Why I am not a humanist - Atheist Foundation of Australia

Finally some honesty and a solidly worded philosophical essay on the the tenuous relationship between atheism and humanism.

Why I am Not a Humanist
Author:
Nigel Sinnott

No, I have not forsaken three quarters of a lifetime's atheism and found myself a god or a guru. But I would like to set out my reasons for being profoundly unhappy - as I have been for 25 years - about belonging to a movement with the general label "humanist".

Until the 1940s what is now called the humanist movement was known as the freethought movement. In its broadest sense it did and does encompass a spectrum from militant irreligion through rationalism to groups of agnostics, some of whom regarded themselves as religious. The older word, "freethought", aptly described the common denominator of these disparate organisations, namely, that they attracted people who insisted on the right to follow their own line of musing and reasoning, specifically on religious matters, instead of accepting some dogmatic, supernatural creed.

The word "humanist" began to catch on in freethought circles in the 1950s, perhaps because it had connotations of the Renaissance and the university. (The Renaissance humanists changed stylised, rather rigid mediaeval forms of art and literature to naturalistic representation and more free expression; they also encouraged a reawakened interest in scientific inquiry. At universities the word humanist had long signified a student of the liberal arts, classics and philosophy, as distinct from engineering or "hard" sciences. The 1950s and '60s also witnessed a boom in secondary and tertiary education, so "humanism" had - or seemed to have - an educated, refined image which old working-class secularism allegedly lacked. The generic term "rationalism" had sometimes been used for the broad freethought movement, but some of the new humanists found rationalism an arid word, connoting an exclusive devotion to reason, despite the fact that sensible rationalists avoided any claim that reason was the only good in human life.

By the 1960s, however, "humanist" in a new sense had come into its own. During the period from 1959 to 1966 a large number of new humanist societies were formed, especially in Britain, and some rationalist organisations cashed in on the vogue word and changed their names to "humanist". For a while, "humanist" was flavour of the month. But fashions are fickle things, and the popularity of humanism has waned since the 1960s just as that of secularism did after the 1880s.

I do not wish to decry the 1960s. The period had its faults, such as the narcissism of the "me generation" and venal gurus who pandered to mass naïveté. But it was also a period of relative prosperity and full employment, of new-found freedom for the young; a time of optimism, unselfish idealism, experiment, protest and worthwhile change. I am glad I was young then, rather than now.

If humanism is no longer a band-wagon word, there is little pragmatic argument for its retention as a name for the freethought movement in general. My main contention, however, is that humanism is now more of a liability than an asset.

The people who promoted the word humanism in the 1960s had their merits. They knew what was politically relevant at the time and how to campaign on particular issues. However, they often seemed to have a horror of anything they perceived as "negative". Hustlers and some politicians show the same tendency today. Humanist had a "positive" ring to it, despite the fact that what unified the movement was its disbelief in supernaturalism and its rejection of authority in philosophy, two thoroughly negative - but valuable - features.

I strongly assert that the search for and maintenance of truth, which is often negative, is more important than contrived efforts always to seem "positive".

My principle objection to humanism is the implication by its promoters that freethinkers do - or should - "believe in Man". I dissent from this on two grounds. It is reminiscent of "I believe in God", and I contend that the freethought or rationalist movement should not be promoting an ersatz religious mode of thinking but offering a radical departure from it by saying that the whole concept of "believing in" (in the dogmatic religious sense) is erroneous. Belief, for a freethinker, should be tentative, and open to amendment and reasoned argument. Atheists rightly regard "Jesus saves" as a flatulent slogan; "Man is the measure of all things" is immodest, unscientific bunkum, and it is high time someone said so.

The cult of Man with a capital M is only a slight improvement on the cult of God. It still leaves a lot to be desired, women for instance. If the Christians' idea that they belong to the same exclusive club as the creator of the universe sounds to us infidels as monstrous conceit, I can only add that I find almost as pompous and egotistical the notion that man is some marvellous pinnacle of evolution; that because Homo sapiens has produced Einstein and Michelangelo we can forget about the Nazis, the Crusaders and the Khmer Rouge; or that a Gothic cathedral, an air-conditioned office block or the mausoleum of some ancient megalomaniac justify our destruction of the world's forests, some of the most biologically valuable and breath-takingly beautiful places on earth.

