Humanism as the Next Step?

Tell me, without digressing into what you don't believe in, why and how I can/should be good and do good.

(This is really all I'm asking of humanism. I don't need humanism to tell me what to think about chiropractors, as I found in Paul Kurtz's The Courage to Become: The Virtues of Humanism.)

There's a reason why I don't join things, and I hate '-isms' - you never like all of what you find, and you will be judged by the worst of it as well as the best. I don't like the fact that humanism is (perhaps hopelessly) confounded with atheism and rabid skepticism. I didn't know until today that the American Humanist Association was behind the creation of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). This does not make me happy...

It's my contention that certain aspects of 'paranormal' human experience represent aspects of the human condition that science does not yet completely understand. They are 'supernatural' only in the sense that our ideas of 'nature' do not yet have an adequate explanation for them; they are not 'supernatural' in the sense that their explanation must appeal to something unknowable and beyond the realm of science.

Yet the idea that we must do away with everything about our experience that science has yet to fully claim or explain is so entrenched in some humanist literature as to make humanism appear to be an untenable proposition for the future. The idea that science has adequately described our full range of experiences is also untenable. If humanism is to be a viable ethical and philosophical guide for the future, it must be prepared to accept scientific findings that may radically alter our understanding of what it means to be human. So far I have seen little that indicates that humanism will be adaptable in light of such findings.

Perhaps the trick to appreciating humanism is to go back to the sources of humanistic ideas - those writers who weren't concerned with establishing the '-ism', but with thinking and writing about human experience and ideals. And yet, in reading books specifically dedicated to establishing the humanist ideology, I find that I am getting closer to knowing what I believe.

This quiz from Humanism As the Next Step (Lloyd and Mary Morain, 1998) was quick and helpful...

How to Decide Whether You are a Humanist

1) Do you believe that we will continue to learn more about the past, present, and future of planet earth and its inhabitants? (YES)

2) Do you believe that humans are a part of nature (YES) and that there is no God or supernatural power especially concerned for their welfare? (NO)

3) Do you believe that religions' sacred scriptures and ethical and moral systems were the creations of mortals and that these have served different purposes at different times and places? (YES)

4) Do you believe that the kind of life we live and the helpful and just relationship that we have with other humans is of primary importance? (YES)

5) Do you feel our environment needs to be taken care of and protected for future generations? (YES)

6) Do you frequently experience joy and comfort and an undefined mystic sense from the realization that you are part of nature and of all that lives? (YES)

7) Do you believe that the meaning of life is that which we give it? (YES)

8) Do you recognize that many philosophical questions such as, "What is the meaning of life?" and "Why am I here?" are irrelevant when our existence and experience are viewed as processes within the totality of nature? (NO - What we choose to embrace as 'meaning' or 'purpose' has a very powerful effect on how we structure our goals and choose our behaviors. Therefore these questions are not irrelevant.)


And now I think I need to spend some time bathing my brain in the writings of Erich Fromm.