religion" as used here refers to the adult systematic study of how best to live our lives, i.e., what we should and should not do, and thus to the adult systematic study for the purpose of improving our ethical beliefs and ethical sense. ("Do" refers to behavior, thought, and feeling, whatever there is any voluntary control over.) It is our set of systematic efforts to improve our basic ethical philosophies, whether undertaken individually or within groups. Those efforts consist of listening to presentations, studying of literature, sharing and comparing of ideas in small groups, and engaging in meditative thinking and reviewing of one's life, for the purpose of identification of, and improved adherence to, a set of optimal basic ethical beliefs (rules of conduct, principles).​

In short you are using the word 'religion' in place of the word 'philosophy'.

At any rate, thank you for your comments. And actually I made a slight addition to the website in response to our discussion, so you have helped me.

I'm not sure in what way you think I helped, but your welcome. You seem not to understand the basic point I've been making.

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

I found the metaphoric image of worms crawling up a mountain to be inscrutable. I have no idea what the 'mountain' is supposed to represent. I don't know why religions are 'worm-like entities' that are 'growing at the top end and atrophying at the bottom end'. Perhaps you should include a diagram to make the analogy more clear? I have no idea if that will help. All I get from the metaphor is that religions are like worms and Humanianity is better than religion.

Edit: (Coincidentally, this post of mine was being worked on at the time you entered your last post, which I will not be able to respond to yet because of time.)

I thought I should respond to this specific request for clarification. The whole idea is that most all the religions consist of individuals with varying degrees of acceptance of some of the basic ideas in their religions, with recognition by increasing numbers of their members that some of the ideas are outdated and need to be modified to keep up with the ideas that people with the progression of time are increasingly accepting, especially the findings of the sciences. So within each religion their are people that are more "fundamentalistic" in their beliefs (toward the bottom end of the worm-like entity) and people who are more "progressive" in their beliefs (toward the top of the worm-like entity). The more progressive individuals would be inclined to interpret the religion's literature, for example, as metaphoric rather than literal, or perhaps relevant at the earlier time in history but no longer relevant. The upward direction represents time, and the mountain is there only to help visualize that as the religions become more "progressive" or "modern" in their conceptualizations, they increasingly become more like each other (closer and closer as they get closer to the top of the conical mountain), with the prediction of much similarity among them all eventually, i.e., the "merging" of them at the top. At that time, it is predicted or conceptualized, the human species will see itself as having one religion, consisting of many past histories and traditions from which to continue to draw ideas as those histories and traditions are studied and help our species to understand itself more and more and thereby have a much more effective way of working on a basic ethical philosophy that does not involve groups remaining tribalistically divided from each other and prone to fight each other. And what was just a movement (Humanianity) in the progressive direction within each of the religions will then have become the one Religion for the species, then able to be called "Humanianity, the Religion for Humanity." No metaphor is ideal, probably, but it can sometimes help.

I hope this helps to understand the metaphoric image that is portrayed. Of course it is quite possible that this modernization and unification of our species' Religion may never occur, and we may kill ourselves off before that happens, but maybe instead this process will occur and will help us to become a more unified, rationally ethical species, with much, much greater success in living consistently with the HUEP (or something like it). I personally want to be one of those who have tried, not one who has participated in tearing down what we have accomplished so far or one of those advocating for pessimism regarding our species' future, such pessimism tending to reduce the motivation to make things better (i.e., Why bother trying? It's all hopeless anyway.").

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

So... you discuss ethics. That would be an accurate description of what you do?

This is your response to my response to your comment "I'm not sure if religious humanists have a religion or not. I understand that they've dropped their "religious trappings", whatever that means. I don't know what religious humanists are up to." My response to this was "Primarily they are up to working on ethics that is not based upon obedience to a deity." So we weren't talking about "what I do." You seem to be portraying Humanianity as a separate set of activities from those activities that are recognized as "religious activities" by individuals and organizations, whereas the website says that Humanianity is a movement within those activities, the movement being described as a different way of arriving at ethical beliefs, i.e., a rational-ethical method with the HUEP as the ultimate ethical principle, rather than an authoritarian-ethical method, such as presumably demonstrating consistency with what a deity wants.

The concept of Humanianity appears to be spelled out. It simply doesn't involve any religious practices as far as I can tell.

It is a movement within religious practices, and within our species in general, as just described.

Something different? You work on ethics. Is that not accurate?

(This was in response to my saying "Again, you seem not to understand the basic idea of the Humanianity concept. You are portraying Humanianity as something different than what is being presented.")

