The American Spectator : The New Humanism

The New Humanism

By Roger Scruton from the March 2009 issue

The family in which I was raised was, in the matter of religion, typical of postwar England. There was no objection to the children receiving Christian instruction at school, and performing there a daily act of worship. There was no objection to chapel and Sunday school—indeed, provided these institutions were gloomy enough, my parents thought, their children could only be improved by them. But the home was a religion-free zone: no grace before meals, no prayers at bedtime, and the Bible wedged firmly on the shelf between the Oxford Dictionary and Winston Churchill's History of the Second World War. Our parents called themselves humanists. They had been raised as Christians, but had lived through the Second World War and lost faith in the God who permitted it. They regarded humanism as a residual option, once faith had dissolved. It was not something to make a song and dance about, still less something to impose on others, but simply the best they could manage in the absence of God.

All around me I encountered humanists of my parents' kind. I befriended them at school, and was taught by them at Cambridge. And whenever I lost the Christian faith which had first dawned on me in school assemblies I would be a humanist for a spell, and feel comforted that there existed this other and more tangled path to the goal of moral discipline. Looking back on it, I see the humanism of my parents as a kind of rearguard action on behalf of religious values. They, and their contemporaries, believed that man is the source of his own ideals and also the object of them. There is no need for God, they thought, in order to live with a vision of the higher life. All the values that had been appropriated by the Christian churches are available to the humanist too. Faith, hope, and charity can exist as human causes, and without the need for a heavenly focus; humanists can build their lives on the love of neighbor, can exercise the virtues and discipline their appetites so as to be just, prudent, temperate, and courageous, just as the Greeks had taught, long before the edict of the Church had fallen like a shadow across the human spirit. A humanist can be a patriot; he can believe with Jesus that "greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friend." He is the enemy of false sentiment and lax morals, and all the more vigilant on behalf of morality in that he believes it to be the thing by which humanity is exalted, and the proof that we can be the source of our own ideals.

That noble form of humanism has its roots in the Enlightenment, in Kant's defense of the moral law, and in the progressivism of well-meaning Victorian sages. And the memory of it leads me to take an interest in something that calls itself "humanism," and is now beginning to announce itself in Britain. This humanism is self-consciously "new," like New Labour; it has its own journal, the New Humanist, and its own sages, the most prominent of whom is Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and vice-president of the British Humanist Association. It runs advertising campaigns and letter-writing campaigns and is militant in asserting the truth of its vision and its right to make converts. But the vision is not that of my parents. The new humanism spends little time exalting man as an ideal. It says nothing, or next to nothing, about faith, hope, and charity; is scathing about patriotism; and is dismissive of those rearguard actions in defense of the family, public spirit, and sexual restraint that animated my parents. Instead of idealizing man, the new humanism denigrates God and attacks the belief in God as a human weakness. My parents too thought belief in God to be a weakness. But they were reluctant to deprive other human beings of a moral prop that they seemed to need.

The British Humanist Association is currently running a campaign against religious faith. It has bought advertising space on our city buses, which now patrol the streets declaring that "There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life." My parents would have been appalled at such a declaration. From a true premise, they would have said, it derives a false and pernicious conclusion. Had they wished to announce their beliefs—and it was part of their humanism to think that you don't announce your beliefs but live them—they would have expressed them thus: "There probably is no God; so start worrying, and remember that self-discipline is up to you." The British Humanist Association sees nothing wrong with the reference to enjoyment; it seems to have no consciousness of what is clearly announced between the lines of the text, namely that there are no ideals higher than pleasure. Its publications imply that there is only one thing that stands between man and his happiness, and that is the belief in God. Take that belief away, and we can run out into the garden of permissions, picking the fruit that we wrongly thought to have been forbidden. The humanists I knew as a young man would have reacted with disgust at this hedonistic message, and at a philosophy that aims to dispense with God without also aiming to replace Him.

BUT THE BUS adverts fit the spirit of modern Britain, and not even the Muslims complain about them. One Christian bus driver has refused to drive his bus, and a few hundred people have written to the Advertising Standards Council, which has rejected their complaint, but that is as far as the protests have gone. When, in the light of this advertising campaign, I look back at the humanist movement that I encountered as an adolescent, one thing above all strikes me: that the old humanism was not about deconstructing God; it was about constructing man. It was a positive movement, devoted to seeking things worthy of emulation and sacrifice, even if there is no God to promote them. Its principal fear was that, deprived of religious belief, people would let go of their ideals. Hence it urgently sought a new basis for moral restraint in the idea of human dignity.

The old humanism was not a pleasure-seeking, still less a pleasure-loving philosophy. It took its inspiration from Enlightenment philosophers, from Milton, Blake, and D. H. Lawrence, and from the legacy of Western art. The humanist who most influenced me at Cambridge believed that in no works had humanity been more blessed by true ideals than in the St. Matthew Passion of Bach and the Tristan und Isolde of Wagner, the one a work of Christian devotion, the other a work that makes no mention of God or gods, but simply dwells on the exalted nature of erotic love when tied to mutual sacrifice. Although I was skeptical toward that kind of humanism, I never doubted its nobility of purpose. It was devoted to exalting the human person above the human animal, and moral discipline above random appetite. It saw art, music, and literature not simply as pleasures, but as sources of spiritual strength. And it took the same view of religion. Humanists of the old school were not believers. The ability to question, to doubt, to live in perpetual uncertainty, they thought, is one of the noble endowments of the human intellect. But they respected religion and studied it for the moral and spiritual truths that could outlive the God who once promoted them.

Observing the new humanism from my old perspective I am struck not only by its lack of positive belief, but also by its need to compensate for this lack by antagonism toward an imagined enemy. I say "imagined," since it is obvious that religion is a declining force in Britain. There is no need to consult the pronouncements of the Archbishop of Canterbury: the response to the bus campaign abundantly proves the point. But a weak enemy is precisely what these negative philosophies require. Like so many modern ideologies, the new humanism seeks to define itself through what it is against rather than what it is for. It is for nothing, or at any rate for nothing in particular. Ever since the Enlightenment there has been a tendency to adopt this negative approach to the human condition, rather than to live out the exacting demands of the Enlightenment morality, which tells us to take responsibility for ourselves and to cease our snivelling. Having shaken off their shackles and discovered that they have not obtained contentment, human beings have a lamentable tendency to believe that they are victims of some alien force, be it aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, capitalism, the priesthood, or simply the belief in God. And the feeling arises that they need only destroy this alien force, and happiness will be served up on a plate, in a garden of pleasures. That, in my view, is why the Enlightenment, which promised the reign of freedom and justice, issued in an unending series of wars.

I never thought, when I finally put the old humanism behind me, that I would ever feel nostalgia over its loss. But now I recognize that it was not only noble in itself, but was also a serious attempt to retain the belief in nobility without the theological vision on which that belief had once depended. It was, in effect, a proof of the ideal that it proposed: an example of how human beings can provide themselves with values, and then live up to them.

Letter to the Editor

Pingback| 3.10.09 @ 6:58AM

Ask the leadership coach » The American Spectator : The New Humanism links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Ryan The Storage December 1969 The Categories Uncategorized The Meta Login WP XFN RSS Comments RSS Back to top The American Spectator : The New Humanism Posted in Uncategorized by on the December 31st, 1969 unknown posted a noteworthy aricle today on Here’s a small snippet All the values that had been appropriated by the Christian churches are available to the humanist too. Faith, hope, and charity can exist as…

frost| 3.10.09 @ 7:16AM

Suppose so -- the number of religious people is declining in England, he says?
As a Deist, I'd normally greet that thought with a shrug, probably - - 'cept, have to consider the Muslims, as elsewhere.
And that's kinda scary.

Ryan| 3.10.09 @ 8:34AM

The "new humanists" may be more aptly described as "evangelistic atheists." Maybe they're a group who sees that the existence of God is a complete attack on their moral (or lack thereof) ideals. Dawkins is a prime example, and is the type of person who comes from any walk of life, who may have something important to say, but is so awful about it that you don't hear them.

For me, I couldn't be a humanist. If I wasn't a Christian, I think I wouldn't care about humanity because I don't see the point of morality - with no deity to offend, what's the point?

annie| 9.30.09 @ 1:39PM

With no deity, we are responsible for each others' welfare. I don't imagine any god will help us, so I try to help others. I prefer to life in a world where people are caring. I want to make this world a better place for everyone, regardless of whether I'm around to see it or not.

Mrs. Jackson| 3.10.09 @ 9:23AM

"I never thought, when I finally put the old humanism behind me, that I would ever feel nostalgia over its loss. But now I recognize that it was not only noble in itself, but was also a serious attempt to retain the belief in nobility without the theological vision on which that belief had once depended. It was, in effect, a proof of the ideal that it proposed: an example of how human beings can provide themselves with values, and then live up to them."

Truly profound.

Thank you Mr. Scruton.

ccd| 3.10.09 @ 9:36AM

So humanists are ok, as long as they remember their place as second class citizens?

Rick Josey| 3.10.09 @ 10:29AM

Humanists are not second class citizens. But they naturally take "second place" in a nation that is self-defined as "One nation UNDER GOD." Our currency says "In GOD we trust." Those who do not believe in God are citizens just like the rest of us. But they are the minority, and they will not alter the policies by which a citizenry "under God" governs itself. Any American who does not like being governed "under God" is free to leave. The rest of us like it this way. So did Washington, Franlin and the other founding fathers who spoke of our being endowed by OUR CREATOR with certain inalienable rights.

annie| 9.30.09 @ 1:43PM

Our nation is a secular nation. The founders deliberately omitted references to gods because they knew that a secular nation is the best safeguard of freedom of religion. Our currency says "In god we trust" now because of the constant agitation of religious people to destroy the wall of separation between church and state. I suppose it's all good as long as it's YOUR religion that's running the show. Imagine how dismayed you might feel if it were Muslims or another sect of Christians who don't believe as you do, forcing their religion on you. How's you enjoy seeing "In Allah We Trust" on your dollar bills?

As a secular member of a secular nation, my suggestion is that YOU leave America and go find some theocracy to live under.

CS Lewis| 3.10.09 @ 10:35AM

Actually, I found this article quite sad. While reading it I could picture Mr. Scruton crying, lamenting, for what might have been - for himself and his country - if his parents and many like them had not lost their faith or if they had had any real faith to begin with how different his life, his country, might be now.
A modern day Job lamenting over his country.
And it's a pretty sad story. I recommend reading Job to see how he handled life.

ccd| 3.10.09 @ 10:37AM

So humanists are equal to everyone else, but shouldn't get uppity and think their opinions and beliefs count? They sould just sit down, shut up and not try to shape the policies of their country with their constitutional rights of petition, speach and voting?

Alan Brooks| 3.10.09 @ 10:47AM

the future will be so empty I'll take any almost religion over the coldness, the brave new world of soma-like drugs and feral sex to come.

unger| 3.10.09 @ 11:25AM

In regards to ccd's comments, I do not know what article you read, but your belief, or should I say paranoid reasoning that this article implies some kind of second class status for Humanists is off base. In fact the article is filled with a charitable spirit, the author clearly admires the bravery and self control of those willing to go alone into the empty universe. What you must find offensive is his lament at the passing of a generation of disbelievers who though they found the universe empty still found in themselves a kernel of moral awareness.

ccd| 3.10.09 @ 11:51AM

The impression I got was that the author is much more comfortable when humanists are silent as to their beiefs, and a more aggresive or evangelical humanism was unsettling.

stefie| 3.10.09 @ 12:11PM

Go be an atheist or humanist or whatever you want to be. Just leave those of us who choose to believe in God to our beliefs . We are of no threat to you as you seem to think.
I do wonder though, how an atheist guides his life. And do you not wonder what comes after this earthbond life? I am not a church goer, but do know God is all around us. Even you ccd.

unger| 3.10.09 @ 12:24PM

To ccd
I think you are right that the author does find elements of modern humanism unsettling, but the question becomes, is he right to find them so. The humanistic evangelism he describes abandons not only God but moral duty as well. The author's concern is that we are leaving Prometheus behind and moving toward the Marquis De Sade.

Brian B| 3.10.09 @ 12:46PM

The old humanism was untenable because it was tethered to nothing but good intentions.
The new humanism is the inevitable foul tempered child of its parent, because good intentions alone, forever and always, stand little chance against human nature.
That every century, maybe every generation, has to learn this lesson anew is a monument to just how obtuse and deceitful that nature is.

RogerM| 3.10.09 @ 1:16PM

Brian, you're right. As Scruton wrote, the old humanists wanted "to retain the belief in nobility without the theological vision on which that belief had once depended." In other words, they thought they could do the impossible.

Philosophers since at least Dostoyevski and Nietzche have taught us that without God, morals are dead. People can make up any morals they want, as did the Nazi's and communists. The Old Humanists thought they could escape that trap and retain the blessings of Christian civilization without the Christianity. But that's like bread without wheat.

The existentialists, like Sartre and Camus, and the post-modernists destroyed the illusions of the Old Humanists, and rightly so. The New Humanists are a lot more consistent and logical: without God, nothing is left to live for but physical pleasure.

ccd| 3.10.09 @ 1:27PM

Whether or not you agree with the humanist's beliefs they should be free to hold and express unencumbered. But in this society, they are forced to use money with a motto they don't believe in, have their children pledge allegence to a god they don't think exists, and tolerate a steady barrage of religous propaganda.
While I've seen many billboards advertising evangelical christianity I have seen none that denys the existence of god.
In the article above, the author mentions a bus advertisement for humanism. What is not mentioned is that the organization who paid for the ad was required to change the ad from denying god to doubting god, in order to accomodate the sensitivities of others.
So as a church going catholic, I still say that atheists are treated as second class citizens.

george| 3.10.09 @ 1:39PM

"to be carnally minded is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

diy| 3.10.09 @ 1:43PM

"no"

unger| 3.10.09 @ 1:57PM

to ccd
you make a cogent argument in your last post, but what is interesting is that you have shifted your ground from a criticism of the article to a criticism of society, and yet your fundamental point remains unchanged. You are beyond rational argument, you have become an ax grinder.

Robert| 3.10.09 @ 2:03PM

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. -Genesis 6:5

annie| 9.30.09 @ 1:45PM

Now remind me, who created man in this story?

ccd| 3.10.09 @ 2:10PM

Unger, I thought I was merely following the drift of the discourse. My original statement was that the author prefered that humanists remember that they are second class citizens. This was challenged and led to several general attacks on the non-religious. But if my statements are beyond rational what is opinion of the random quotes that have been interjected?

Roy| 3.10.09 @ 2:19PM

Agree with BrianB.

I'll also point out that the "old humanism" existed in a society where a good chunk of people were still religious. It could never stand on its own.

Christian: Live virtuous, self-sacrificing lives in order to help your fellow man to serve your God.
Old Humanist: There's no God, but live virtuous, self-sacrificing lives in order to help your fellow man anyway.
Christian: Umm, ok.

Take away the Christian and you can see the absurdity.

Old Humanist: There's no God, but live virtuous, self-sacrificing lives in order to help your fellow man anyway.
Paris Hilton: OMGROTFLOL!!

ccd| 3.10.09 @ 2:25PM

Roy, I don't follow your argument. There have been several non-absurd socities that have prospered without christianity, god or paris hilton. Could you elaborate?

Doctor Right| 3.10.09 @ 2:31PM

Psalm 14:1

1 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

annie| 9.30.09 @ 1:47PM

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God"

The wise man says ALOUD: "There is no evidence for the existence of any gods."