Worse still, the adulation by some humanists of the human intellect (unique as it appears to be) encourages the old-fashioned nonsense that men and women are specially set apart from other living organisms and, worst of all, that the human race has an evolutionary destiny (formerly God's permission) to conquer and subdue nature.

"Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is the master of things" wrote Swinburne, my favourite poet. The words are marvellous rhetoric, intended to shock mid-nineteenth century piety, but today, if taken seriously, they would be a recipe for an ecological nightmare. If any other species of animal had caused a quarter as much destruction of life (including annihilation of whole species), degradation of landscape, fouling of the seas and pollution of the air as humanity has, we would have declared such an animal - however smart and intelligent - to be dangerous vermin and would be spending vast resources on destroying it.

It seems to me to be callous and smug to adulate Humanity with a capital H. Yes, we can devise elaborate instruments and drop them on the planet Mars. Meanwhile, half the members of our own species are starving or nearly so. Another half, women, are often treated as drudges and serfs. Intelligence does not necessarily produce wisdom or goodness. It took brains and education to design the gas chambers at Auschwitz; skill to timetable the cattle trucks.

In addition to "Man's inhumanity to man" there is humanity's massive, cruel exploitation of non-human animals for food, clothing, experiments and what passes for amusement. Protests against exploitation of animals have come from many quarters, but within the freethought tradition from Shelley and Henry S. Salt. More than half a century ago Britain's National Secular Society added a better deal for animals to its aims and objects. Yet not so long ago (this article was first written in June and July 1987) a humanist said to me, "I don't think animals have anything to do with humanism." We were talking about the concept of animal rights. I certainly want nothing to do with that sort of retrograde human chauvinism.

Unlike humanists I am not very proud of my membership of the human race. Yet I hope I am a good freethinker; I would like to think I am a reasonable rationalist; and I am very sure that secularism offers a happier prospect for humanity than the hells on earth created wherever religious zealots obtain power.

More than a hundred years ago the militant freethought movement started a campaign to make the public aware that it was possible to limit family size. It was probably the most valuable thing the movement has ever done. Freethinkers promoted birth control because they realised that resources for human consumption were finite. They hoped that small families would reduce poverty and give ordinary people more control over their lives. It is not surprising that religious conservatives have always opposed birth control: they know - consciously or instinctively - that over-breeding in a human population makes for political and economic instability, poverty and anxiety, just the conditions in which supernatural religion flourishes. Orthodox religion is a more cynical business than some humanists imagine.

I want the world to be a place fit for my grandchildren, where they will have space to move, freedom and time to think, wilderness to admire; a world where people can live in harmony with plants and animals. I do not want them to be forced to elbow their way through an overcrowded, stressed, war-riddled civilisation that has degraded the face of the earth into either ugly cities or vast, intensively farmed monocultures. It would only be a matter of time before such a society destroyed itself.

If we want the first sort of civilisation in the future, rather than the second, we may have to forgo a few fancy gadgets or devise more sensible alternatives; we will need to control our human numbers, put world poverty and land misuse before national privilege, nuclear war-toys and space research (without blunting our scientific curiosity), and change the emphasis of our throw-away, consumer society. Above all, we will need a more sensitive, perceptive view of the role of the human race on this planet, one which will understand the right of other animals to breathe free in the air we at present pollute, one which will appreciate the value - practical and aesthetic - of plants, trees and wilderness.

In creating a better world the freethought movement, if it gets its priorities right, has a useful part to play. The movement can promote a reasoned, scientific approach to problems; can ensure that human beings have more personal control over their minds, bodies and lives; can support freedom of speech and expression against efforts by the far right and far left to muzzle society; it can oppose new superstitions and pseudo-science and continue its historic role of exposing the restrictive, irrational and essentially totalitarian pack mentality encouraged by orthodox religion.

We have seen the religious ethic of faith and universal love produce - in reality - hatred, intolerance and barbarism. For this reason, I think we should be wary of any general answer to the world's complex problems which is restricted to human considerations limited by the virtues and vices, diligence and greed, foresight and folly of just a section of humanity, the privileged middle class of the richer industrialised countries.

What has become pressingly important today is humanity's need to realise - and take action on the fact - that we do not stand apart from other living organisms. We are a part of nature: we can only "conquer" nature by destroying the natural world and ourselves with it. Homo sapiens badly needs a sense of ecological humility, combined with curiosity and intellectual integrity. We do not need blinkered conceit dignified as humanism, or evasion of the facts of life and death sanctified as religion.