You are portraying Humanianity as "something Bill does." It is (belief in the existence of) a different way of doing things that is emerging within the religions, and within our species in general, namely, how we legitimize our beliefs about what we should and should not do (what the right things are to do, how to be a good person, etc.). We are frequently trying to figure out what the right things to do are, and our religions are activities in which we work more specifically and intensively on our ethical principles and rules of conduct in dealing with the problems and opportunities that we are faced with in our daily lives. That is what sermons and religious literature studies are about. And the rituals and religious songs are about that also. And many religious organizations offer opportunities to live out those ethical principles by helping others in need, both within and outside of those religious organizations.

I said I didn't understand the metaphoric image. What is it supposed to mean?

Please see my last post, in which I try to explain it, in response to part of one of your earlier posts.

I think it's fine that you are working on rational ethics. It's a perfectly acceptable study. That you call yourself a religion, I find questionable. That you could replace religion, I find amusing.

I never call myself a religion, and I wonder why you keep implying this. Portraying me as doing so creates a very derogatory image of me. Is that what you are wanting to do? Nor have I ever said that I was replacing religion, or trying to. Why do you portray me this way? You say that that is amusing. That sounds like you are making fun of my efforts. If so, why are you doing that? Are you trying to discourage my posting here? Are you wanting me to give up on my efforts? If so, why?

I like it when I'm directed to relevant information, less so when the information is not relevant.

I have always tried to refer you to information relevant to your questions and apparent misconceptions. Do you have an example of where I have failed to do so? I certainly could make a mistake by virtue of misinterpretation and misunderstanding of something you have posted, but I assure you I have tried my best.

?

Your question mark is in response to my having posted:
"I'm lost here with regard to what you are referring to. Was what I referred you to a list of problematic behaviors of us humans many of which did not seem to fall under the category of "not being nice"? If so, it was my effort again to show how you were not portraying Humanianity consistently with how it is presented on the website."
I don't know what your question mark is supposed to mean. Please help me to understand.

An example of a statement about the trueness of a thing would be, "God is not necessary to legitimize rational ethical beliefs."

Your core principle is along the lines of:

"WE SHOULD DO THAT WHICH WILL PROMOTE NOT ONLY THE SURVIVAL OF OUR SPECIES,"​

Promote survival

"BUT ALSO AS MUCH JOY, CONTENTMENT, AND APPRECIATION (JCA) AS POSSIBLE"​

promote being nice

"AND AS LITTLE PAIN, SUFFERING, DISABILITY, AND EARLY DEATH (PSDED) AS POSSIBLE, FOR EVERYONE, NOW AND IN THE FUTURE."​

don't promote not being nice.

Your core principle is not a statement of the trueness of a thing. You require extensive codifying even to make sense of your core principle. Your core principle is a goal or possibly a commandment.

You should do this and not do that.​

​

Yes, it is my effort to put into words an ultimate ethical principle that I believe our species is beginning to adopt, arbitrarily (not as a commandment). It is my effort to put into words what most of us humans want us humans to do. I never said that it was "the trueness of a thing."

Okay... more reading... and seemingly irrelevant. What belief are you legitimizing?

This was in response to my comment:
"It might help if you reviewed the concept of 'legitimization of an ethical belief.'"
It was to help you to understand more precisely what I was referring to by "rational ethics," as opposed to "authoritarian ethics." Since then, I believe that I have improved that note some. If it was not helpful and a waste of your time, I assure you that was not my intention. I did think it would help.

The Humanianity concept as far as I know means whatever you decide it means. I'm mostly interested in why you would claim to be a religion. It seems that a Quaker sitting in silence for an hour has more religion...

Where have I claimed to be a religion? Do you mean you are mostly interested in why I claim Humanianity to be a religion? I don't. I am referring to a movement taking place within our religions, a movement that is still quite early and perhaps not easy to see. But you keep portraying me as saying something I don't.

Theism is not a religion; it is insufficient. I do not claim theism is a religion.

I agree. Most religions are theistic, but not all.

Supernaturalism has to be better defined to have a coherent conversation about it.

Yes. I would say that it is the maintenance of beliefs in entities that are not described anywhere in the natural sciences.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'Belief maintained as an act of obedience'.

An example would be the belief that one was required by a deity to believe certain things.

Your use of the term 'religion' on your website is consistent with the use of the word 'philosophy' as in 'a theory or attitude held by a person or organization that acts as a guiding principle for behavior'.
To quote:

"Religion" as used here refers to the adult systematic study of how best to live our lives, i.e., what we should and should not do, and thus to the adult systematic study for the purpose of improving our ethical beliefs and ethical sense. ("Do" refers to behavior, thought, and feeling, whatever there is any voluntary control over.) It is our set of systematic efforts to improve our basic ethical philosophies, whether undertaken individually or within groups. Those efforts consist of listening to presentations, studying of literature, sharing and comparing of ideas in small groups, and engaging in meditative thinking and reviewing of one's life, for the purpose of identification of, and improved adherence to, a set of optimal basic ethical beliefs (rules of conduct, principles).​

In short you are using the word 'religion' in place of the word 'philosophy'.