Jabberwok| 3.10.09 @ 3:04PM

CCD, I follow what both you and Roy are saying. The author believes that, to c0-0pt a Russian movement, Old Non-Believers had a quiet dignity and went about there lives unobtrusively. But bear in mind, this was post-War England, where EVERYONE lived there lives in this manner. So it wasn't necessarily that they were second-class citizens, simply that they lived as there neighbors did, only their moral standard was driven by their neighbor and not their God. We live in a time now where everything and everyone is more confrontational, on both sides of the fence (Hello Mr Hitchens). Which explains Roy's argument that Old Non-Believers essentially defined themselves in opposition to Believers, but still tried to live moral lives. In an environment when you have become all, and there is no opposition, what determines your behavior? Is it inherent goodness and ethical, moral behavior? Who sets the example that others live by and why is it good? The "Paris Hilton" reaction is simply the lack of a moral force or example taken to its logical extreme. I could be wrong.

Jabberwok| 3.10.09 @ 3:13PM

Oh, and how did other societies live without a belief in God? Well, they believed in their own God, so that was what set their behavior. Just because someone is a Pagan doesn't mean he doesn't believe in something... even if it is a rock.

John| 3.10.09 @ 3:15PM

Without God, there is no morality.

Without morality, laws become meaningless.

Without laws, society breaks down.

When society breaks down, God returns.

unger| 3.10.09 @ 3:24PM

To ccd
Clearly some of the interjected comments have been made by the crazy and the confused, and they have been made in a less than thoughtful manner. But regarding your original statement, it was completely unsupported by any statement in the author's article which was more elegiac than polemic in tone. Your later post on the conditions faced by Humanists in our society was clear and well thought out. But these two posts make the same point, that Humanist are treated unfairly, however the arguments differ, in your first post the author is unfair, in the second the society is. I can understand if you were responding to the tone of the whole thread, but it gives the impression that you have a conclusion and are now trying to find an argument to confirm it. I would suggest an argument first then a conclusion, only out of fairness to the author.

Casey| 3.10.09 @ 4:05PM

I too found the column sad, but probably in a different way than most. When you remove God from the equation, you remove any moral foundation and real restraint. The natural conclusion is what we see today; moral relativism, a sense of "victimhood" where there is none or very little, a generation living only for themselves and seeing nothing wrong with it, a crumbling society that gradually accepts more and more previously unacceptable behavior and aggressively antagonistic group who are out to destroy a God (or anyone who dares believe in Him) they say they do not believe in.

"There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life."

"Probably" does not sound very certain. Think of the consequences if they are wrong (which they are). Foolish, foolish people.

annie| 9.30.09 @ 1:49PM

Why does everyone equate morality with an immoral Bible God?

Suggested reading "Sense and Goodness Without God"

Think of the consequences if you chose the wrong god to worship. Foolish man, why do you not accept Allah? Why do you not worship Shiva? You have chosen to put all your eggs into one basket, but what if you are wrong?

Jim| 3.10.09 @ 6:00PM

A lot of people including CCD seem to be missing the real point of Scruton's article which is that whether you are religeous or old style humanist you still had a moral compass that required you to act for the benefit of others and to apply restrain to your behaviour to take into account the feelings of others. New Humanists feel no need to take into account the feelings of others nor do they propose a moral code to which they can direct those who may seek to join them. Therefore they promote a life in which the feelings of others are not of your concern nor should you act for the benefit of others.

Richard Dawkins wrote that we should shake off the shackles of religeon and do what we enjoyed so long as it harmed no one. The problem is doing what we want always potentially harms someone or even oneself. For example sex without control leads to epidemics of sexual diseases, if life is all about enjoyment why waste 7 years training to be a doctor, if I can make money selling weapons why should I worry about what others do with them the act of selling them does not hurt others directly. The problem with modern humanists is that they need others to apply the controls so that they do not act irresponsibly since they have failed to identify the moral structure in which they should/need to exist.

Few societies can exist without a moral structure, once the pursuit of pleasure becomes the overwhelming driver the controls that hold us together start to fail. I worry that the failure of those controsl has already commenced in some western countries and fear for what will happen to our children

Nate| 3.10.09 @ 7:34PM

I found this article interesting, and I am not a huge fan of organized religion. However, I don’t think “new humanists” are the hedonists Scruton makes them out to be. Though I don’t care for Richard Dawkins, I don’t think he or others in his organization condone “sex without control” or lawlessness. It seems like the problem Scruton has with modern humanism is its outspoken denial of god, in contrast to the erstwhile, closeted form of humanism.

Many of the posts in this thread are concerned with how religion provides incentives for “moral” behavior, and I would agree. I would also point out that Santa Claus provides incentives for moral behavior, but that doesn’t make him real. To me and many others, organized religion seems like Santa Claus for adults. We do not need supernatural incentives to abstain from killing, stealing, and wanton sex. Reasonable people should be able to agree that atheists and theists alike are capable of committing atrocious, inhumane acts, just as they are equally capable of love, compassion, and altruism. Neither “group” has a premium on moral behavior.

K| 3.10.09 @ 9:03PM

I am comfortable calling myself a new humanist, though I'd prefer no label at all.

The point I would like to make is this: I don't believe in God, but do believe in being responsible, kind, thoughtful, considerate, respectful, courageous, moderate, polite, hardworking, friendly, industrious, loving, tolerant, and creative. Though I'm far from reaching these ideals.

I believe humanity has achieved great things, is achieving great things, and I hope that great things will be achieved in the future.

Let's focus on being better people, to ourselves and those we come into contact with, rather than debating about whether or not relgious or non-religious people can or cannot live good and fulfilling lives.

While we argue, oppotunities pass us by.

Thanks for the thought provoking article!

Bereket| 3.10.09 @ 11:28PM

I think that the conversation has also gone down the wrong track as well.

As far as the article is concerned, I wonder if the author understands that once you take God out of the equation, both forms of humanism are possible. I think the "old" humanism was the way it was because if was influenced by Christianity, which had more sway among people in the past, as the author describes.

The problem that I have not heard the author or other commenters deal with is that without believing in God one can lead a moral life, but one cannot provide a reason why anyone else ought to. Immorality is not eradicated under Christianity, but it at least cannot be accomodated. Immorality is not a problem under a humanist worldview. If God does not exist, what exactly is the problem with leading an immoral life? In fact, what is morality when there is no God?

John II| 3.11.09 @ 12:03AM

This is a different John from the previous one. I have one quick thought. St. Augustine, in his voluminous writings, often points to the first commandment of the Decalogue (worship no false gods!) as subsuming all the others. Apparently we all come into the world hardwired to worship, and if we don't worship God, we'll inevitably worship something else. All sin, according to Augustine, is a form of idol-worship: of worshiping some aspect of creation rather than the Creator. And the late American philosopher-novelist Walker Percy, running with Augustine's insight, suggested that all ages have their preferred idols--with the idol of choice in the contemporary West being the ego. That particular idol, I think, arose in the so-called postmodern era, after the Enlightenment's preferred idol of Reason (i.e., naive rationalism) had exhausted itself by the end of the ghastly Second World War. But the current idol seems to be pooping out rather more quickly, perhaps bottoming out with the "new humanism." And there are already numerous signs of yet another religious awakening--such as, for example, the wistful tone in Mr. Scruton's keenly critical reflection. Thanks.

Gazinya| 3.11.09 @ 12:40AM

Humanists not only claim that they do not believe in God but also that there IS no God. If there is no god then evolution must be true. This life is a truly, huge, cosmic streak of luck. That's ok with me. No problem here, with your belief. What I find so interesting in this thought is the question 'what next'? Do we or are we continuing to evolve? If we are continuing to evolve then what is the rush to change? Since the humanist of today will not be here 100 thousand years from now, they and the believers, where is the rub in your life? Why do you care what anybody else does or what is traditional? Christians aren't demanding that you accept God, just let the Christian be Christian. Is that somehow retarding evolution? Is your evolution being slowed?

If I am restrained by a faith in a God that requires me to be restrained, isn't that really just a quirk of evolution? If my faith in God is a move toward the next level of evolution, shouldn't I be encouraged to grow in this belief? And if it is a dying phase of evolution then what is your problem? If you think anger and resentment toward Christianity is part of evolution , either upward mobility or a downward trend, I don't see the emotional connection. How, evolutionaryly (sic) speaking, does an emotional reaction to anything advance evolution? These reactions seem to me to be directed toward something that,in your life, doesn't exist. A wasted effort?

ruth| 3.11.09 @ 1:03AM

Without faith, the decline of Humanism was inevitable. Man is ephemeral, and any belief system based on him is, too.

Roy| 3.11.09 @ 2:58AM

>>To me and many others, organized religion seems like Santa Claus for adults

Roy| 3.11.09 @ 3:10AM

Post got eaten by the site - probably due to containing less than signs.

What I was saying was two things - 1st of all "organized" makes no difference here - just a term of abuse from the media. Issue is whether there exist supernatural incentives for moral behavior.

It is indeed a tenable viewpoint that there are none, just as there is no Santa Claus. The fact that some people have invented their own incentives is no reason why I(or Paris Hilton) should. Kind of the reason why the question of whether such incentives in fact exist takes on a certain practicality.

It's largely a matter of perspective. A Christian who every day acts(or more realistically, believes that he should act) out of self-denial for the sake of his faith, knows that without that faith ultimately there would be no reason for it. It might go on for a while out of sheer habit but I would be in "only wrong if you get caught" mode. Somebody who has never been a Christian can understand that perspective no more than I can fully understand theirs.

A guy like Richard Dawkins, loudly asserting that life is meaningless and then timidly, tentatively, justifying adultery? For pete's sake, someone like me thinks. Adultery is justifiable under what possible moral system? You already said there weren't any. For pete's sake get on with your unstinting self-indulgence - like what I believe to be the true practitioners of this belief system, Hollywood celebs - and quit trying to "justify"(a word left over from the discarded past) it.

Stephen Law| 3.11.09 @ 5:57AM

Scruton says:

"Like so many modern ideologies, the new humanism seeks to define itself through what it is against rather than what it is for. It is for nothing, or at any rate for nothing in particular."

The new humanism "seems to have no consciousness of what is clearly announced between the lines of the text [ON THE ATHEIST BUSES], namely that there are no ideals higher than pleasure."

The BHA's "publications imply that there is only one thing that stands between man and his happiness, and that is the belief in God. "

Bit of "straw man" going on here? I know many humanists but I am not sure I know of any that believe (i) "there are no ideals higher than pleasure" and (ii) "only one thing stands between man and his happiness, and that is the belief in God". I don't believe either.

Surely the message "clearly announced" by the bus posters is not that there is "no higher ideal than pleasure", but rather: "Don't allow, as so many do, belief in God and his divine plan to blight your life (through endless recriminations about your sexuality, about a "woman's role", etc.). Contrary to what most religions tell you, this is the only life you have - so make the most of it!"

Scruton is, of course, a gifted philosopher well-versed in the careful reading of texts and weighing of evidence. It's odd he should be so sloppy here. I'd ask him: (a) where is his evidence that BHA texts commonly "imply" (ii), and (b) does he really believe the atheist bus posters "clearly announce" that there is "no ideal higher than pleasure"?

I guess one moral we should extract from this piece is - we humanists need to to be extremely careful how we phrase things. If there's the even slightest chance a comment could be interpreted as promoting unbridled hedonism, etc., you can be sure that's exactly how it will be interpreted.

David Pollock| 3.11.09 @ 6:43AM

Nate is right. Scruton's interesting article is based on false premises about today's British humanists, based apparently in the main on the 'atheist bus' adverts and an assumption that the British Humanist Association can be identified with the 'new atheists'. As to the latter, they are in the main what it says on the pack: atheists. Nothing wrong with that, but that's only the start of humanism. As to the advertisements, this was a campaign paid for by public donations tied to a particular slogan, intended as a low-key reaction to some preceding Christian advertising. The appeal for funds took us all by surprise by raising 15-20 times as much as we expected. This says something about current public resentment of the overweening place of religion - Islam and Christianity - in Britain today, but it says little about the attitudes of the Humanist Association, which still has recognisably the same beliefs as Scruton's parents - Scruton should look at www.humanism.org.uk - though today we can find a highly satisfactory basis for our morality in the instincts for cooperation we have inherited from evolution (along with more ambiguous instincts), which provide the raw material for critical construction of an ethical system.

As to our campaigning, it is not evangelical: we do not set out to 'convert' others to our beliefs, even though we make no secret of them and are no longer apologetic about them, and we happily cooperate with believers on shared projects. Rather, we aim to represent and defend the rights of the non-religious in a society where the Government over the last decade has thrust funding, their own schools and official involvement onto religious groups regardless of the fact that religious observance in the UK is confined to about 1 in 10 of the population.

- David Pollock (BHA trustee)

Nate| 3.11.09 @ 7:59AM

"Somebody who has never been a Christian can understand that perspective no more than I can fully understand theirs."

Roy, you can understand by proxy. For example (paraphrasing Sam Harris here), you and I agree that Mohammad is not god's prophet. We both agree that Zeus, Ra, and Quetzalcoatl do not exist except in the minds of those who worshipped them. So it's not that hard to see where I'm coming from. I used to be Christian, until I began to feel that the evidence for its "truth" was no more compelling than evidence for the religions listed above.

David, thanks for clarifying the BHA's positions.
Stephen, yes, it seems that word choice is crucial.
K, well said. I'll try to take a page from your book.

Pluto Animus| 3.11.09 @ 9:01AM

Ryan wrote: "Maybe [atheists are] a group who sees that the existence of God is a complete attack on their moral (or lack thereof) ideals. "
Actually, Ryan, we atheists are a group who see that belief in the existence of God is an ignorant, infantile fantasy that only cowardly people cling to. Maybe Ryan is a person in need of a dictionary.
Why are you believers so pathetically ignorant? Are you terrified of knowledge???

John II| 3.11.09 @ 10:27AM

Pluto Animus would perhaps be more persuasive if he didn't express himself with such, well, animus. If life really is a tale told by an idiot and only pathetically ignorant, terrified people (like myself, I gather) profess belief in a transcendent order, what difference should any of this sort of topic make to Pluto Animus and like-minded folk? Pluto--check out Gazinya's remarks above, and then try sampling, say, Chesterton's "Orthodoxy"--I mean, if you're interested in pursuing the curious fact that soi-disant atheists get so exercised about what they claim to believe to be nothing.

Peter Cave| 3.11.09 @ 10:31AM

Perhaps – dare I say? – Roger Scruton should get out more and meet more humanists. The atheist slogan does not sum up humanism. If analysing such a slogan is the way to understanding, then perhaps we should look at some other slogans. In London, there is now the Christian bus which tells you to ‘enjoy your life’. Should I conclude that Christians are interested solely in self-enjoyment? Many Conservative Party leaflets over the years have extolled the virtues of free markets. Should I conclude that the Party had no interest in regulation? And with all the excitement in the Church about homosexuality, should I conclude that the Church is obsessed with sex? (Well, okay – in that case...)

Of course, Scruton’s article is polemical. For more reasoned approaches to the values of humanism and how they extend far beyond simple enjoyments, let me recommend Richard Norman’s book – or even my own – on humanism. In fact, re the latter, perhaps that indeed would show that humanism is not simply a matter of enjoyment, if enjoyment at all.

Peter Cave , Chair, Humanist Philosophers, British Humanist Association

Gerry| 3.11.09 @ 10:36AM

I would like to know just one person, who truly became a Christian, who wasn't a far better person because of his Faith in God. I know, however, many, many people who have quit on God, and turned from their Faith in Him. Their lives are in shambles. Many people I once prayed with, sat in Gods' house with, have turned to alcohol, drugs, all sorts of immorality, and someone out there says "we don't need God"?

ruth| 3.11.09 @ 1:26PM

Gerry, so true. I know my strong belief in God has gotten me through some horrific events in my life. For me, faith beats suicide every time. A 'crutch' indeed.

Stephen Law| 3.11.09 @ 2:00PM

Gerry - come over and visit the Euro-land of godless heathens, where we have lower rates of homicide, sexually transmitted disease, teenage pregnancy, deliquency, etc etc. than the U.S. which is far, far more religious.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Got to rush - my crack dealer is demanding I go out and mug some more all old ladies to pay for my next hit.

