Humanist Vision of Hope

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Comment by Bryan on October 5, 2009 at 10:28am

Sam-
You ought to show up to Right Brain some Thursday - this stuff is a lot more fun to talk about in person! :)

-Bryan

Comment by Sam Vorhauer on October 2, 2009 at 8:08pm

Game theory and the mini-max scoring software are algorithms that help us deal with complex human problems. These computerized methods have been in existence for at least 20 years, and since then, other method have emerged and have been improved substantially. Without getting into too much detail, the point is, artificial intelligence systems have been getting better and better and are able to deal with some complex human situations. In effect, computers/software are just what is needed to handle complexity. The Japanese have developed some incredible human like robots that for the most part are pre-programmed but many are learning software systems that improve over time.

Personally, I believe we should have reaped the benefits (deflation) of robot automation (car manufacturing) from the 90’s and use of computers from the 60’s. The reason we have not seen tangible benefits (lower car prices) I believe, is because of the Federal Reserve Bank keeps printing money which puts inflation at a certain rate. In addition to not providing incentives for savers (higher interest on savings). (I may be wrong about the solution and I don’t mean to push a specific political agenda. But I’m sure you know many examples where a solution is known, but the politics or special interests don’t allow it.)

Granted this is a political secular problem which I feel has a solution, but special interests don’t want it implemented, for whatever reasons. The point being, is that there are solutions to many of the world problems, but there are other economic interests that don’t want them implemented. This is why the approach to saving-the-world is an up hill battle because not only do we have to find a solution, but fight for its implementation.

Instead, I believe, we should focus on the individual, on improving his body and mind, not just through education but using everything we know to eventually transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. All we need, is one insight of understanding along with its technological implementation, and the impact would change the future for all of us.

For those who might be interested in knowing more about this particular perspective, it has a label, Transhumanism. What follows is a description from Wikipedia.

Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Dangers, as well as benefits, are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.

The term "transhumanism" is symbolized by H+ or h+ and is often used as a synonym for "human enhancement". Although the first known use of the term dates from 1957, the contemporary meaning is a product of the 1980s when futurists in the United States began to organize what has since grown into the transhumanist movement. Transhumanist thinkers predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".

Transhumanism is therefore sometimes referred to as "posthumanism" or a form of transformational activism influenced by posthumanist ideals.
The transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives. Transhumanism has been described by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as the world's most dangerous idea, while one proponent, Ronald Bailey, counters that it is the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity".

Comment by Sam Vorhauer on October 1, 2009 at 5:49pm

Hi Mark,

I think your focus on the “failure” of secular humanism is sidetracking the relevant issue. As you say: “ taking broad swipes at Christianity is just too easy. …” The same logic applies to secular humanism. There is enough failure and finger pointing to go around.

There is no disagreement with the history facts you mention, only with the interpretation and omission other facts not highlighted: Crusades, Inquisition, Religious wars, KKK, secular martyrs, Hitler and 90 percent of those in prison are believers. Omission of failed theocracies, John Calvin in Geneva, Israel (nuclear weapons an no proliferation treaty) and Quakers wiped out in New York 1750. Also the omission of good examples, Gandhi (Should we adopt his religion because his ideas worked?), Thames in London, advances in science and medical understanding etc. All the good stuff and reasons to be optimistic you have omitted*. And then you did not mention the bloody wars in the Old Testament.

The explosion of human mistakes is something we can learn from because from bad judgment comes good judgment. But, I believe we are getting too far away from the main issues, aside from your assumption that God exists.

If believers want to have credibility with unbelievers, then they need to deal with the issue of existence of God. Otherwise communication is difficult, because they assume there is a valid alternative to human thought and action. As seculars, we don’t see a “valid” alternative, until the believers deal with the issue of God’s existence. In effect, why they believe in a God? Or more important, what would it take, for them Not to believe?

We have had successes and we have progress. But our high expectations for man, keep letting us down. After all, it is only in the last 300 years that we begin to know our place in time and in the universe and know what power we hold. We are at a unique moment in our four million year history, truly at a take-off point. But many seem believe the promises of their alleged God. It would be difficult in theory and in action to implement a theocracy run by God. (Who gets to decide what is God’s will?)