I do not agree. But as we have, I think, agreed elsewhere, you do not accept the way I am using the term "religion." One can study ethics and religions as kinds of human activity, just like any other, such as politics or history. But Religion is different than that. It is work on improving the self. Study is involved in that, however, just as study is involved in becoming a dancer or in the development of any set of skills.

I'm not sure in what way you think I helped, but your welcome. You seem not to understand the basic point I've been making.

Perhaps not, but it seems to me that it is the reverse. For reasons I can only speculate on, you seem to be telling me that my effort is a failure, and is even amusing, and that I should agree with you and give it up. I realize that I could be wrong, but to be shown that I am wrong, I have to believe that the person attempting to demonstrate that to me has an accurate understanding of what I am offering, and as has been happening over and over in our discussions, that demonstration has not yet occurred.

But again, thank you for your effort and interest.

 

[Ponder This]

Where have I claimed to be a religion? Do you mean you are mostly interested in why I claim Humanianity to be a religion? I don't. I am referring to a movement taking place within our religions, a movement that is still quite early and perhaps not easy to see. But you keep portraying me as saying something I don't.

From the website, first Page (General Intro), from the top in big letters:

HUMANIANITY
The Religion For Humanity​

Fine Print:

MEANING: WORKING TOGETHER RATIONALLY ON INCREASINGLY BECOMING THE ETHICALLY MATURE HUMAN SPECIES WE CAN BE​

Finer Print:

a basic ethical philosophy​

A claim to religion is the very first claim of your website. Hard to miss.

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

From the website, first Page (General Intro), from the top in big letters:

HUMANIANITY
The Religion For Humanity​

Fine Print:

MEANING: WORKING TOGETHER RATIONALLY ON INCREASINGLY BECOMING THE ETHICALLY MATURE HUMAN SPECIES WE CAN BE​

Finer Print:

a basic ethical philosophy​

A claim to religion is the very first claim of your website. Hard to miss.

Everyone knows that currently there is not one religion for all of humanity. The website clearly describes Humanianity currently as a movement of varying degrees in most all of the religions, that ultimately could result in a single religion for humanity, that movement being called "Humanianity," which would be an appropriate name for that one religion for humanity, if that ever occurs. I don't know how to make it any clearer. There is an enormous amount of material for study on the website. What is your point? Should I take the website down? Is there something bad about it? Something you disagree with?

 

[Ponder This]

Everyone knows that currently there is not one religion for all of humanity. The website clearly describes Humanianity currently as a movement of varying degrees in most all of the religions, that ultimately could result in a single religion for humanity, that movement being called "Humanianity," which would be an appropriate name for that one religion for humanity, if that ever occurs. I don't know how to make it any clearer. There is an enormous amount of material for study on the website. What is your point? Should I take the website down? Is there something bad about it? Something you disagree with?

What you do about it is up to you.

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

What you do about it is up to you.

Of course. My current intention is to hope that there can be further discussion here regarding the actual concepts on the website.

 

[Milton Platt]

My belief is that this is the way for our species to go. It is already happening, I maintain, but needs to happen at a much greater rate, because we are in great (increasing) danger of a species-wide holocaust. Also, we have been having a terrible time ever since our beginning, doing things we don't have to do but do anyway. We have never had anything like an agreed-upon basic ethical philosophy for our species, and have become our most feared predator. So I hope this website will be a contribution to our species.

humanianity.com

But I wonder if the website could be improved in some ways, and would certainly like to know of anything that doesn't seem optimal about it.

Nope....it will be just one more splinter

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

Nope....it will be just one more splinter

I don't understand. Can you please explain what you mean? Thanks!

 

[Milton Platt]

I don't understand. Can you please explain what you mean? Thanks!

I was thinking that it will be one more group of people (whether large or small) that believes they have the answers. And maybe they do.......
Not to disparage the group or the philosophy, I was being my pessimistic self.

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

I was thinking that it will be one more group of people (whether large or small) that believes they have the answers. And maybe they do.......
Not to disparage the group or the philosophy, I was being my pessimistic self.

Do you think that the CHALLENGE page of the HOME section describes some of what you are talking about?

 

[Milton Platt]

Do you think that the CHALLENGE page of the HOME section describes some of what you are talking about?

Quite possibly. I have only had a chance to skim the page. I will certainly read it in more depth when I have time to do it justice. At first blush this looks like secular humanism to me, and if so we already have a name for it. What are the distinguishing traits that would make this different?

 

[Bill Van Fleet]

Quite possibly. I have only had a chance to skim the page. I will certainly read it in more depth when I have time to do it justice. At first blush this looks like secular humanism to me, and if so we already have a name for it. What are the distinguishing traits that would make this different?