Angel| 3.11.09 @ 2:23PM

And going Sharia more and more everyday, Mr. Law. You're weak and you stand for nothing, your demise is just a matter of time. Allah Akbar!

Stephen Law| 3.11.09 @ 2:25PM

Incidentally, those commenting here who recommend religion for social engineering purposes - it may not be true, but boy, its useful in keeping Jonny out of jail and Mary on the wagon - may be correct that religion does have considerable power to shape peoples lives in a good way. However, there are risks attached:

http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2009/01/religion-as-social-tool.html

Angel| 3.11.09 @ 2:37PM

Stephen, you're going to look hot in a burka. Don't show your ankles, though, you'll get a beatin'. LOL

Alan Brooks| 3.11.09 @ 3:09PM

all I know is the future is going to be so cold why worry about religion as long as it isn't violent religion? religious sensitivities?
Dawkins is sensitive himself, if you point out he is an intellectual trickster like all academics, how he is selling his books, seminars, he is getting his $5,000 honorariums, then he might get all sensitive about his Church of Academic Moolah Extractor.

Will anyone deny that no matter how much academia is subsidized it is still an industry?

Angel| 3.11.09 @ 3:34PM

It's all about nihilism, and nihilism is cold; no love or warmth there. Cling to your weaknesses, your snotty arrogance, Law, but it's just a matter of time before Islam owns you. Enjoy.

Desert Flower| 3.11.09 @ 3:50PM

Thank you, Mr. Scruton, for a thought-provoking article.

“There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life.” This bus-borne message casts God as a tiresome, knuckle-rapping schoolmaster intent on denying us a good time. It suggests that we need aspire to nothing more than license. Does this really represent the “new humanist” viewpoint?

What about the view of God as a source of strength, wisdom, and inspiration? This view has sustained and ennobled many through the centuries, and it will continue to do so.

King Abdullah| 3.11.09 @ 6:29PM

Mr. Law,

Please come to Saudi Arabia, where we have lower rates of homicide, rape, drunkenness, sexually transmitted disease, suicide, crime in general etc. than Europe, even though we are far more religious. It is true that we are a backward, superstitious people compared to you infinitely wise and enlightened British. It is also true that we have a higher rate of teenage pregnancy, but then, aside from that thirteen-year-old boy in East Sussex, you Europeans don't really procreate anyway. Makes you think, doesn't it?

CH| 3.11.09 @ 8:54PM

LOL!! I don't think Mr. Law could take the desert heat; delicate little English flower that he is.

Stephen law| 3.12.09 @ 9:51AM

Re Saudi. You don't think the fact that they ban alcohol, chop bits of thieves, have public beheadings, etc might have something to with lower rates of drunkenness, etc.?!

You are kind of missing the point, the oft-repeated mantra (being peddled by Gerry) that "Without religion we will all go to hell in a handbasket! We need God to keep us on straight and narrow!" very obviously runs into a counter-example with us God-less heathens in Europe. Yes, you are right, the inhabitants of some religious countries are well, behaved - perhaps better behaved. But of course, that's irrelevant to the point I am making, and does not undermine my counter-example.

Stephen Law| 3.12.09 @ 10:00AM

What MAY be true is that religion can have a beneficial social effect, under the right circumstances. But then see my earlier link on that.

What I DO question is the assumption that without religion, we are f*cked. We're not. Or at least: where's the evidence to support that claim?

Here's a nice quote from the author of Wild Swans (from My Country, My People (1935) by Lin Yu Tang):

"To the West, it seems hardly imaginable that the relationship between man and man (morality) could be maintained without reference to a Supreme Being, while to the Chinese it is equally amazing that men should not, or could not, behave toward one another as decent beings without thinking of their indirect relationship through a third party."

Stephen Law| 3.12.09 @ 10:04AM

Sorry that came out wrong - the quote is from Lin Yutang, but I got it from Jung Chang.

Stephen Law| 3.12.09 @ 10:10AM

Point is: there are numerous examples of civilized, moral cultures in which morality is not based on religion, from Ancient Rome and Greece up to the present day.In his paper “The Contours of Remoralization” Fukuyama points out that Asia…

"provides important counter examples to the view that moral order depends on religion… The dominant cultural force in traditional Chinese society was, of course, Confucianism, which is not a religion at all but rather a rational, secular ethical doctrine. The history of China is replete with instances of moral decline and moral renewal, but none of these is linked particularly to anything a Westerner would call religion. And it is hard to make the case that levels of ordinary morality are lower in Asia than in parts of the world dominated by transcendental religion."

G.S. Paul did a cross national study of societal health and found:

"[i]n general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a “shining city on the hill” to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health."

Just saying "you can't have morality without religion" over and over and over don't make it true.

Pingback| 3.12.09 @ 2:22PM

“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” This is the Atheist links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…is a good one. But I think that Roger Scruton’s old style humanism (which he describes as that of his British parents’ generation) is, perhaps, better. Scruton suggests that his parents’ version of humanism would have been put this way: “There probably is no God; so start worrying, and remember that self-discipline is up to you.” Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)…

Angel| 3.12.09 @ 3:32PM

Law, "Thou doth protest too much." Our remarks are harmless, your real threat resides alongside you and you fellow citizens in your own country. Better watch your back, wimpy, Sharia's coming.

MT| 3.12.09 @ 3:34PM

Sorry, Mr. Law, you are f*cked. You're just too stupid and arrogant to see it. LOL

Unger| 3.13.09 @ 1:19AM

Stephen, I think your assertion that morality can exist without religion is a point that Mr. Scruton would agree with. The question I think is not whether morality can exist without a belief in God, but rather can Humanistic moralism be sustained? I think the glib hedonism implicit in the bus advertisement shows a moral decline. The fact that many humanist on this thread deny the hedonistic tone of the advertisement offers further proof of decline.
As far as your comments on Chinese society go, I am not sure what to make of them. When exactly was pre -communist China without religion? Confucianism is most certainly a religion, the third party working as a bond between people in the place of God was most often a dead ancestor. And yes ancestor worship is religion, as are Taoism, Buddhism, and the uncounted religious movements that have thrived and continue to thrive in China. Also as an aside Greece and Rome both supported official cults which were maintained by the state for the benefit of the state.
You seem to be defining religion very narrowly. Religion does not equal monotheism.

MT| 3.13.09 @ 2:22AM

Liberals are monotheistic: Obama is their only god. Abortion is their sacrament.

CH| 3.13.09 @ 11:56AM

Whatever our faults are, Mr. Law, (your country has many of the same faults, too), living here beats Sharia by a mile. Ignore my warning at your own peril because Sharia Law is coming to a town near you. Heads up!

milgram| 3.13.09 @ 3:41PM

Aren't you Xtians supposed to be all about love for your neighbour?

I have no interest in living in either a Christian or an Islamic theocracy, but the first worries more because that might actually happen.

The only people who people who believe that there's any likelihood of the "Islamisation" of Europe are either:
1. paranoid
2. ignorant of what Europe's like
3. on some messed-up "clash of civilisations" agenda.

There's only one clash of civilisations that matters, and its the one between the sky-fairy people and those who trust their fellow humans to make use of reason.

MT| 3.13.09 @ 5:28PM

European Christianity is weak, that's why Sharia Law will soon dominate the European people. You have lost the will to fight for your freedom. Whenever a vacumm is created (weak Christianity), a stronger force will rush to fill it (Sharia Law). You sky-fairy people are clueless, but radical Islam isn't; they already own you. Suckers. LOL

CH| 3.13.09 @ 5:34PM

Truth hurts, Milgram! Truth is tough love, the only truth that counts. You focus on a non-existent Christian threat because you are too chicken sh!t to confront Islam. "A coward dies a thousand deaths, a soldier dies but once." You are pathetic.

Pingback| 3.14.09 @ 2:55PM

Roger Scruton on the New Humanism | Philosophy Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…on the New Humanism The noble form of humanism has its roots in the Enlightenment, in Kant’s defense of the moral law, and in the progressivism of well-meaning Victorian sages. View post: Roger Scruton on the New Humanism a2a_linkname="Roger Scruton on the New Humanism";a2a_linkurl="http://philosophy.frenzyness.com/2009/03/14/roger-scruton-on-the-new-humanism/"; Leave a Comment You must be logged in to post a…

KPid| 3.14.09 @ 3:43PM

If there are any hedonists here who expect to find their home among the new humanists, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

These are the same people as Roger Scruton's parents, only perhaps less intimidated.

Anik| 3.14.09 @ 3:47PM

so someone please enlighten me as to how the behaviour of religionists is better than the behaviour of non-religionists. As to "god" what is the relation of any of the man-made "gods" (yahweh, jesus, "god", allah, rama, krishna, hanuman etc etc etc) to a being who may have actually created the universe?

CH| 3.14.09 @ 5:13PM

Hitler, Castro, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao are/were atheists. They were responsible for the slaughter of millions and millions of human beings in the 20th century. Enough enlightenment for you, Anik? Ignorant tool.

Ophelia Benson| 3.14.09 @ 6:50PM

"The British Humanist Association is currently running a campaign against religious faith. It has bought advertising space on our city buses, which now patrol the streets declaring that "There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life." My parents would have been appalled at such a declaration. From a true premise, they would have said, it derives a false and pernicious conclusion."

Really?! Scruton's parents were logicians, were they? Who talked in chorus?

He certainly seems to have a very detailed and confident knowledge of what they "would have" said about everything. It couldn't be that he's just making them think what he wants them to think could it? "Would have" is so useful that way; who can say he's wrong?

S.L. Toddard| 3.14.09 @ 8:39PM

Obviously, Scruton knew his parents better than you ever could--so I would trust his judgment over yours. Why split hairs?

Anik| 3.15.09 @ 9:17AM

Dear CH; is all the ad hominem vitriol really necessary or ar you just a naturally rude person with no rational, convincing argument? FYI - Stalin was educated at a seminary and Hitler was brought up catholic but that isn't important; what IS important is that the many people who actually carried out their millions of murders WERE christians to a large degree. Also are not communism amd nazism religions? Now dear, just count to 50 before you answer and try not to spit out your wheaties

N. P. West| 3.15.09 @ 9:52AM

Weren't the New Humanists two 1920s scholars Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More? Maybe I know too much about American conservative philosophy...

Ophelia Benson| 3.15.09 @ 2:10PM

I'm not saying I know better what Scruton's parents would have said, I'm saying he seems to have very detailed and confident knowledge of what they "would have" said, which is a terribly difficult kind of knowledge to have. I don't think I would ever say 'X would have said' about anyone, because I'm too well aware that I don't know what X would have said. That kind of confidence about a past conditional seems fairly absurd in a philosopher.

MT| 3.15.09 @ 2:23PM

You must have a terrible relationship with your parents; it explains your unhappiness. Your posts are absurd, and meaningless. I pity you.

martin | 3.15.09 @ 2:27PM

Prof Scruton is to hard on us Humanists.
On BBC radio recently, Prof Dawkins stated,
roughly, that he was comfortable with Christianity
& loved aspects of it - as I do.

All Westerners should know about their Judeo Christian heritage (also classicism & the Enlightenment). The only damage caused by ceasing to defend Christianity, is that our oldest
& most ruthless enemies , who still believe in an
evil religion, see a gap, which they are filling.

Martin

CH| 3.15.09 @ 2:28PM

Only an idiot would posit that communists and nazis are religious, which explains why Europe is such a disaster. Better get your burkas out, girls; you're going to need them. Have you figured out where Mecca is, yet? That should be next on your list--get on your knees! Weak, whiny losers. LOL

CH| 3.15.09 @ 2:34PM

Bravo, Martin. Thank you for making my point to these European losers: If you don't defend Christianity, something evil will replace it. It's physics; create a vaccuum, and a stronger force will rush to fill it. European Socialists are spoiled and stupid; if you don't fight for your heritage, you deserve Sharia. Good luck, you're gonna need it.

OB| 3.15.09 @ 3:01PM

Jeezis - basic epistemology is a symptom of unhappiness and a bad relationship with one's parents? Whewwwwww......

MT| 3.15.09 @ 3:09PM

Yup, and your weakness will result in Sharia for all of you. Morons.

Mong H Tan, PhD| 3.15.09 @ 4:16PM

RE: Why is the BHA cart parked in a cul-de-sac nowadays!?

I thought Scruton has a very keen eye on the "new" humanism worldwide -- especially one that has had cast a shaky shadow on the British humanism: from "That noble form of humanism [which] has its roots in the Enlightenment, in Kant's defense of the moral law, and in the progressivism of well-meaning Victorian sages;" to "This humanism [one which] is self-consciously "new," like New Labour; it has its own journal, the "New Humanist," and its own sages, the most prominent of whom is Richard Dawkins [RD], author of "The Selfish Gene" [TSG] and vice-president of the British Humanist Association [BHA]."

Epistemologically, the 21st-century humanism shall encompass and bridge both the scientific and religious wisdoms of the past: in and by which, a clear scientific conscience shall guide us forwards to the future; whereas religionism would invariably inform and remind us how far in milestones or eons that we have had been traveling along in time and in survival idealism -- from those of the primitively and superstitiously fearful hominin mental past -- especially at which time when all of their survival stories and prophecies in idealism and in religionism on faith and fate, were first created and now inherited in our global humanism and science and technology today and beyond.

As most readers might have known, the world-renowned reductionist of Darwinism and science RD has had been an armchair neo-Darwinist at Oxford since the publication of his first fad-science book TSG in 1976; and his subsequent pseudoscientific writings have had also been increasingly used and abused his own self-misguided reading of Darwinism and science against religionism -- please see his 1986 book "The Blind Watchmaker" and 2006 self-delusionist book "The God Delusion" -- a frivolous irrationalism in science, Darwinism, and religion (or Dawkinsism) that has had indeed been driving the BHA cart into a cul-de-sac; where at once the "old" British humanism has had all but lost in the dusk, with its "new" idealism (or Dawkinsism) now turned against RD's "imaginary" religionism; just as the lamentations that Scruton has had poignantly concluded above that "I never thought, when I finally put the old humanism behind me, that I would ever feel nostalgia over its loss. But now I recognize that it was not only noble in itself, but was also a serious attempt to retain the belief in nobility without the theological vision on which that belief had once depended. It was, in effect, a proof of the ideal that it proposed: an example of how human beings can provide themselves with values, and then live up to them."

Kudos to Scruton's acute lamentations over the epithet of the "old" British humanism par excellence, since the Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe!

Best wishes, Mong 3/15/9usct3:17p; author "Decoding Scientism" and "Consciousness & the Subconscious" (works in progress since July 2007), "Gods, Genes, Conscience" (2006: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0595379907 ) and "Gods, Genes, Conscience: Global Dialogues Now" (blogging avidly since 2006: http://www2.blogger.com/profile/18303146609950569778 ).

OB| 3.15.09 @ 4:44PM

Oh yes please - bring it on - I love sharia! Love love love it!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

MT| 3.15.09 @ 5:47PM

A burka will improve your looks by covering your fat a$$. LOL!

Sue| 3.17.09 @ 2:40AM

The Renaisance was a time when Western man turned from a culture based on the contemplation of the then proscribed half-baked god-idea, to that of the contemplation of the individual human being and his/her possibilities (mainly his of course).

The purpose of this "religion" was actually to reduce the Divine to the merely mortal meat-body human scale, and thus to make the Divine the slave of the collective cultural ego. Which was thus inevitably used to justify all of the horrors of the power seeking collective.

It was only a matter of time before the old half baked god-idea was no longer deemed to be necessary, and it was consequently done away with (Nietzsches prophetic observation "god is dead").

So all we have left is our ever more desparate and fearful meat-body-mortality---and a thus fear saturated "culture".

Where there is an other, fear spontaneously arises.

And the strident pre-scripted and never ending, and entirely fruitless shouting match between the benighted power seeking atheist-humanists and the equally benighted (and entirely godless) power seeking exoteric religionists.