Revised by N.H.S., 23 November 2001.

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Are you saying they're "bad" people? I think a lot of this kind of consumption comes from lack of awareness and lack of sensitivity. I for one have found it challenging to completely give up meat(vegetarian) or all animal products(vegan). I have tried- both vegetarianism and veganism. I'm still trying. I may die trying. I'm not as compassionate as I'd like to be in this regard.

Exactly my point. No, I'm not saying they are "bad" people. But they are the epitome of human, and I don't think many human traits are cause for celebration. I think most humans are not very compassionate and it has nothing to do with psychological dysfunction or environment. The extreme cases, perhaps, but lack of compassion is pervasive throughout humanity.
Exactly my point. No, I'm not saying they are "bad" people. But they are the epitome of human, and I don't think many human traits are cause for celebration.

Once again, I don't see humanism so much as celebrating every last thing that's ever been done by a human as much as the realization that we're very much dependent on ourselves and one another, as opposed to waiting for someone or something to come and "fix" our world. This is not to condone all human behavior, but rather to promote the best parts of it, understand the worst parts of it and make the necessary adjustments as required, with an emphasis on compassion as opposed to retribution.

I think most humans are not very compassionate and it has nothing to do with psychological dysfunction or environment.

As an atheist, with a purely naturalistic worldview, to what then do you attribute the lack of compassion? "People are assholes" is one way of putting it I've heard and some days I couldn't agree more. But why is it that "most humans are not very compassionate"? What's the naturalistic explanation?

The extreme cases, perhaps, but lack of compassion is pervasive throughout humanity.

I agree. But if I think that I'm compassionate to a degree(not as much as I'd like to be) and I acknowledge that you're compassionate(to a degree, as I doubt you consider yourself to be the epitome of compassion), then it's unrealistic to think that there are not many other humans, if not most, that are capable of compassion. As we both agree, there are dysfunctions(extreme cases) that may prevent this in some humans. Conditioning- religious, ideological, marketing campaigns, etc.- also affects the degree to which a human shows compassion. Conditioning can be overcome, though with difficulty. We're participating in the greatest catalyst for change- open and honest dialogue that leads to increased awareness(you've increased mine) and heightened sensitivity to issues that may have been at one time ignored.
Compassion is also pervasive throughout humanity. I think the most accurate way to put would be that humans are selectively compassionate. Even sheikhs with four wives in burqas are compassionate to their enslaved wives. They think what they're doing is in everybody's best interests. Even people who want to be as compassionate as possible are limited by resources. You can't give money to every charity. And it's harder to be compassionate about people on the other side of the world than those nearby.

Obviously, people are also quite capable of dehumanizing and abusing other groups. People can shut off their compassion if they think somebody doesn't deserve it.
Sacha: and the act of watching their suffering being one's entertainment (and for an extended period of time)...

Only humans do that.


One word - cats.
That is an excellent point, Felch, but you're forgetting one thing. Those little critters that cats torture for hours are awfully twitchy in the first place. They were asking for it, all wiggly and enticing like that. Flaunting their squirminess, shimmying alluringly, practically begging to be swatted, pounced on, bitten. And so squishy/crunchy. Irresistable. You can't blame the cats.
Hmmm. Excellent point. I must re-think my strategy.

Yeah... What Jason said... Can't blame the cats. *wink*
@ TNT666

Although I could assume I would save my own baby before my own cat (I assume this based on the biological instinct of saving one's own blood line first) I am not so certain I would use the same logic on a stranger's baby. I might indeed chose my own cat, I'm not too sure about that.

I imagine, in that situation, I might also have the same urge to save my own cat first before going for the baby because I tend to indentify my pets as my babies, but if I stopped, even for a fraction of a second, to consider the implications of that, I would still save the baby first. Even my cat is still just a cat. If I'm able to reach the child but choose instead to look for my cat then, through inaction, I'm responsible for the child's death.

I would also suspect that in any given danger to life situation, the DEGREE of difficulty in saving each victim will play a role. To state unequivocally that one would save the baby first, without considering the variations, I find quite presumptuous, presumptuous towards ones own anthopocentric view of the world.

Well duh. That's not my point. My point is that from a human perspective, the life of a human child has more value than the life of an animal. It doesn't matter whether the baby is pinned under a pile of burning rubble or conviently in it's crib only a few feet from the front door. The child's life has the same value regaurdless, the only thing that changes is the value of my effort to save it.