So, that is a good question. How would we answer it? We would have to look at the definition of each and see if they were essentially similar. On the website, it says:
"Humanianity is currently a movement within all Religion, and within the human species in general, away from authoritarian ethics toward rational ethics, and specifically toward rational ethics based upon the above HUEP. This movement is especially (but not only) an increasing effort to replace some of our natural tendencies to engage in dominance-hierarchy-related (DHR) behaviors, some of which cause tremendous amounts of PSDED, with behaviors consistent with the social contract by everyone for the benefit of everyone. (Thus, Humanian ethics is based rationally upon the above HUEP, NOT upon obediently-maintained beliefs, e.g. theistic, about which there currently can be no wide-spread, increasing agreement, such agreement being increasingly desperately needed by our species with regard to ethics.)"

And the next paragraph provides added clarification:
"Humanianity can be conceptualized by a metaphoric image that consists of a somewhat conically-shaped mountain, the vertical dimension representing time. Around the bottom of, and at varying distances from the bottom of, the mountain are worm-like entities seemingly crawling up the mountain but actually growing at the top end and atrophying at the bottom end, each of these entities representing a specific religion or religious tradition (or similar cultural activity not necessarily labeled a "religion") that is becoming more "progressive" at the top end and that is giving up out-dated components at the bottom end. As this movement within these entities occurs, and they eventually approach the top of the mountain and therefore come closer to each other, they will tend to merge, and when all of them have done so, they will finally become Humanianity, the Religion for Humanity. Currently, however, Humanianity consists only of the movement, or growth process (toward the top of the mountain), within these entities."

Now if you go to dictionaries, you can get various definitions of "secular humanism." Would you say that the definitions were the same? I would say that secular humanism is one of the many manifestations of Humanianity. You can see Humanianity emerging in (progressive) Christianity.

One of the phenomena that Humanianity is an effort to reduce is our tribalism, our tendency to divide up into mutually exclusive and often antagonistic groups. One of those tribalistic phenomena is the tendency for many people to turn against Religion, hoping to stamp it out or at least see it die out, even though our religions have been our (tribalistic) efforts to work on self-inprovement in the area of ethics.

Does this answer your question sufficiently?

 

[Milton Platt]

So, that is a good question. How would we answer it? We would have to look at the definition of each and see if they were essentially similar. On the website, it says:
"Humanianity is currently a movement within all Religion, and within the human species in general, away from authoritarian ethics toward rational ethics, and specifically toward rational ethics based upon the above HUEP. This movement is especially (but not only) an increasing effort to replace some of our natural tendencies to engage in dominance-hierarchy-related (DHR) behaviors, some of which cause tremendous amounts of PSDED, with behaviors consistent with the social contract by everyone for the benefit of everyone. (Thus, Humanian ethics is based rationally upon the above HUEP, NOT upon obediently-maintained beliefs, e.g. theistic, about which there currently can be no wide-spread, increasing agreement, such agreement being increasingly desperately needed by our species with regard to ethics.)"

And the next paragraph provides added clarification:
"Humanianity can be conceptualized by a metaphoric image that consists of a somewhat conically-shaped mountain, the vertical dimension representing time. Around the bottom of, and at varying distances from the bottom of, the mountain are worm-like entities seemingly crawling up the mountain but actually growing at the top end and atrophying at the bottom end, each of these entities representing a specific religion or religious tradition (or similar cultural activity not necessarily labeled a "religion") that is becoming more "progressive" at the top end and that is giving up out-dated components at the bottom end. As this movement within these entities occurs, and they eventually approach the top of the mountain and therefore come closer to each other, they will tend to merge, and when all of them have done so, they will finally become Humanianity, the Religion for Humanity. Currently, however, Humanianity consists only of the movement, or growth process (toward the top of the mountain), within these entities."

Now if you go to dictionaries, you can get various definitions of "secular humanism." Would you say that the definitions were the same? I would say that secular humanism is one of the many manifestations of Humanianity. You can see Humanianity emerging in (progressive) Christianity.

One of the phenomena that Humanianity is an effort to reduce is our tribalism, our tendency to divide up into mutually exclusive and often antagonistic groups. One of those tribalistic phenomena is the tendency for many people to turn against Religion, hoping to stamp it out or at least see it die out, even though our religions have been our (tribalistic) efforts to work on self-inprovement in the area of ethics.

Does this answer your question sufficiently?

Yes, thanks for doing my homework for me. LOL
It does seem to be a form of human secularism, with “religion” tacked on for some reason. Generally I associate religion with worship of one or more deities and dogma that must be accepted on faith rather than from an objective examination of what is actually true.
So I would say the core idea that one should have a rational basis fo one’s beliefs and actions is fine, and I prefer to stick with humanism as the label, although there is more to humanism than just that.
I don’tpersonally see this as a religion, but then I have see others define religion so loosely that stamp collecting and baseball can be classified as religions.