The only kind of "religion" that you will find on this site and indeed all of those on the right of the culture wars divide.

unger| 3.17.09 @ 10:16PM

Sue
How could pre-Renaissance culture be based on 'the half-baked god-idea' if that idea was proscribed, perhaps you meant to say prescribed. I am sure you meant to say many things, but your post makes you seem like an arrogant illiterate gibbering in a New-speak of her own creation.

Pingback| 3.17.09 @ 10:25PM

The New Humanism: Prosthletizing Atheism « Royal Art News links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…against religious faith. It has bought advertising space on our city buses, which now patrol the streets declaring that “There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life.” Read the rest of the story. Posted in Atheism, Christianity/Catholicism, Europe, Religion | No Comments Trackback URI | Comments RSS Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Name (required) Mail (will not be published)…

MJL| 3.21.09 @ 1:09AM

I think it is terribly important to remember that God is a father. God in any monotheistic religion is the image of a father as a father is understood by a two- or three-year-old child, with his great potential to comfort, terrify and punish. We are all exiles from childhood and for all of our lives we long for fathers and mothers to take away our anxiety, while remaining terrified of their ability to dominate, castrate or rape us.

Marx put the case for atheism mildly. Religious belief, in individual minds, is more subtle and insidious in its effects than an opiate, and the relationship with a monotheistic god is as complicated, un-free and neurotic as are one's own childhood dealings with one's parents. If you set out, under the banner of humanism or atheism, to challenge the average person's allegiance to a sense of God on the basis, say, of God's obvious objective unreality, you ought to be ready to confront that person's frantic, even violent psychological resistance. To dispose of his/her God is to dispose of his/her symbolic father, with the attendant horrors of radical freedom and disappearance of a loving protector/punisher this would entail.

The other unmentionable in this debate is the limited intellectual abilities of the average human being. Whether we are actually situated in an urban or in a rural area, nearly all of us live as neolithic villagers did, in thrall to a very limited set of biological, social and psychological urges. The average person does not have the ability to think of anything that was not 'always already' there in his or her life-world, and has no insight into the last one-hundred years of his or her own village's existence, much less into his or her own mental processes. If there is a fundamental way to divide humanity, it might be between the peasants, always hugely dominant in numbers, and the perverse, who through unusual intellectual giftedness, achieve a largely pointless (if happiness is the point of living) insight into their own real existence, from which a number of political, aesthetic and social consequences that affect everyone might stem.

Ralph Tegtmeier| 3.21.09 @ 1:42AM

So maybe humanism is merely (finally?) saying good-bye to its crypto-religious roots? If so, such phases are typically dominated by fervor and zealotism, their proponents defining themselves as "liberators" and "enlighteners".

When intellectuals and materialist philosophers such as Haeckel end of the 19th century subscribed to the view that religion was bound to die out within a generation or two, it was certainly positivist hubris driving that belief. And utterly premature, too. This process is far from over and the throes of religious/deist paradigms fading out will probably be felt (and heard) for several generations to come yet.

There's a lot to be said for this view as religion and/or its ideals, moral codes and ethics are still very much predominant in present day Western culture. The "Enlightenment Project" is far from finalized (if it ever will be), and where collective ennuie becomes prevalent, it's hardly surprising that old fault lines will emerge.

Acidlines| 3.21.09 @ 2:12AM

What a wonderful debate -- despite the madmen and hecklers. I do think Scruton is suggesting a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to those of us who believe in reconciling our own moral and ethical concerns in our daily lives rather than basing our choices on the tenets of religion. I, too, have a warm, nostalgic feeling for a time before every nuanced issue required a screed or polemic. On the other hand, some issues have come to the forefront of society (social, technological, medical) that have not allowed for the same kind of modest, postwar, supposed objectivity. The rise of the church--of the mega-church --and its own tax-free bullhorn on issues from gay marriage to stem cell research has certainly played its role in escalating the debate. While I prefer Scruton's mostly careful regard for reason and gentle argumentation, I think he's missed the fiery art of the polemic, which, in its own way, can be equally illuminating and in some cases, the preferred moral mode of argumentation. Especially, in regards to issues of genocide and torture, I welcome the screed. Not all of us have the patience, or the acceptance, for what some might call "god's will" -- and others his abandonment. Some of us prefer to handle these issues without the additional complication of the unknowable.

Hector| 3.21.09 @ 4:49AM

Many of the New Humanists are Laodicean in tendency. In their social interractions they conform more to Christian norms than scientistic ones. For example they give to charity, defer to their leaders, name their children from the traditional spectrum and observe religious festivals, Christmas etc. Perhaps the examples of Robespierre and Lenin who strenuously failed to eradicate the phenomena of faith, have led them to characterize themselves as 'impossibilists', after the fashion of the Marxists still going around. If Professor Richard Dawkins, mentioned above, is characteristic of them in any way, I'm not sure.
However, to treat biographically, he has chosen to live in a religious state (Britain), at a religious institution (Oxford University) and in a part of it founded by a bishop (New College). In all cases secular equivalents exist. We see that the early Christians strove to impress by examples of self-sacrifice, whereas the atheists, sceptics or materialists have not found means of converting ideological perspectives into practical forms of life. They have not much advanced from Bacon's view that reason had no coercive power over actions sanctioned by moral, legal or customary authority, except by the power of persuasion inoffensively applied. Recently the thin strain of Western secularism has been confronted by the increased profile of societies with burgeoning populations and strong religious affirmation. To some extent it is an illusion, as it is economic salvation they crave. Nevertheless it is the Christians and Moslems who go among them, offering the ' bread of heaven', that ignite the imagination while the bread of life rots on the quay side and the rats build nests in the literature of 'sustainable solutions'.

Robert B (NZ)| 3.21.09 @ 5:48AM

Scruton is unneccessarily hard on "New" humanists, and drawing an inference about their beliefs from a single brief phrase on some buses, is like quoting one verse from the Bible and inferring the totality of Christian belief. If Dawkins, Harris, and the other prominent Athiest writes are strident, they are no more than a necessary counterbalance to the religious right who argue that we should behave in particular ways based on nothing more than their interpretation of some obscure and ambiguous texts of dubious authenticity. I have to believe that it is better to actually think about issues of morality than to accept such direction.

Some time ago my freethinking was challenged by a Christian, so I wrote a paper giving my beliefs and reasons: those that are interested can see this at http://www.robertb.co.nz/GeneralResources/Religion for the Rational.doc I concluded with: -

As an atheist I sometimes find myself adrift, wishing for the old certainties. It would be so much easier if one could belief the fairy tale, that there was an omnipotent God that loved me, that when I died I was going to heaven to live with Him, and that I needn’t worry about anything, because God will provide. But wishing doesn’t make it so, and living a lie in order to avoid facing reality is just not possible for me, and, in my view, unwise for everybody.

To those who say “Life has no meaning without God”, I can only wonder at their reasoning. Life is wonderful, a great journey of discovery, full of possibilities. What difference does a belief in God make?” To those who say “How can you be good without believing in God?” I would point out that neither my morality nor theirs depends on a belief in God, but owes more to the ancient Greek philosophers, to our innate sense of right or wrong, and to societal conditioning. Few Christians live good lives only because they fear the divine accounting, they live good lives because they know that it’s the right thing to do. So do I.

InScrutable| 3.21.09 @ 6:02AM

God is a metaphor for the unity, source and mystery of life, although I prefer to use the Buddhist term 'Mind.' The realization of this is the only alternative to the earnest emptiness of the new humanism with its vapid pleasure seeking. Ah, what pleasures shall I seek today, and will they make me any happier than yesterday? Why do they always leave me with a feeling of weariness and disgust, and will I still be chasing them next year? Better to contemplate a sparrow on the pavement.

JMiller| 3.21.09 @ 7:34AM

In an otherwise thoughtful discussion, MT and CH have consistently been childish, abusive, insulting, and utterly clueless about how adults debate. I'm thinking they might actually be angry teenagers.

There would be a need for morality even if there were no God. Morals stem from having to live in proximity to other humans. They also stem from the belief that other humans have intrinsic value, quite apart from any divine image they may represent. The argument that there is no morality without God is utterly specious. I am good to you because you are REAL to me, just as real as I am. I know you have the same capacity for suffering as I do. I respect you and I seek to do you no harm if you are a person of good will. Which strikes you as more upright--behaving well because it's the right thing to do in and of itself, or behaving well because you: A. Seek a reward B. Want to avoid punishment?

I am a friend to Christians. I'm married to one. But I can do no better than a weak Deism in my beliefs. In its history Christianity has excused and rationalized every kind of sin and every horror imaginable. (It defended slavery for centuries, for example.) And Nazism was built on 1,900 years of Christian anti-Semitism, which laid the groundwork for a brutal savage like Hitler. (Read Martin Luther's vicious diatribe "On the Jews and Their Lies" for a shocking example of this hatred.)

Let us stipulate that there are people of good will and good behavior among believers and non-believers alike. Let us also stipulate that we will never seek to govern the intimate behavior of other adults.

Topher| 3.21.09 @ 8:02AM

If there is no spiritual existence or God and we are just atoms flitting about in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics then all pain, joy, love, and morality is an illusion. Therefore, inflicting pain or cheating or humiliating someone, or starving someone is not evil. Since their pain, hunger, or humiliation is just a chemical reaction. An atheist can choose to live by morals, sure, and be a good person. But ultimately, without a spiritual dimension, there is no "good" since all actions are without moral content, since morality too is an illusion of atoms and chemical reactions in a random universe of matter sans spirit.

Angelo Muirragui| 3.21.09 @ 9:11AM

To each his own.

Thom| 3.21.09 @ 10:04AM

I have not and will not read all comments, but I did glance at one enlisting Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Camus as deconstructors of the Old Humanism, and concluding that pleasure is all one ought logically to live for (away with lofty, moldy gravitas; away with the soul; let's gorge ourselves in the garden of delights. Touching!).

I must only said this: those authors would be deeply embarassed (Nietzsche most of all, possibly!) for being associated with such a philosophy. They believed in such chimeras as restraint and nobility. Really! Read their books!

Cheers from Brazil

Bouts| 3.21.09 @ 10:50AM

Let's say, for purposes of discussion, that indeed "there is no...God and we are just atoms flitting about in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics," or that humans have been scientifically proven to be, like every other animal on the planet, evolutionary products of natural selection. And let's admit that in the face of these (for purposes of discussion) facts, "without a spiritual dimension, there is no 'good' since all actions are without moral content."

What are humanist scientists and philosophers then to do:

Censor themselves from reporting what they know because it'll be bad for societal behavior?

Convince themselves, somehow, that what they know isn't true, and deliberately embrace the illusions of God, soul, spirituality in order to maintain public order?

Release what they know only to a select elite who can handle uncomfortable knowledge and who will, in turn, manage it similarly?

Tell the truth as they know it and let the societal chips fall where they may?

(If Galileo had only shut up about the Earth not being the absolute center of the universe...)

David Ehrenstein| 3.21.09 @ 12:46PM

No surprise that Mr. Scructon let's pass in silentce the cheapjack thuggery and outright calls to murder engineered by organized religion, past and present.

Subir Sen| 3.21.09 @ 1:05PM

In a world, where most individuals are prisoners of the beliefs and customs of the community they are born into, your conscience (which most probably is a product of biological evolution over the aeons) in my opinion is the only beacon whom you can trust to show your way and tell you what to do or what not. Striving to follow your own conscience (not always an easy thing I assure you) will be enough in itself to give you a deep sense of satisfaction and make your life infinitely enriched and meaningful.

Chuck| 3.21.09 @ 1:10PM

I have lived a life of untrammeled self-indulgence for decades and I have never had a reason to regret one minute of it.

Bill| 3.21.09 @ 1:18PM

Roger Scruton seems to think that "...enjoy life." is the same as choosing to become a hedonist. I disagree. One can work diligently and enjoy life. In fact, I find that working diligently towards some goal is fun.

The author should try living in Texas. Then he and others who think that today's atheists are really tame. I have never had an atheist knock on my door and try to change me, I have never had an atheist come to my office when I taught college and ask me to pray (whatever the atheist equivalent might be). I've never had an atheist try to control my life, try to put on the money "There is no god". Believers want to control other peoples lives according to the dictates of their god.

Why is it that gods must be so egotistical? And hateful. Gods are the 'Ultimate Dictators'.

RO| 3.21.09 @ 1:37PM

Never heard of this publication before, but followed a link to this article and it clarifies for me why. But I read thru the article, and saw the comments. Well...

I'm amazed that so many comments reflect such a illogical perspective. Several even says without religion they couldn't see any reason for morality.

Duh? Religion creates only their twisted sense of 'morality' where hatred, killing and persecution is justified based on a bronze age belief system and the interpretation de jour of ancient manuscripts written before the most simple concepts of how the world works were understood.

Without religion, true moral structure guides us, not some bizarre concept of hedonism. We do the right thing because it's what makes our society healthy, progressive and caring. We don't follow some prescribed set of rules because of threats from some fictitious monster.

Just peruse the pundits for and against religion and which ones do all the foaming at the mouth, personal attacks and spewing of hatred?

Presumably some of the commentors are able to function normally and get through a day, without their lack logic or reasoning, and their penchant to adhere to things based on the fact that they've been written down for a really, really long time.

But gladly sanity is prevailing in most of the world, excluding southern & rural USA. And assuming they don't nuke the rest of us in some frenzy of bronze age ancestral cultishness, the true, kind morality of nontheists will gradually guide us all, rather than the seething isolationism that exists in those corners now.

BWise| 3.21.09 @ 1:46PM

CH is an American - sorry my friends, you have that next door to deal with.

Bruce Sarbit| 3.21.09 @ 2:23PM

Scruton is right to be concerned about the atheist bus campaign as a reflection of humanist principles in some measure because the campaign stoops to the level of those whose views it opposes. As a humanist who, among other values and principles, also happens to be atheist, I have been pleased to see the gains made for humanistic principles in recent times by a soft-sell approach. As a consequence, atheism too has experienced increasing respect and appreciation. It's gaining an ever-stronger place in the dialogue between reasonable people acting in good faith.
But the bus advert campaign as humanism’s effort to draw people to its principles takes the hard-sell path taken by religions over and over again: pitting beliefs against one another. By doing so, in slogan form no less, the bus campaign compels people who may not fully understand all that they should of the reasonable arguments made by humanists and religions to make their critical choice. It may even generate conflict between opposing positions, perhaps (at the extremes) to "holy" wars against “heretics” on the other side. Perhaps the conflict will only be played out on buses and in the media, but it's a conflict nonetheless, one beneath the high moral standards set by well-meaning people acting in good faith, both humanists and those who adhere to the tenets of their religion.
Maybe my problem is that I don't see the need to gain converts to atheism, through advertising campaigns or other means. The (other) principles of humanism, yes, might well be "advertised" to the max for believers and non may want to do the same kinds of things to make a better world. But, beliefs or lack of them with respect to the existence of supernatural powers is a matter of individual choice. There is no atheist church (so far as I know) and there shouldn't be one. It should be of no concern to atheists that there are more believers than non. It should be of no concern to me that I know nobody else whose beliefs are consonant with mine; in fact, I am glad for the differences, for they may become opportunity to dialogue in a spirit of mutual respect with others whose beliefs are different than mine; those dialogues actually draw us closer together, perhaps in the spirit consonant with Scruton's old humanism toward actions that make a fairer, more just world.

Nathan| 3.21.09 @ 2:55PM

Very depressing discussion. Among both the religious and the non-religious, religion seems to be primarily a matter of belief--belief that a thing called God exists along with all the other things that exist. This God then, for good or ill, sanctions a specific set of prohibitions and backs it with threats. Even in the Christian tradition, there are numerous instances of writers who explore the idea that prayer and worship open one to what cannot be made the simple propositional object of a belief. Even Augustine would call that "feigned faith," and would say that love has its own sight and its own relation to truth. Or consider the orthodox tradition, in which silence and theosis belong more intimately to religion than a belief in concepts. Unfortunately, both the religious and the non-religious are pretty much equally ignorant of the most intellectually and spiritually serious work of the best writers of the Christian tradition. Just now, I am reading Gregory of Nyssa's The Life of Moses, a genuinely significant writer near the origin of the orthodox tradition. I do not personally know another human being who has read this book--although I know many who speak with great certainty and vehemence about Christianity. But then ignorance and vehement certainty have never been strangers.