I've watched (on tele admittedly) people risk their lives to save a wild animals [sic]...

So what? If you had a choice between walking ten feet to drop the washed up starfish to your left into a bucket of sea water or walking ten feet to perform the Heimlich maneuver on the guy to your right choking on a hotdog, which would you do first?

I speak from the human perspective. You seem to speak from the animal's perspective, which is fine if just as presumptuous.

If you want to speak from a universal perspective then you have to accept that human life holds the exact same value as animal life: nil. Or maybe you meant to speak from the perspective of life in general, in which case all life still has the exact same value, which from a scientific perspective means life is only valuable as long as it has the potiental to reproduce favorable offspring. Either way in the situation of the baby and the cat trapped in a burning house you're still ethicly and morally screwed, because there's no way you can make a reasonable choice to save one or the other. In the former case you probably wouldn't feel obligated to save either.
[...] I would still save the baby first. Even my cat is still just a cat. If I'm able to reach the child but choose instead to look for my cat then, through inaction, I'm responsible for the child's death.

As you say So What? The good samaritan law would not fault you for for that. It is your decision based in context. I have no doubt from encountering many Humanists (and many other religious folk) that you guys indeed put the value of human life above other life forms. That's exactly why I disagree with humanism. There is no REQUIREMENT to save human lives in the absolute. That's your morality, it's not mine. I come back to "plenty of humans" on earth, it is simply not my view that it's essential to save each and every one... That sounds "wrong" and amoral to you, but I'm basing my actions on biological value, not your moral value.

[...]the life of a human child has more value than the life of an animal.

You base that on what? Who are you exactly to state that. "Value" is not a clear fact, it's a matter of personal choice, or a society choice in the case of religious societies.

[...] If you had a choice between walking ten feet to drop the washed up starfish to your left into a bucket of sea water or walking ten feet to perform the Heimlich maneuver on the guy to your right choking on a hotdog, which would you do first?

As I asserted in a previous post, my value of life understanding is related to the rarity (as value is meant to mean) an orca is much rarer than a human, and humans are rarer than starfish. So I save the whale first, the human second, the starfish last.

[...] I speak from the human perspective. You seem to speak from the animal's perspective, which is fine if just as presumptuous.

What you call perspective I call bias. Like a billionaire making political decisions based on their particular social status instead of the general good... I find bias highly suspicious.

[...] exact same value, which from a scientific perspective means life is only valuable as long as it has the potiental to reproduce favorable offspring.

Scientifically speaking... you confuse value of a species and value of individuals, in a biological context, individuals of a species certainly DO NOT have the same value. As I previously stated, a single blade of grass has nearly no value, but take all the grass cover off a mountain/hillside and you have catastrophe. Species as a whole have equal value in a world at equilibrium. In a world past equilibrium point, some species should indeed have priority, for the sake of balance of nature.

We humans should live less often and less long. A human only perspective is a biased and limited perspective.
First off, who says I'm a humanist?

I find it really funny that you base the value of a given organism's life on it's "rareity." What the hell does that have to do with anything? Do you simply appreciate rare orgnaisms more than common ones? Isn't that biased?

Panda's are rare but (to be metaphorical) the global ecosystem wouldn't bat an eye if they all suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. They serve virtually no purpose except to sit in zoos and look adorable. Trying to save the pandas is a waste of time and spending for a species mostly valued for its fluffy cuteness. But contrary to what you seem to believe, preserving the earth as a habitable planet is a huge concern from the human perspective as we happen to be living here. The only people who think the ecosystem isn't a major concern are people who assume that earth's ecology has remained stable for all the "thousands" of years of its existance or who delude themselves so much with the power of science that they realisticly believe that we'll have Mars all pretty and terraformed in the next hundred years, so who the fuck cares about planet earth? Only the deluded think that the human perspective is somehow seperate from the Earth perspective.
Not to mention that there have to be far fewer carnivores than herbivores, herbivores than plants, etc, otherwise the food chain would collapse.
hmm, I guess at 6.8 B for our species, we should definitely become herbivores. You make my point :)
Well, it would be better if we were all herbivores, but I thought your point had to do with rarity of the species. I'm just saying you can't simply do a head count, you have to weight the species by where it is in the food chain.

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