We just don’t see any other way of dealing with our problems. If prayer were effective then we would use it. No it is not human pride, it is using whatever works. (Polls show prayer is not effective and personally I have tried it and to no effect.) People will have different views of what is good, bad or fair. But we can have laws or agreements. (Law is another area of progress because it is cumulative and works with feedback.)

I do see progress and I see man getting better. But this judgment depends on what facts we select and omit.
From the chess perspective, our grandmasters of today are clearly better than the past, because now, not only do we have more talent but we have much more information, thanks to computers and progress in teaching. And from the medical perspective we have improved our quality of life.

From history, we know many excellent people and I run into many good people, secular or otherwise. I see lots of hard workers who deserve better. I see medical progress (that for many are miracles). I see cars, home heating, indoor plumbing, computers etc. All these little things give us time, time to be creative and reflect deeper on what we want and how we can make reality better.

However, I think, this whole approach of trying to change the world, is just one avenue. I would prefer to focus first on the individual and how to improve mind and body, all the rest is secondary. The key for me is having more time and control. I would define progress as increased control over our environment and body and more time to do what we want, whether it be working on a time machine or the next medical breakthrough or relaxing on the beach. In effect, we want to be the change we want to see in the world.

We don’t see God as a viable helpful entity. As a result, we depend on what we can do, we have no choice. In other words, we take responsibility for our situation, even though we did not ask to be born. For us unbelievers, it would be a form of insanity to leave things to an imaginary super being.

To our mind, the main problem with the alleged God is its/his/hers existence. I’m sure we all want to believe a God’s vision of justice, love and mercy, but is there any truth in it? Can such a God deliver?

Aside from criticizing alleged humanist actions, what can you offer to the secular perspective that is credible and better? The fact that we don’t know if a God exists, does not give us license to assume a God. If we don’t know, then we don’t know, and we work with what we have. (I say again, the burden of proof is on those who make the positive claim.)

Let me say this, if there were any other way of handling our problems aside from human thought and action, any better, I would consider another way.

A recent book related to this discussion, *“What Are You Optimistic About?: Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better” by John Brockman.

Comment by Mark Hoffmann on September 28, 2009 at 12:57pm

Sam, so much could be said. I’ll start by suggesting that taking broad swipes at Christianity is just too easy. The fact that we can easily see its shortcomings could suggest there is a standard or a Truth to walk in to. Bad religion shouldn’t cause us to eliminate religion, (in this case Christianity) but it should cause us to improve it. Perhaps we lost our way. Perhaps the way of Jesus has been perverted throughout history by way of multiple forces, presenting what you and I see as generally lacking in both personal and corporate transformation, growth, change, etc. To me, nothing is of greater value than what causes us to consider God; how we engage with him and become changed by him, hopefully causing us to love our neighbor and the world around us in a way that brings shalom or as Jesus said, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Christian action in fact has the opposite effect of slowing me down. There is nothing that gives me more energy to be creative, loving, and inclusive. There is nothing that comes close to causing me to see the up-side-down nature of the world that often looks more like a eugenic evolutionary paradigm. The majority of that reality set forth in secular examples is bathed in or influenced by the Enlightenment. Of course not all examples of human evil and tragedy can be traced to that but certainly we have no short supply of our human condition relying on itself for wisdom and the results are often tragic. Again, Christendom is not short in culpability, but to look at history, especially since the Enlightenment and most recently, the last century, secular wisdom and "advancement" has been far more devastating.

I do have hope in mankind. I believe we have the capability of being the most sacrificial, loving, and creative beings on the planet. That I believe is indelibly stamped on us by God. Unfortunately, we also have the ability to be the most ruthless, violent and mean creatures on the planet. This is especially true for those who deny God or for those who have perverted God in to their own image, for their benefit. (Please don’t read ALL who deny God, of course not.)