Mike| 3.21.09 @ 3:07PM

When I moved past religion into whatever the current label for that 'place' is, there was no more thought of religion. What's all this shit?

Mike| 3.21.09 @ 3:15PM

From both sides

Pingback| 3.21.09 @ 3:41PM

Topics about Religion » The American Spectator : The New Humanism links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

Topics about Religion » The American Spectator : The New Humanism Topics about Religion Home About The American Spectator : The New Humanism 21 Mar, 2009 Religion Topics Talk Islam added an interesting post on The American Spectator : The New Humanism Here’s a small excerpt Bookmark this on Delicious - Saved by furiousthinker to religion philosophy atheism scruton humanism -

Topher| 3.21.09 @ 4:40PM

Just to respond to Bouts:

You are right: "humans have been scientifically proven to be, like every other animal on the planet, evolutionary products of natural selection." But that doesn't necessarily mean that "we are just atoms flitting about in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics" or that the universe is without meaning or morality.

Science explains the physical universe and our bodies. Science is true. Evolution is true. But it does not explain everything.

Accepting spirituality does not mean rejecting science. Those who accept solely either one or the other lack imagination - indeed, their thinking is dogmatic on either side, not "free-thinking."

If you come to the conclusion that science explains or can explain everything, then please follow it to its logical (and "uncomfortable") conclusion: we are meaningless lumps of atoms that appear to have reason, senses, and will. We feel pain and joy, but the "we" that is feeling these things is a bunch of atoms and chemical reactions following the laws of physics.

Does science say otherwise? Didn't think so....

How can it be good or evil to do anything in this purely physical world? Why should harming another person be wrong, when people are just complicated assemblages of matter? Even their evolution-created complexity has no intrinsic value - it's just a natural progression of physical laws. There is no beauty - Beethoven's symphonies are just sounds that give pleasure to human beings, nothing more - and that pleasure - intellectual and emotional - is decidedly not spiritual at all. His music will disappear to oblivion along with the rest of the universe and all of us. Meaningless. So - who cares about the social order or well being? No need to "censor" yourself - any and all consequences are without moral content. No need to "embrace" any illusions you don't believe in - it doesn't matter. Nothing does in your purely material world.

Or are you saying life has intrinsic value and it's "evil" to harm or end it against someone's will? That beauty is real? That we should live in harmony and help one another? Well that's a leap of, dare I say, it, - faith.

Jime| 3.21.09 @ 7:04PM

An interesting article by Dr.Scruton. Maybe some of you have interest in this recent article by atheist Julian Biaggini criticizing the new atheism movement:

http://www.fritanke.no/ENGLISH/2009/The_new_atheist_movement_is_destructive/

Pingback| 3.21.09 @ 7:10PM

maanskyn » Roger Scruton: The New Humanism links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…belief in God as a human weakness. My parents too thought belief in God to be a weakness. But they were reluctant to deprive other human beings of a moral prop that they seemed to need. via The American Spectator : The New Humanism. philosophy atheism, conservatism, humanism, religion Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment Trackback No comments yet. No trackbacks yet. Name (required) E-Mail (will not be published)…

Sebastian| 3.21.09 @ 8:07PM

It simply does not follow that the absence of a deity, this supposed "death of God," leads to a world without morality. Dostoyevski was wrong, as are of course this new humanists and their otherwise nihilistic Christian analogs. Morality existed long - long - before the reign of Tiberius, and coherent morals have been operative in places that have never known of Christian revelation, whether Athens, Rome or the Orient. The problem was placing all of our ethical and moral eggs in one basket - The Cross. Once that was removed, we were left rootless and wayward.

Had we never over-invested in Christianity, its demise would not have left us so naked before the abyss. Our moral order, like our political one, must derive it source from many fonts of wisdom and obligation, not just the Bible. A kind of ethical federalism was superior to the reduction of the Good to The Cross. That's why we flipped.

Cormac| 3.21.09 @ 8:35PM

I haven't read all the posts, so forgive any redundancy, but several early commentors seem to correlate religious belief with morality. I am an atheist who was adamantly opposed to the invasion of Iraq, and am opposed to capital punishment. My opposition to both is based on secular humanist morality. My brother, like former president bush is an enthusiastic adherent of Christianity who supports both the death penalty and invading countries for trumped up reasons. I find this kind of moral hypocrisy common in Christians. Not all, of course, but there were plenty of self-professed Christians who cheered the invasion of Iraq. And plenty of atheists who opposed it. God and religion is not required for morality, atheism is not a guarantee of immoral or righteous behavior.

I find Dawkins a great writer when it comes to evolution, and a bore when it comes to his atheistic fervor. Every bit as tiresome as evangelical Christians.

Gnome de Pluehm| 3.21.09 @ 10:57PM

"Just leave those of us who choose to believe in God to our beliefs . We are of no threat to you as you seem to think."

Oh? Have you heard of the Dominionists? Are you aware of what has gone on at the US Airforce Academy in the way of threats to those who don't convert?

Mark| 3.22.09 @ 12:50AM

Yes, Mr. Scruton, and I miss those old Anglican churchgoers who quietly practiced their religion without accosting people or even talking about God that much. I suspect that many of them were atheists, but they went for the community. But for the last 30 years, we have been accosted by loud, belligerent evangelicals, on the street, on the radio, on TV, and in politics. And for most of that time, the Humanists were so quiet that hardly anyone knew they existed. Humanist organizations have been, until very recently, older and more sparse than those old Anglicans. Religion used to be a private, personal matter, like sex. But a new culture of exhibitionism had taken over, and it disgusts me.

When I was a believer, I was horrified by loud-mouthed proseletizers who seemed to be exposed for hypocrites on a weekly basis. My faith became an embarrassment to me because the people who took it upon themselves to blast everyone with their Christian (?) beliefs were so utterly repellent that I found myself forced to distance myself from them constantly. Finally, after 9/11, I gave up when they same "Christians" took the opportunity of mass murder to let the perpetrators off the hook and blame instead... the ACLU?! Falwell and Robertson's opinions have since been echoed by a great many of their fellow believers, who think if we were more religious, like the Taliban, this wouldn't have happened.

Like so many other Christians, I became an atheist. We really are New Humanists, because we were only convinced of the need to be so recently. You really should take an interest in what's happening in the world once in a while.

Context is everything.

Pingback| 3.22.09 @ 2:00AM

Bookmarks: Find Colored Images, Proxy Servers, SMS, CRM, Medusa, Reddit in Real Time, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Social Notworking” Not familiar with the phenomenon? Lucky you! Anyway, look up the term here. And finally, a bit of philosophy for those so inclined - Roger Scruton (The American Spectator): “The New Humanism” So maybe modern humanism is merely (finally?) saying good-bye to its hidden religious roots? (Includes a comment by yours truly.) Â Subscribe Feed! Please Share This! These icons link to social…

Canetoader| 3.22.09 @ 8:01AM

I got one-third into Scruton's article before realising what he calls a 'new humanist', many of us would call a Marxist. That whole aggressive atheism, the need to find dissenters stupid, the Messianic sense of self and the big give-away: defining themselves in terms of what they're against. The 'new humanism' is what you get when Marxist-Leninism fails in political economy but succeeds at a cultural-intellectual level.

cam| 3.22.09 @ 10:56AM

Nietzsche also described the lower class and meek as defining themselves in terms of what they're against.
Like the author, I was raised post war, my parents made a feeble attempt to continue religious practices, but it gradually petered out as did my faith.
I must respond to those who claim there is no morality without a god.
I act as though everything I do contributes to the world I live in, I choose to behave morally and I don't need a god to make that choice. I choose to be respectful, kind, generous, polite etc. because those actions will add to the world I want to live in. If I litter, the world would have a litterer in it , and would be dirtier. This is not complicated!!

Tedd| 3.22.09 @ 11:29AM

I used to say that, with a belief of no afterlife, there is nothing sensible to do but to live a good life. But then I starting asking, "What's a good life?" Whenever I try to answer that, my reasoning always leads me to something mystical. That's why, although I've been a non-believer in God, or any particular religion, all my adult life, I've never quite been able to be a humanist, either. Various people have also tried to explain to me a form of moral reasoning built around evolution, but, there again, the answer is long on "what" but short on "why."

So, I have a question for Nate, K, and others who claim to be striving for the kinds of human and moral virtues that religion has traditionally promoted, but without religious belief. Why do you do so, and how do you know what's virtuous? I don't mean this to be in any way rhetorical or antagonizing. I'm genuinely interested in your answer because I believe I'm doing the same thing, but I can't answer the question.

Cormac| 3.22.09 @ 12:10PM

For Tedd: Your question as to how do we know what is virtuous is answered by any understanding of various religious/moral systems. After all, any sensible person can agree they were created by men. Do you really need men with a religious dogma to inform your morals? How do they differ from secular morals? Everyone knows that it can all be boiled down to one simple rule: "treat others as you would like to be treated." I've spent over 20 years studying various religious and spiritual traditions while living in NYC and functioning in various professions. The combination of my autodidaticism and empirical exploration leads to a very simple conclusion: Adhere to this one simple rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated. What difference does it make whether it's Jesus, Yahweh, Buddha, Mohammed or (fill in the blank)? The values of acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, love, generosity of spirit are universal among these traditions.

If reading suggestions help, look up Stephen Mitchell, who translates many different spiritual texts with respect for those texts and their traditions. I hope this helps.

Vince| 3.22.09 @ 12:24PM

Tedd: Do you really need religion to inform virtue? Isn't it self-evident that being kind, generous and respectful is virtuous and being cruel, selfish and disrespectful is devoid of virtue? Doesn't the contrast of how those conflicting values are received inform our understanding? So why do we need external or super-natural impositions when our own internal and empirical information provides the needed conclusion?

Send a check to a loved one and see the response. Send a letter informing another loved one that you believe (s)he owes you money, note the contrasting responses. Smile when you interact with a cashier/clerk, then snarl at the next, note the contrasting responses. For no particular reason just hug your spouse/lover/children/etc... and note their response.

Simply gauge the reactions of the world to virtuous behavior and relish the good feelings in your own body and mind. Then practice cruelty, rudeness, selfishness and disrespect and feel the tumors grow in your body and psyche. Then after this experiment tell me you need a god to tell what is virtuous and what is not.

Pingback| 3.22.09 @ 12:27PM

Blogasms: What I’m Reading Today « The Nappy Cat Chronicles links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…attacks the belief in God as a human weakness. My parents too thought belief in God to be a weakness. But they were reluctant to deprive other human beings of a moral prop that they seemed to need… Roger Scruton It’s over — we’re officially, royally fucked… Matt Taibbi Start the Discussion Replying to Comment... [ Cancel ] Name: E-Mail (not published): Website (not required): XHTML: You can use…

Jenna Dane| 3.22.09 @ 3:55PM

It might be helpful to keep in mind a few things. Over a period of more than a week, there are very few people who were compelled to comment here. Whether falling on the side of some sort of religious or non-religious philosophy, it seems that the main group of folks who are compelled to comment are those who desperately want others to think as they do. So, reading through the comments, it would be silly take away the thought that 'everybody' thinks any particular way.

Common sense tells you that with or without the oversight of a deity, that there are survival reasons that will always make morality a useful tool. A society in which everyone lived without morality, or some set of principles of behavior, would be unsustainable. It would be very difficult to survive without for the most part cooperating with one another. In practical terms, that cooperation becomes apparent as kindness, self-sacrifice, and so forth. Morality is certainly not dependent on religion. But we are dependent on a sense of morality for our survival.

Religion is just a means to organize and formalize customized rules for morality, as it suits the individuals that create the religion. General morality is built into our species, organized or not.

cormac| 3.22.09 @ 4:56PM

Good point Jenna, on the universality of morality. The list of cultural traits shared by every culture ever studied (google: Universal People) confirms this. However, religion serves functions than just codifying morality, it reconciles mortality and thus confers meaning on existence. It has been said that man made god the moment he recognized his own mortality. I don't believe in any god, but i do believe it is a foundational component of religion.

Jenna Dane| 3.22.09 @ 5:57PM

You are right Cormac, of course. I'm guessing that was subconscious cowardice on my part. The lack of a meaning of life is what throws everyone into an uproar. If there is no meaning to life, then what?

I do not believe there is a meaning to life, or a deity either. But, isn't it interesting that according to studies, it is the people that do believe who are happier and healthier?

I do not believe--in a deity, or the associated 'higher purpose'. I live morally, honorably, truthfully, simply because I find that the easiest way to live, if I am going to live. I also have family and friends who seem to appreciate and benefit from me living as I do. However, the lack of a 'higher' meaning to my life is often on my mind. I am saddened by the fact of it. Being a microscopic bit of dust that does not matter in the universal, or multi-universal, sense is not pleasing or stimulating or inspiring.

Since it seems that those who do believe are on average healthier and happier, I rarely talk about my non-belief or the reasons behind it because I see no benefit in my view or in convincing others of the rightness of it.

cam| 3.22.09 @ 6:54PM

Some good points from very thoughtful people.
The fact that I'm a bit of dust in an instant of time motivates me to make sure I make the most of every moment and every ability I have. Any thing I can do to contribute in my own special way, I will do.

Peter| 3.22.09 @ 7:06PM

Interesting article, and interesting comments (even the sillier ones insisting on the truth of their faith-based claims). Note: we are a kind of animal that lives in bands, clans, or tribes. Our morality follows from that - that it is noble to die for a friend, for instance. Our sense of morality follows from what we are, what helps our band survive and prosper over competing bands. If we were solitary creatures (like cats), or herd animals (like buffalo), our morality would be very different - but it would seem just as "right" to us. And - who knows? - we might ascribe our morality to a giant, perfect cat or buffalo in the sky. And there would be cat-ists and bison-ists who would become unpopular by maintaining that they don't need such a mythical creature in order to be good cats or bison.

Peter| 3.22.09 @ 7:09PM

PS: Wasn't there a sci-fi book by Jerry Pournelle which featured elephant-like invaders? One of the points of the book was that their "herd" morality was way worse than our "tribe" morality... even though, by the internal logic of the book, they were perfectly moral on their own terms! That kooky, right-wing, Jerry Pournelle. Fun book, though.

stuart munro| 3.22.09 @ 7:26PM

Well in broad terms I agree. The defining character of Dawkins & Hitchens pop atheism is an illnatured determination to rob others of their freedom of religion.
They are forgetting, in their prurient enthusiasm, that it was its prurient excesses that made formal religion unpopular in the first place.
In many cases they intend to indirectly attack Islam. While this suits the purposes of military and industrial interests it is very far from the enlightenment tolerance or post-modern differance to which they pay lip service, and from which they claim their moral authority.
It astonishes me that such loathesome and irrational piffle gets published.

Morse| 3.22.09 @ 7:51PM

A 'humanism' that would malign famous humanists Erasmus and Thomas More isn't much of a humanism, new or otherwise.

Jenna Dane| 3.22.09 @ 8:35PM

Cam, your outlook is uplifting. A man once told me years and years ago, that you can choose a perception [of your existence] that is a billion light years away or right up close; but you can only do your living up close.

I would be very interested to hear other folks thoughts about 'meaning of life' or 'purpose of life', in the absence of religious beliefs.

As I see it, humanity as a whole has not improved much over the span of its existence. We remain violent, greedy, short-sighted, judgemental, destructive, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that we will ever aspire to anything that even we ourselves find admirable.

With that in mind, when I give the idea of the 'meaning of life' any thought beyond my perception of the day-to-day and caring for individual beings, the 'purpose' in anything evaporates very quickly.

Pingback| 3.22.09 @ 9:47PM

Will nobility return? « bobgarlitz links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Front Page About ← Poem by Patrick Armstrong Will nobility return? March 23, 2009 · No Comments Roger Scruton makes a distinction I recognize — http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/10/the-new-humanism The old humanism was not a pleasure-seeking, still less a pleasure-loving philosophy. It took its inspiration from Enlightenment philosophers, from Milton, Blake, and D. H. Lawrence,…

John Tate| 3.23.09 @ 2:36AM

Roger Scruton is talking rubbish.

Just Google 'The British Humanist Association' and find out from the horses mouth what humanist ACTUALLY believe and stand for.

Talk about bloody straw men...Good Grief!

Bruce Gorton| 3.23.09 @ 4:34AM

King Abdullah

homicide, rape, drunkenness, sexually transmitted disease, suicide, crime in general

Rape? Well how often is rape reported in a country where getting raped is likely to get you 200 lashes? Yeah, shoowa boet.

blog nerd| 3.23.09 @ 5:04AM

I find it odd that Humanism (old or new) classifies itself as necessarily God-less. It was, of course, a Christian movement inspired by the reclamation of the Greek classics and a sort of theological and philosophical syncretism. With all due respect, I think even what Scruton is calling the "old" humanism flatters itself too much by claiming continuity with Renaissance Humanism.

Inasmuch as it eventually traveled a trajectory toward the secular humanism of today-and now becomes this absurd form of fundamentalist atheism--it ceased to be Humanism and should have began to call itself something else.

Of course, most cannot resist reading the en vogue secularism backwards into the history of ideas--you have dictionaries of philosophy calling the work of ancient Greek philosophers "secular"--when they were nothing of the sort they were pagan which made no distinction between secular and sacred as we understand the terms--and a historical narrative which sees the moral atheism Scruton describes as an eventuality of Humanism rather than one radically divergent exponent of it.

Humanism was an expansion of theistic thinking.

Dawkins et. al are truly an eventuality of a philosophical movement divested of its humors and guts.

Bruce Gorton| 3.23.09 @ 5:16AM

stuart munro

Nice example of religious "Oh what a victim I am" there.

Maybe you should read a bit of Dawkins or Hitchens before claiming they are saying something.

Neither advocates outright banning religion. Both advocate treating religion just like any other idea, religious charities just like any other charities.

In other words, they advocate being free to disagree with religion, and that being religious doesn't give you a moral license to sponsor bad behavior.

You see this as a threat because the thought that someone might just be free to disagree with you, and actually say so, means you can't cling to this as a source of innate superiority.

Religion has never, ever been about promoting morality, or freedom. It has always been about finding someone to demonise and scape-goat.

It has always been an ego boost for genuinely horrible people. So yeah, you slam gay marriage to your third wife, or you think the poor can starve in the name of "personal responsibility", you can oppose birth control, sex education, abortions and single mothers getting benefits.

And then complain about the youth of today not having much in the way of family lives. The right to live ends once you are out of the womb.

If you are in Saudi you can always go watch the adulteress next door get stoned to death. Or the rape victim get flogged. Chances are you might have season tickets.

And of course, there is this idea that you shouldn't be happy, or enjoy life. That is the heart of Scruntan's article, how dare people just be, you know, happy?

Religion's war on joy, is because if people actually start enjoying themselves they might just not need the schaudenfreude of condemning minor sins as much.

Maybe they will start basing their egos on horrible things like actual achievements that make everybody's lives better.

It is far easier to praise the failure's misery, than the success' joy - if you are a religion. The former wants an excuse, the latter doesn't.

flora| 3.23.09 @ 5:50AM

I had always thought 'old' humanism was as described above but then I encountered the British Humanist Association. I have since been embarrassed to call myself a humanist as I don't believ in the removal of God from society and politics. Funilly enough there is a far less prolific British Secularist Society, are the 'new' humanists stealing their domain?

halves| 3.23.09 @ 6:21AM

Perhaps the best thing one can say at the equation religion-moral standards is: "look at what jews and muslims and christians have done through the ages in the name of God and morality..." O f course, historically and theoretically it is possible (and it has been possible) to live morally withou fear of God. And it is certain that many wars and horrendous crimes were committed in the name of religious morality.
The only thing that concerns me in the article is the fact that the New Humanists actually paid for an advert. That I find negative in itself, not to mention that it is a contradiction in terms (the advert looks like its authors are actually worried about something...)

DavidC| 3.23.09 @ 6:29AM

Step 1: build strawman

Step 2: beat the life out of it

If Scruton thinks the BHA is all about hedonism, then he very clearly hasn't bothered looking at their website. Or maybe he did, but responding to that would have nullified all of his arguments.

The bus campaign that he uses to construct his strawman was in response to religiots running ads that promised non-believers would spend eternity burning in agony. Evidently, Scruton wants us atheists to keep quiet about that.

Maybe Scruton is ignorant of the spread of publically-funded indoctrination centres for British children - the government calls them 'faith academies'. We should keep quiet about that, too?

Maybe Scruton is ignorant of the stealthy spread of creationism in British schools, exported and funded by American evangelicals. We should keep quiet about that, too?

No, Mr Scruton, the world and the people have moved on from the one your parents grew up in and we're not going to keep quiet in the face of constant provocation by people adhering to Bronze Age idiocy - it's called 'progress'.

Jeremiah| 3.23.09 @ 7:29AM

The word "humanism" -- like the word "liberalism" -- is a tricky term.

Traditionally, "humanism" has always had moral and religious consequences, but it really suggests an attitude towards the past -- and especially towards antiquity. Humanism was what distinguished the Renaissance from the Dark Age and was found in what Pico called the Dignity of Man.

I don't think there is any "old" or "new" humanism; there have always been many humanisms, Christian and otherwise.

John| 3.23.09 @ 9:23AM

As a Humanist myself I'm very interested in humanistic developments and history world wide. For any interested I'd recommend Speaking of faith' A Hstory of Doubt http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/doubt/
Or Buddha in the World http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/buddhaintheworld/
Or Exploring a new Humanism http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/new_humanism/index.shtml
The fundamental insight or humanistic understanding is interdependence,interconnection of all things including ourselves. The interdependent Web of Life. We can see with the recent economic problems. Which come from a deniel of interdependence, which is a deniel of causality or cause and effect.Science and medicine are made possible by looking closely at cause and effect. This is also "what comes around goes around","reap what you sow""karma"etc.... This insight is at the core of The Golden Rule which has versions world wide. The ancient Greeks said it,Confusius,Buddha,Jesus, Muhammad,as well as the hindu and Jewish writings. It is the understanding that your own happiness,wellfare,security,economic prosperity,and on and on, is one and the same as that of all others!!!!! Then you really can love your neighbor as yourself, and this is the basis of democracy. The understanding that our happiness and well fare is one and the same!!!
With a fundamental understanding of the nature of true reality as interdepedence/causalty. Questions like is there any God/Gods or not?? Become meaningless. What does that even mean???
I eat food from the garden of the universe
I drink water from the fountain of the universe
I breathe the air of the whole universe
My life comes out of the whole universe.
Being pulled by the gravitational force of the whole universe
I become pure and clear.
The whole universe is where I return.

Richard| 3.23.09 @ 9:50AM

Of course, to point out or mention the facile nature of some humanists while ignoring the facile and grotesque consumer consumption of some christian fundamentalists is like drinking from a fouled stream but ignoring the source.

Tedd| 3.23.09 @ 11:00AM

Cormac and Vince, those are all excellent points, but, again, long on "what" and short on "why." I don't have any particular problem with the idea that moral principles (or definitions of virtue) that are common across religions have stood the test of time and therefore probably have value. It's a decent, workable model for behaviour. But it falls far short of being a moral theory.

Vince asked, "Isn't it self-evident that being kind, generous and respectful is virtuous and being cruel, selfish and disrespectful is devoid of virtue?" I think it is, but, without an argument to back it up, my opinion means nothing. And, even if we could agree that we have a good definition of virtue, we still need an argument for why being virtuous matters.

I think Jenna hit the nail on the head with her (I assume from the name) discussion of meaning. She believes there is no meaning, but chooses to live according to what she thinks is moral, honourable, and truthful. That's fine, but, if it doesn't mean anything then, other than the pragmatic argument that it makes it easier to get along with other people, why does it matter?

Even Kant was forced to assume a "special place in creation" for mankind in order to justify his categorical imperative, and I'm nowhere near as smart as he was. So, without some similar assumption of divinity, how can I hope to know what's moral, and why I should care about it in the first place? I don't think there's any way to escape this: without meaning nothing matters, and without faith there can be no meaning.

(And, yes, I'm aware of the argument that evolution is the meaning. But, even if we accept that as true, we still have no justification for behaving morally as individuals. Evolution is going to proceed along just fine even if I misbehave.)

Philip| 3.23.09 @ 11:03AM

Religion used to offer the received commentary on and instructions for how to be, live, and relate in the world. Its dogmas now are no longer acceptable to enlightened minds; that is how it should be. But with the condition of the world as it is and the dangers we face, can we afford to assume that things are going to turn out okay if we just live and let live with no agreed-upon principles for how to live and be with one another? Of course, this is a massively complicated undertaking, but our species has made a terrible mess of things, and it seems to me that some concerted effort should be directed at figuring out what we can agree on that our evolutionary trajectory suggests as the way to construct a future that will minimize suffering and injustice. I think we should figure out what we should believe in in order to make this happen.

Pingback| 3.23.09 @ 11:55AM

blog of kevinstein » G’me that Old Time Humanism: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Religious G’me that Old Time Humanism Posted by kevinstein on March 23, 2009 at 11:55 am. Humanist Roger Scruton reflects on the growing militantism, especially in Britain, of the New Humanism (The American Spectator, March 2009). Nostalgically, he compares it to the Humanism of his childhood and his parents. Like so many modern ideologies, the new humanism seeks to define itself through what it is against…

Amanda| 3.23.09 @ 12:12PM

So many points to be made, but I'll settle for this one: I find it amusing when people speak of human-made moral codes as if there were any other alternative. What's that? You get your code *directly* from God? Which book is that in again? You think the age of it brings authority? You think that's the oldest of its kind, then?

So many inconsistencies, even in the claims of the believers, that, like my astronomy prof *trying* to reconcile the so-called system of astrology, it can't be done.

Mark| 3.23.09 @ 1:04PM

Moral improvement, independent of transcendental religion, is a basic empirical fact of the post-enlightenment west. Who on this thread would dare argue for slavery? Or workers' rights? Or against equality for women?
To Jenna: assuming you're a woman, are you telling me there is ANY period in human history you'd prefer over the present? I wouldn't imagine so. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Candide-like whig, but the tone of this very interesting thread is overly declinist - probably because Scruton is a sanctimonious platonist Tory (man is he condescending towards his parents) - and thus denies basic facts.
I felt this point anew while watching 'Milk' (a soppy film made passable by Penn's brilliance), and having lived in SF. To think those battles were being fought in the 1970's, and look at SF and the world now. Not perfect, but better.

Mark| 3.23.09 @ 1:20PM

To Jenna and Tedd:
Morality is not dependent on epistemological justifications of it. The question "But what's the meaning of life?" is generally a bad question because it's a trojan horse for transcendentalism (that's why evangelical christians chalk it on pavements). It implies that there needs to be a transcendental answer, and if that fails, absolute nihilism. It's a covert all-or-nothing.

You've answered your own point though, Tedd. Your point that morality works and has value is the answer to the 'why'. Also in your response to Jenna where you say "That's fine, but, if it doesn't mean anything then, other than the pragmatic argument that it makes it easier to get along with other people": that is exactly the meaning, the why. Getting on with people is probably the most fundamental and necessary thing for any human being. And, I would aver, a pretty damn important why.
To answer your other points: you already care about morality (why write on this thread otherwise) and I'm sure you already know what it is, so the 'why' is a redundant question that again demands a transcendental answer. Moral knowledge is as real as any other kind, even if it's not necessarily reducible to scholastic syllogisms. But then if you think Kant was the last word on philosophy (as most people still do), you won't be convinced by what I've said.

birder| 3.23.09 @ 2:17PM

Unfortunate that the only thing keeping these religious commenters from killing one another is belief in a boogeyman that will get you if you behave poorly.

Do you people really think the only thing holding society together is fear of God? If so, then you're probably of a weaker moral standing than most atheists.

Nicholas| 3.23.09 @ 2:53PM

Many atheists and humanists who have contributed to this discussion appear to believe (as a matter of faith, obviously) that certain moral norms, such as doing as you would be done by, not hurting others, loving your neighbour, are inherently and universally valid in human society. This is not the case. To give but three examples, a Hindu is under no obligation to assist the poor: they fully deserve their state, which is the reward for their misbehaviour in previous incarnations. In ancient Athens, which gave us democracy, the evidence of a slave was inadmissible in court if not obtained by torture. And in both Greece and Rome the exposure of babies was not murder but a parental right. Society cannot operate without generally agreed moral rules; and humanists may adhere to Christian values within a Christian society. But if Christendom as whole abandons Christianity, upon what authority will its moral rules be founded? In a village in the Amazon jungle, for example, morality may susbsist by consensus; but in a larger society the rules governing behaviour between indviduals must be acknowledged as authoritative by those individuals: personal opinion is not good enough. It may be, as Plato said, that our religion is the noble lie in which we need to believe in order to preserve our society from disintegration.,

Dan P| 3.23.09 @ 2:58PM

Ryan| 3.10.09 @ 8:34AM
> If I wasn't a Christian, I think I wouldn't care about
> humanity because I don't see the point of morality

Many Christians who despise people and only treat them morally because their fear of God is greater than their despite. I guess I'm glad that there is religion in this world to keep such people in check.

Humanists value people simply because they are people.

FDB| 3.23.09 @ 9:38PM

Like most atheists I know, I try not to attack my friend's religious feelings because I feel they need them. And I don't object to others fostering religion because I think most people need religion to make them behave morally.

Patronizing of me isn't it?

Tedd| 3.23.09 @ 10:35PM

Mark:

I haven't created a false choice, nor am I trying to put any one metaphysical argument ahead of another, including materialism. I'm merely pointing out that the more strictly I limit myself to (our present understanding of) materialism the less basis I have, other than pragmatism, for making moral choices.

It's entirely possible that that will always be the case, that no understanding of morality beyond mere pragmatism is possible, or even meaningful. On the other hand, if we accept that on faith, and it's wrong, we'll have missed an important opportunity. Distaste for exploring the meaning of life puts as much constraint on science as does any other religious preference.

To say that getting along with people provides the "why" doesn't help. Why, other than pragmatic reasons, should I care? Sure, I agree: if nobody cared that would be a problem. But now we're back to the categorical imperative. In the absence of a "special place in creation" it still doesn't answer why I should care. If there genuinely is no meaning, I can't see that there's an answer to that question. Don't get me wrong, I believe it does matter. But I acknowledge that my belief is a matter of faith, at this point in history, not logic or science. That's where I part company with most other atheists I know.

Tedd

Jenna Dane| 3.23.09 @ 11:50PM

What fun!

Tedd and Mark

In reference to “but, if it doesn't mean anything then, other than the pragmatic argument that it makes it easier to get along with other people, why does it matter?” …

I fall on the pessimistic side, guessing that, at best it is only from a personal perspective, that it might matter, if at all. I have no sense that there is a meaning that just hasn’t been discovered or formulated, though I have a very strong desire for it. Do most people feel there is a meaning or purpose? Maybe the human faith that there must be a purpose, even if undefined, was an evolutionary defense mechanism (and maybe mine is defective). Having that faith, religious based or not, would certainly go a long way toward protecting a newly intelligent, thinking species from dying off as a result of seeing no purpose to life/procreation/survival.

Though unflattering, it feels as though my desire to be a good human being (at least my version of being ‘good’), like my desire to continue living even in the absence of a higher purpose, is a result of instinct/DNA … not much different than say the wolf that kills the doe, cares for its litter, cooperates with the pack, or kills and takes the place of the alpha.