When I think of human progress and its hope, I am not encouraged or satisfied by its focus or belief that man alone can solve the complexities of this world, human atrocities not withheld. Then I hear people like Gore Vidal claiming that “The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism.” Or of course Dawkins stating, “Only the willfully blind fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities of the world today.” Really? Has human ingenuity, apart from God, done noticeably better? Unfortunately for Humanists that is not true. In fact I think our failures demand we reassess the claims of faith and religion, hopefully rediscovering the truths of God, especially found in the person of Jesus.

Let’s look at the last century. With the exception of the radical Islam attack of 9/11, virtually 100% of the atrocities were committed by secular (enlightened humans) regimes. Starting the century with the Ottoman massacre of 500,000 Armenians and ending the century with the Rwandan and Sudanese massacres of nearly 3,000,000. Sandwiched between we have the Ukraine terror famine, Auschwitz, the rape of Nanking, the Burma railway, the Soviet Gulag, the Chinese Cultural revolution, the Cambodian Killing fields, the massacres in Bangladesh and Yugoslavia…..and of course I might add our own bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Young Turks, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, etc. represent secular regimes and human ingenuity. 100,000,000 people were killed last century alone, more than all other centuries combined, and the vast majority of the atrocities came from the wisdom of secular regimes. Today, slavery is more prevalent than ever before. We may be becoming more technologically advanced, but are we becoming more human or humane? If not, why?

Comment by Mark Hoffmann on September 25, 2009 at 3:55pm

Sam,

I hope to respond to some of your thoughts soon. Some I think make sense and others....well, we probably see things a little differently. It may not be until Monday that I get a real chance and reading your posts more closely and then responding. Please be patient.

Comment by Sam Vorhauer on September 24, 2009 at 7:58pm

Again, if we take the minimalist view of Christianity, it then becomes just another philosophy. Which is fine, except that there is no special incentive to adopt it. At least with “normal” Christianity, there was the positive incentive of heaven and the negative of hell. But I like the minimalist view of Christianity, because it allows us to see Christianity for what it is. A human invention to help its believers cope with a an indifferent, uncaring universe that knows no fairness or justice.

If Christianity were to become humanized, it would recognize that all virtues (fairness, justice, honesty, love) are human virtues alone, not having roots in some imaginary super being. And there is no need to worship anyone, even if we are the beginning and end of virtues. It is hard for the unbeliever to understand why anyone would want to be worshiped, let alone do the worshiping.

As humanists, we recognize that reality does not care, but humans do. Consequently, our priority is with other humans, not imaginary Gods or souls or sins. If we insist on a heaven, then we can work at it from the human end, making our environment as friendly as possible and go one better, in the creation of new planets and a totally revamped body. This might be the secular version/vision of heaven on earth. And then further into the future, maybe bring back the dead, so that they can have a second, fair chance? (Don’t we all want this?) Could it be that the end goal/vision of both perspectives are the same?

Comment by Sam Vorhauer on September 24, 2009 at 4:53pm

If one takes the minimalist approach to Christianity, then there is not much there, just plain common sense. Basically, one wants a society that can thrive and live in harmony. Each group develops its own rules depending on the geographical location. In effect, societies develop rules of honesty and fairness. This is not rocket science. But it is a “work in progress”, where we use feedback to figure out what rules will work best given our purposes.

So then, what is wrong with Christianity? If we set aside the damaging dogma, and bad Christian examples, then one might say that at worse Christianity is a distraction or a waste of time. As the country music song says “We have better things to do with our time”.

The Christian distraction, is slowing many of us down, and moving us away from the real action. What is the real action? I don’t have to point out all the world problems that we have and need to be worked on. But the main focus as I see it is us, ourselves. That is where most of the damage is done, we are distracted from knowing ourselves. Meaning, what do we want? What personal vision do we have? How do we fit it? (That is not driven by the Bible perspective) Do we believe in progress? What sort of change do we want?

The end-of-the-world mindset seems to shut off opportunity to have a personal vision, of what we want and what world we want to live it. We want to be the change we want to see in the world. We don’t want to be waiting or praying for some super being to fix our problems. We need to empower ourselves with the idea that our vision or perspective is just as legitimate and important as any perspective or vision from the holy book.