I don’t appear to have a fear of ‘getting in trouble’ and obviously no fears associated with religious consequences or the bogey man. When I fail to be ‘good’, something kicks in and I suffer pain, such as that associated with guilt; when I am good and have benefited others, I feel pleasure. In order to live, to avoid the pain and experience the pleasure, I feel compelled to be ‘good’. If I did not experience the uncomfortable cause and effect, perhaps I would have no compunction to be good. I don’t know.

How some/a few/most people answer or just approach the ‘meaning of life’ question is interesting. I am curious what drives others, who like me, have no religious belief. Where do the majority fall, in general: do most feel there is a meaning; do most feel the answer is/will be universal or only personal; do most even care about the question at all. Is what drives me what drives some/a few/many others? What drives me seems to be basically an avoidance of pain. I do not like that idea, any animal will work to avoid pain. Other people must have more interesting views, probably more admirable. I want to hear about them.

Pingback| 3.24.09 @ 12:00AM

Humanism and the New Humanism | The Blog of Record links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Wikipedia fun Women WWII Archives March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 Pages About Humanism and the New Humanism By: Al Published: March 23rd, 2009 Roger Scruton compares the humanism of his youth and the new humanism of today’s Britain whose latest achievement was writing “There probably is no God” on city buses. As usual, the sequel is hardly an…

Phil p| 3.24.09 @ 12:57AM

What I don't understand about these newer "scientific" humanists is that many of them don't seem to think there is a difference between men and animals or even men and the periodic table. To be a humanist, don't you at least have to believe there is something special about humans and their ability to control their own destiny? Humanist has just become some cute misnomer.

Pingback| 3.24.09 @ 2:10AM

The New Humanism links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…promote them. Its principal fear was that, deprived of religious belief, people would let go of their ideals. Hence it urgently sought a new basis for moral restraint in the idea of human dignity.’ Read more. This entry was posted in Current articles of interest . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « On the importance of reading before theorising Post a Comment Click…

Raiko| 3.24.09 @ 3:20AM

Roger Scruton, do you realize that you simply didn't grasp the point of the bus campaign and are making yourself look really ridiculous with your interpretation of it - at least towards everyone who got the point.

Here, I'll explain it to you so you don't expose yourself again: Religious people, especially Christians and Muslims, seem to think that some almighty being is watching them, that there is some sort of Armageddon to come where we will all be judged and that many of them are going to end up in hell; that their little misdemeanors of the day will be punished by an all-powerful being, or that it will bear consequences if they dare to peek outside of religious dogma. The bus campaign is simply saying that such worrying (for worrying is what it is!) is completely unnecessary and you can just go out and enjoy your life without that burden. "Life, in itself, is great!" It doesn't tell you to seek pleasure, it tells you to enjoy *what you have*.

Also, you talk highly of your parents and their ideals. I personally realize that "live and let live" is a policy that only works as long as everyone embraces it. Since you're writing for the American press, you should by now have realized that religious people, for a large part, do not embrace this philosophy. They do not let humanists just be, they wish to interfere with education, state matters and legislation in ways that cater to their - and only their - specific religion and heavily restrict the rights and freedom of non-religious people, in favor for their own unsubstantiated dogma. For your parents, this matter might either not have been pressing, or they might have ignored it. Now, the difference between your parents' atheist movement and the new atheist movement is that the new one no longer accepts this, but has moved on to defend itself and to stop religious dogma from hurting society. If your parents could not see that letting religion thrive as it pleases is harmful to society, be it because they were too preoccupied or out-powered after WW2, who could blame them. But there's good reason for blaming *you*, a person of my own parents' generation, for not seeing this.

Jenna Dane| 3.24.09 @ 3:38AM

Raiko,
I've been thinking about that advertisement for a while now. Technically, I don't see that stating your mind on a paid for advertisement is all that wrong. On the other hand, it does feel rude to make such a flat statement with no room for discussion. I mean, just because someone else is unmoving or ungiving, does not justify the behavior for myself. I think about making that statement to many of my loved ones and friends who hold religious/spiritual beliefs and how it would hurt them that I would completely discount their belief. I just couldn't do it.

Phil p,
I think what might be useful in dealing with these "scientific" humanists, is to offer discourse, instruction, and debate in the areas where they seem to be lacking in understanding. Ask them pointed, tough questions to get a better idea of who they really are, what they think they know, and so forth.

From time to time, I try that kind of thing myself. Read and listen to learn, to take in another's view, turn it over in my head, and see if I feel the same or differently or indifferently, and then I turn it over more to determine why I feel the way I do, and why another feels the way he does. That is really the most interesting. I also communicate my particular slant to learn from how it is received as well as from the content of the feedback. Some times that doesn’t work very well, such as when I fall into the habit of communicating only with those who think exactly as I do, or when I simply communicate badly … not constructive at all. But on the whole, when I am able to keep an open mind and try to think before speaking, I find the practice of sharing thoughts, opinions, information an extremely stimulating and gratifying social experience.

What are your thoughts, Phil? Do you think it would be interesting to see what they would say, if you asked those “scientific” humanists their honest thoughts about the specialness of humanity? I am confident we could nail them down with that one. How could they deny it, really. I mean just the nearly indescribable beauty of human art and music alone, not to mention the sciences! Although I’d have to take a back seat to you on that ‘control over destiny’ thing, because I am not quite fully confident about that particular idea … mostly, but not fully. I am, however, open to discussion on it. Oh, and um, we might want to ask those “scientific” humanists whether they are actually scientific, or even humanists. Maybe they haven’t actually thought about what kind of category they should fall into.

Pingback| 3.24.09 @ 4:15AM

Roger Scruton über die Notwendigkeit des Humanismus at Das Philoblog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Politik and Religion. Tags: aufklärung, Erziehung, humanismus, Religion, Roger Scruton, werte. Im American Spectator schreibt Roger Scruton eine Art nostalgische Verteidigung des Humanismus - The New Humanism: “ I recognize that it was not only noble in itself, but was also a serious attempt to retain the belief in nobility without the theological vision on which that belief had once depended. It was,…

JSEAllen| 3.24.09 @ 4:40AM

We had been on the highway all night, speeding - faster than speeding. We finishing off a 26er of Jack, a flick of my wrist sent it out the window. I turned to my trusty comrade at the wheel, "woah, slow down a bit. We've broken the speed limit a couple times over."

He smiled at me and said,"hey man, I haven't broken any of God's laws."

I quickly referenced my handy pocket bible. He was right. He hadn't.

We sped off into a burning sunrise. Secure. Consoled. Righteous.

Martin| 3.24.09 @ 5:40AM

I am pleased, that I found this article with interesting comments. I have been looking for good life philosophy for many years and I found it in humanism. It brought in my life internal harmony, hapiness and it helped me to improve relationships in family and at work too. But I see many people, who aren’t able to research worldwide intellectual streams and find appropriate solution for themself, even they have good will. They need something like „Bible of humanism“ with clear and comprehensive description of main humanistic’s princips, with plenty practical examples, how to apply these ideas in common life („gold rule“ is great, but not enough). They (and me too) need opportunity to gather together, exchange ideas etc. ( many of them don’t have access to internet and don’t speak english). I haven’t found such comprehensive document, but I have found remarkable streams like :
a) Council for Secular Humanism (Founder - Paul Kurtz, USA , key documents : „A Secular Humanist Declaration“, „Declaration of interdependence“, „THE HUMANIST MANIFESTO 2000“, journal : „Free Inquiry Magazine“)
b) British Humanist Association (mentioned above)
c) Humanist Movement – founder Mario Rodriguez Cobos - pen-name Silo (key documents : “Letters to my Friends”, “Humanize the Earth”, “Guided Experiences”).
But only “Humanist Movement“ organizes some visible actions in my country.
Could anybody add another streams ?
I noticed, that secular humanists and people from “Humanist Movement” don’t cooperate well – it is a pity, because they could share many virtues and could cooperate on common goals.
In my opinion sense of life is possible to find in deeds which help improve life on the Earth - we all can use time given for our lives for creation of proven virtues.

Graham Davis| 3.24.09 @ 6:48AM

The asceticism underlying Scruton’s article implies that we should be serious about our responsibilities if Humanism is to provide a moral framework not only for personal but also for public activity.

To be a worthwhile alternative to religious values Humanism must include some self discipline and self sacrifice, not instantly attractive to the “me” generation. But this doesn’t mean a life spent in self denial. I am not riven with guilt every time I have fun and I don’t want to stop others doing the same but let’s not get the idea that life is just one hedonistic ride.

I guess that the real issue here is the divide between those of any religion and those of us who uphold humanist morality. All religions demand that a set of house rules be met regardless of any objective evaluation of their consequences.

I despise religion because it removes from the individual the necessity for self evaluation. The awful certainty that religion encourages is simply totalitarianism.

It must be clear to any thinking person that god is a myth and that any religious practices ascribed to him are false. That so much intellectual effort has been spent defending and justifying doctrines derived from this myth truly saddens me.

Tedd| 3.24.09 @ 9:50AM

Jenna:

I think your idea that we've evolved to experience pleasant feelings when we behave well and unpleasant feelings when we behave badly is very plausible. In fact, I think it's implausible that it's not true, even though it may not be the whole story. I like to think that there is some meaning to life, but I admit that my search for it has produced very little. For what it's worth, I swing between three theories.

First, there's no meaning at all, and anything we experience that seems like meaning is the product of adaptation (much like your theory).

Second, there is such a thing as psychological meaning; that is, there is meaning within the mental realm, but that mental realm is subsumed within a physical realm that has no meaning. So, we can make arguments such as "slavery is bad because slaves are conscious, mental beings and it's wrong for one to use physical force to control another." But the larger, purely material world doesn't give a damn either way.

And third, I'm impressed by Robert M. Pirsig's "metaphysics of quality" theory, in which there is a hierarchy of value: biological life is higher value than inert matter; social forms are higher value than mere biological life; and ideas are higher value than social forms. Under that theory, there's no distinction within a given level (one life form is as valuable as another) but there is distinction between levels (it's moral for an idea to destroy a society but not the other way around). The idea being that this hierarchy of value is somehow a property of the universe (and, at least in my mind, probably linked to evolution). That's as close to an objective "meaning of life" as anything I've every come across. It's metaphysical, but only religious in the sense that atheism is religious: they both require belief in a hypothesis that can't be falsified.

I've enjoyed this very much. It's rare on the 'net to have the opportunity to discuss the meaning of life without it deteriorating into atheist-believer rants.

Pingback| 3.24.09 @ 1:42PM

being orwell’s son, marsh walk, misty memories of that old time humanism « inkbluesky links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…that has put him off it.” marsh walk On the other hand The American Spectator is a like a bad acid trip. It reminds you of reality, but the articles are fun house mirrors, eptomised by their distortions. The New Humanism All around me I encountered humanists of my parents’ kind. I befriended them at school, and was taught by them at Cambridge. And whenever I lost the Christian faith which had first dawned on me in…

Repsac3| 3.24.09 @ 1:46PM

American Nihilist tracked-back with, "The Same Old "Party of No" Whining":

http://americannihilistblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/same-old-party-of-no-whining.html

Is the Unitarian Universalist faith a form of the "new humanism" the author describes, or is it more in line with the "noble humanism" of his youth?

Jenna Dane| 3.24.09 @ 3:58PM

To the poet, John
Your thoughts are beautiful, and many of which are from where I draw strength in existing. Years ago I wrote something along the lines of “a million songs are a song of one” as a result of what felt like an epiphany, a light bulb suddenly charged with energy, feeling intensely the realization that each thing is tied to every other thing, and thinking that idea alone was what I had been searching for, the magic, the meaning. (as a side note: at the time, I ignorantly thought my thought was original). Since that time, I’ve grown some, perhaps gained wisdom … more likely mere tainted experience. I still feel that fundamental interconnection with all that is and it guides my interaction with all things. However, I have come to feel that while the idea is beautiful and elegant, and based on things I can actually see and touch, it is only a handbook for existing not an explanation for existence.

To all
Who provided the many references to books, web sites, philosophers, etc. such as John, Martin, MarK, Tedd, and thank you very much. I have a ton of reading to do. Again, thank you!

Tedd,
In big topics such as this one, I find it difficult to be both concise and thorough in communications. There is a distinction for me between what I sense, what I “know”, and what I believe to be genuinely possible. As years pass by, my previously enormous ego and surety that how I perceive the world/universe/right/wrong/being human was the most logical, sensible … I had to give that up. I now happily acknowledge that if nearly all people look at a wall and think it is pink, while I see that it is clearly blue, it might be me that is defective and not them. Realizing that does not change the fact that my senses tell me the wall is blue, but it does force me to acknowledge that there is a really really good possibility that it is in fact pink.

When I engage in this type of discussion, for brevity, I tend to limit my communications to what I sense for the most part because there is very little that I am confident that I ‘know’. Besides, when I limit it to what I sense, much more fun comes of it. With that understanding, you will know that I genuinely believe that there is a good possibility that in one of your more hopeful theories, or some combination, lies the truth or grains of it.

I can also stretch my brain to what some or most might call fantastical and down right silly possibilities, such as that we do have a creator, or that we are our own creators in a mind bending time loop. I can imagine traveling to the ‘end’ of the universe and discover that it is the skin of a cell in the heart of a baby located here on earth, I can imagine that this stage of our evolution is a path toward another that is based in energy … that mental realm. What I have not yet been able to imagine though, is why. I also often have a frustrating and entertaining thought. The purpose of our life, painful and and impossible though it is, is simply and solely about the search for why. Something like an unsolvable riddle the universe handed to life to force it to evolve, always advancing always improving always gaining in intellect. And, that at some point, we will have advanced far enough to realize that the riddle is only unsolvable until we ourselves create the answer.

Thank you for a very enjoyable discussion.

Jonathon| 3.24.09 @ 5:52PM

I see ads for God all the time, for specific gods too, encouraging me to put my faith in Jesus. Doesn't anyone worry those ads might be offensive to anyone? I think what Scruton misses is not just humanists with values, but humanists with Christian values. Sorry, I've had enough of those....

Red John| 3.24.09 @ 11:12PM

The author complete misses the point of both the athiest ads and the "new humanism." The "stop worrying and enjoy life" phrase does not mean that there are no ideals higher than pleasure. It means to stop worrying about what a petty god in a bronze age myth thinks about how you live your life. Humans should all live lives that they can enjoy; no god is required for this. To counter the author's ridiculous claim, one merely needs to go here: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=affirmations&section=main. For those too lazy, the relevant points are

- We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.

- We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.

- We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.

Red John| 3.24.09 @ 11:13PM

Heh, I made the typical fundie mistake of misspelling atheist as athiest.

Pingback| 3.25.09 @ 1:27AM

The New Humanism « Buttle’s World links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…unserious, because they draw exactly the wrong conclusion from the fact that there “probably is no god.” Roger Scruton writes in the American Spectator about the contrast between this new humanism and the old. The British Humanist Association is currently running a campaign against religious faith. It has bought advertising space on our city buses, which now patrol the streets declaring that “There…

Boo| 3.25.09 @ 2:17PM

I don't understand why 'enjoy life' has to mean 'go eat heroine and screw anything that moves while shooting babies.' Are those things that you all enjoy? That the author enjoys? You don't enjoy the company of loved ones? Seeing your child grow? Nice, sunny days? If there were no god, your first thought would be 'hell yah, I'm screwing a goat!'?

Pingback| 3.25.09 @ 4:14PM

Topics about Religion » The New Humanism; The American Spectator links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

Topics about Religion » The New Humanism; The American Spectator Topics about Religion Home About The New Humanism; The American Spectator 25 Mar, 2009 Religion Topics Behind corrective lenses added an interesting post on The New Humanism; The American Spectator Here’s a small excerpt Bookmark this on Delicious - Saved by whaletime to philosophy religion humanism - More about this

cam| 3.25.09 @ 6:25PM

I'm surprised that some feel that getting along with people is the easier choice. I find it very difficult to get along with people.
It can't only be about the choice between pleasure and pain. Achievement and self improvement is not immediately pleasurable, it usually requires a lot of unpleasant hard work.
We do have the ability to interpret life, and if we are lucky enough to live in a country with freedoms, we can choose how we want to live.

Bruce Sarbit| 3.25.09 @ 10:34PM

I was long a (self-defined) humanist without being a card-carrying member. When, finally, I thought it useful to join (I may want to do humanist funerals?), my wife (ambivalent because she is agnostic) and I (card in my wallet) went to a meeting of the local group. It being our first time, and new to the community, we wanted to meet the people (they were lovely folks by the way). But, mainly, we wanted to learn how the group defined itself, so that we might, then, determine if we had found useful contacts and connections that might serve our interest in doing things of a humanistic sort.
In our short time there, we did not see anything resembling attempts to help people, make a better world, help people develop (see below for a complete list). And, the monthly newsletters have done nothing to change that. While there, we “interviewed” three people, asking them what had brought them to the local humanist group. The answer in all three cases was that, having rejected religion (Christian in all three cases), they sought a group of people with similar focus on rational, non-spiritual, non-supernatural knowledge. Maybe because Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his “The Origin of Species” were coming up shortly, our interviewees referenced their support for Darwin’s Theory of Evolution over creationist accounts of human origins. As one might expect, they also referenced Dawkins and Hitchens and, given time, might equally well have talked about their alliance with atheist humanists such as Harris. None, as I remember it, had heard of Grayling and Dennett.
What surprised me was that none of our interviewees answered that they had come to the humanist group for reasons of any of the other principles that define my/our humanism:
• the full development of every human being,
• the broadest application of democratic principles in all human relationships,
• the dignity of every person,
• human interdependence,
• the need for mutual respect and the kinship of all humanity,
• the continued improvement of society,
• the development and extension of fundamental human freedoms,
• the peaceful resolution of conflicts between individuals, groups, and nations,
• the development of the positive potentialities in human nature,
• the promotion of compassion and a spirit of empathy for all living beings, and
• the development of a healthy planet and life-supporting environment.
Their focus as humanists was first, so far as we could tell, on principles of reason and science, and on the atheism that distinguished them from the supernaturalism of the religions they had rejected. The other reasons for their being humanists and members of the group were buried, though, likely, not forgotten.
It strikes me that science and atheism are very different sorts of principles from most, if not all, of the others as above, espoused by humanists and comprising the movement’s philosophy. Science and atheism are not goals in themselves, or at least, are not key goals espoused and sought by humanists; they are, rather, means to those principles as ends.
One could, in theory, as Scruton points out, hold the other principles dear, as did his parents in what he calls the “old Humanism,” without having to align oneself with science and atheism. And, again his point, isn’t that what many, perhaps most, religious people want to do as well: make a better world? The goals of the religious might be, and I expect, often are, entirely consonant with the principles of humanism, with the exception of those having to do with science (for some) and, of course, atheism.
What differentiates the old from the new humanists, then, may be, given my survey, inadequate though it was, and what I’ve seen of the bus advert campaign in the news, the new humanism’s emphasis on atheism as means to an end. I get this; in fact, I'm sympathetic, experiencing some measure of satisfaction at the look of horror I imagine on the faces of the bus-riding evangelicals reading the BHA adverts and having a taste of their own zealous medicine.
What troubles me about the emphasis on atheism and the bus advert campaign then is that it puts atheism, the means to the end, before the principles supposedly served by it. And, while science is a positive program and not problematic in that way, atheism (correct me if I'm wrong) is only defined in terms of what it is not: theistic belief in the supernatural. As a consequence, it gives rise to the negative, the attacks levied by Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens against religions for their failure, or their god’s failure, to address human needs and humanistic goals. These authors have argued vociferously, and without much evidence of tolerance or respect that religious people are both something like idiotic for believing in a supernatural being that cannot be proven and unethical for actions they have taken against those who don’t believe similarly.
I take back what I said earlier. What Dawkins et al do is hardly soft-sell. It’s angry and vengeful. And the bus adverts are simply an extension of their larger campaign. Both are, in my “old humanist” opinion, taking a seriously flawed approach to breeding fulfillment of humanistic principles. They will move us away from, not toward them. They will create debate and dissension as they dininish dialogue. They will breed conflict and antagonisms. Reason and science make sense as means toward fulfilling the fundamental principles of humanism. But, not a strident and angry atheism.

Pingback| 3.25.09 @ 11:10PM

Road Sassy » Blog Archive » In Passing. links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…sites throughout the city where you will wait to be approached by the research volunteers.” Say no more! …………………… And something to think about, The New Humanism by Roger Scruton the British conservative philosopher. The family in which I was raised was, in the matter of religion, typical of postwar England. There was no objection to the children receiving…

Lorenzo| 3.26.09 @ 5:59AM

That, in my view, is why the Enlightenment, which promised the reign of freedom and justice, issued in an unending series of wars.
Why do clever people say such stupid things? The C19th included the longest period of peace in European history. The notion that war is caused by broad movement in ideas, rather than incompatible aims and conflicting judgments about relative power between or within states, is deeply silly.

John Thomas| 3.26.09 @ 7:23AM

A good analysis by Roger Scruton, as so often. At least one British Christian organisation responded to the "atheist bus" programme by contributing to its funding - commending its ability to get people thinking about God (and realising, surely, the negative reaction its absurdity and hedonism [only Scruton seemed to spot that; and me of course] were producing). Scruton's nostalgia for the old (non-hedonist) Humanism reminded me of Alister McGrath's nostalgia for the old atheism, which had similar high ideals, now all gone. As Scruton says, today humanists/atheists are just against something - ever heard Dawkins make a positive recommendation of any kind? But wasn't there a leading British humanist in the 1950s (I forger his name) who commended humanism as a route to enjoyment, pleasure?

Debra McHugh| 3.26.09 @ 7:53AM

This brand of humanism is hardly new at all. Just like there are people who claim to be Christian who, by their behavior can hardly be called such. Every religion, every belief system has two faces, or even three or four! I am more agnostic myself and I delight in questions, doubt, and uncertainty. I am learning to "unbox the world" as it were, and see people for what they are and not the labels attached to them.

Trackback| 3.27.09 @ 12:21AM

Hot mature sex movies, on Hot mature sex movies, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

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Mr. Burger| 3.27.09 @ 5:07AM

Jenna Dane:

I recently asked three people that I don't know what exactly they believe to be the reason behind everything's being here (or not). Their replies were approximately:
* "To provide conflict."
* "42."
* "Because molecules will just keep binding and detaching."

I'm not happy with these, myself. It's not that any of them are wrong, of course, or even uninspired, but that they lack... whatever it is. I think. I don't know. I could be wrong.

Your question--if I may call it yours just to feel unburdened of it for the time being--is highly, highly abstract; so have you considered feeding your ideas through the syntax-o-abstraction we call math? Phi, for instance, is a poignant little trick to pull on logic. I find your comments, and the comments of those whom you comment upon, *and* the comments of a few whom you have not commented upon, to be importantly good.

Suggested reading:
* A favorite book from before you could read.

mydh12| 3.27.09 @ 5:26PM

Arthur Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University (NY, USA), found in a lengthy study that religious people give far more money and time to charitable organizations than non-religious people. That should not be surprising since ideas have consequences. (BTW, compare the tiny charitable contributions given by Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama as an example of people who simply pose as Christians for political advantage, but don't believe it in their hearts, to the large contributions by George Bush and Dick Cheney.)

Anyway, even the most deist of the Founding Fathers of America, such as Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, thought that Protestant Christianity was necessary for a successful society, since it would imbue the citizenry with a sense of morality. They realized that if you take away the Judeo-Christian religion, eventually people are going to act accordingly, and their ensuing actions would have a negative effect on a society. That is why they were in favor of promoting Christianity amongst the populace. Those are the historical facts, despite what the new "separation of church and state" crowd might say.

Dr. James Willingham| 3.27.09 @ 5:58PM

Sirs: What we require is another great awakening like the first and second (1740,1801, respectively). Otherwise we can expect to follow England and Europe in their downhill slide to oblivion and disaster. Such event will move us to think outside the box, to establish new parameters of thought, and to anticipate the tremendous changes in society which flow frm such events. Perhaps, that will be the preparation for our going to the stars and into other dimensions.

Jenna Dane| 3.27.09 @ 9:43PM

Mr. Burger,

It seems to me that you must have a wonderful sense of humor! A sanity saver if you spend any measurable time considering the questions that you do. What is your favorite book from before …? And do you have a theory about whether there is a ‘higher purpose’ and if so, what?

I’ve given the answer “42” myself. It is a fun answer and feels as appropriate as anything.

To me, all of math is fascinating and extremely gratifying in its ability to demonstrate and explain relationships between things, to provide definitive answers to so many, many questions, and even to predict.

Phi, or at least the detection of the ratio in so many areas of our existence, does feel magical doesn’t it? That is also true of many other detectable patterns and mathematical concepts/objects. Whether by design or a simple matter of efficiency/natural development … I don’t know.

If I were a mathematician, math would absolutely be my first choice to attempt to use as a tool to calculate the answers to my questions. Yes, I have definitely considered it. Alas, I am no mathematician!!

mydh12,
From the information you provided, what have you concluded?

prakash| 3.28.09 @ 4:59AM

I think it is nothing more than hypocracy to talk about humanism of any kind when the majority of world is sick. Though the discourse can be justified /interpreted/critiqued in the academia, it has not given the world any new vision to live- sustain!

richard mcenroe| 3.28.09 @ 11:44AM

When the humanities themselves have become a death cult in our very schools, how can you not expext humanism to flourish?

Jeremiah| 3.28.09 @ 11:47PM

WHEW!! Tons and tons of foul smelling socialist/humanist garbage from all over the world just got puked on our site. Gonna take weeks to get the stench out of this thread. Your stupid socialized medicine has even killed the lovely Natasha Richardson. You funny little eggheads who pontificate about your own self-righteousness are so stupid. You are WEAK--ripe for the pickin'-and Islam is gonna do the pickin'. Atheism is responsible for the most savage brutality among men. That is Godlessness--when man puts himself as his own god. I don't care how you live your lives--you'll face your own judgment--just don't tell me how to live mine. You are the most arrogant, hateful and judgmental people of all--you just hide it behind your faux gentility. As a Christian, I live my life by HOPE not fear, people. Get it through your clueless heads. You are more of a threat than Islam because you are the traitor within. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees--but for cowards like you, there is only retreat. God help you because you are going to need it. You are blind to the truth.

Byron Bunch| 3.29.09 @ 1:31AM

Though much (virtual) ink has already been spilled on this point, I hope my perspective might add to the conversation.

First, my background and self-identified biases. I was raised as a Roman Catholic in, what I'd like to call, a space between lapsed and "secular" Catholicism. We went to church, sometimes, and though I went to Catholic schools until I went to college, the Jesuits who taught me were more intellectual than evangelical, men who openly dismissed young earth creationism, among other hopelessly irrational claims made by the conservative Christian movement.

Since then, I've moved on to a state that lies somewhere at the intersection of Humanism, Deism, agnosticism, and atheism. I struggle to find a label that aptly fits my amalgam of beliefs.

Though I find Dawkins' et al fascinating to read and listen to, I'm baffled by their tactics. Surely, these very intelligent men can't possibly believe that their hard-line assault on traditional religions--calling them stupid, childish, and irrational--will find them many, if any, converts. This article, rightly, points to a tactical shift on the part of "New Humanists," from a tacit live-and-let-live mentality to a more militant, aggressive approach more common in the contemporary cultural climate.

Now, listen carefully. This says little about the relative merits or shortcomings of humanism. It does, however, say volumes about our culture as a whole and the rules by which we disagree and debate. This brings me to my primary point: the bus ad mentioned in the article.

Offended Humanists, atheists, agnostics etc.: Of course the ad wasn't saying "God's dead. Shoot up, shoot a hooker, and rape a puppy."

Offended Christians: See above. Plenty of us don't believe in your God, or any god, yet still manage to lead lives that an outside observer--blind to whatever lack of religious faith might exist in our hearts--would call "moral."

However, that said, Scruton is absolutely right for taking issue with the word choice used by the ad. What some in the humanist camp--and what many in general in this debate--don't quite seem to understand is that SUBTEXT, IMPLICATION, and EXCLUSION are important rhetorical factors, ones that control our thoughts and actions more than we'd care to realize.

Consider the difference in tone and subtext between, "There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life." and "There probably is no God; so be good, for goodness' sake." Both slogans invoke an "if, then" argumentative form, but whereas the former begs for an emotional response (don't worry; enjoy), the latter urges an ethical course of action (be good) for an admittedly vague reason (the sake of being good). While the latter slogan makes no thorough moral argument, it does adequately state the humanists' take on ethics--ill-formed as it might be--and l does so in a way that most reasonable people could NEVER mistake as a call for hedonism.

Byron Bunch| 3.29.09 @ 1:56AM

I apologize for being long-winded, my previous post compelled me to bring up another point.

I am a person of letters, a person educated in the Humanities. I love history, literature, philosophy, music, film, art, etc. I have nothing but respect for the sciences, but my own inabilities and dislike of mathematics kept me from pursuing those studies in any but a cursory, layman's capacity.

I bring this up because I--and people like me--want a seat at the Humanist/Deist/agnostic/atheist/rationalist/skeptic's table. Pardon me for not citing, but I recall Dawkins once responding to a typical "If no God, what's the meaning/purpose/beauty of life?" question by invoking something like the splendor of science.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I think that fractals, genetic mutation, black holes, worm holes, dark matter, dark energy, quantum physics, fuzzy logic, etc. are immensely cool. I have nothing but respect for an astrophysicist who can listen to the cosmic background radiation and be filled with the awe and wonder associated with "hearing" the Big Band. Science, math, and logic have done, and will do, absolutely mind-blowingly amazing things. I mean, I couldn't microwave a Hot Pocket without them.

But for Christ's/God's/Buddha's/FSM's sake, we're HUMAN BEINGS. Some of the coolest things happening in science occur on scales of magnitude so immense or so miniscule that most of us have a hard time understanding them, let alone finding them fascinating, awe-inspiring, or (here's the kicker) MEANINGFUL.

Whatever ideology one ascribes to, it must affect us, as human beings, in a meaningful way. Detecting neutrinos might be an amazing breakthrough; having a friend that spends his last few bucks buying me a beer MEANS something to me.

Religion gets this. A secularist funeral service, for example, which goes out of its way to point out that a piece of music REPRESENTS the dead person's continuing presence (but only in our memories) has far less emotional impact than a Catholic funeral mass, wherein incense reminds us of God's ACTUAL (not representative) presence, and of the deceased's ACTUAL reunion with God.

As human beings, similes (x is LIKE y) aren't nearly as powerful as metaphors (x IS y). It seems, to me, that the only truths allowed for in this New Humanist paradigm are literal truths; the metaphoric, the literary--and the sense of wonder, power, and transcendence that they bring--are excluded.

We need metaphors; we need stories by which we can live. Sure, they're quick to point out that the Bible is a series of fables, stories one might live by, but JUST stories. Are their memories so short as to forget that they condemned this rhetorical trick as employed by ID (evolution is JUST a theory).

Certainly, scientific truths mustn't be rejected for the sake of superstition, but what of a claim like "Water is life"? It's a metaphorical truth, a poetic truth, and the kind of truth that might give a sense of the human to the otherwise cold, detached, and overwhelming universe that certain persons among the New Humanists would have us occupy, without any comfort from or reverence for that which makes us distinctly human.

cam| 3.29.09 @ 9:07AM

As well as the question of finding meaning, there is the question of how we find comfort in times of pain, distress and conflict.
Religion has never explained very well why a child would die, but it offers great comfort to those who suffer.
Humanism and science explain better why a child would die, but don't seem to offer any comfort for suffering.

Pingback| 3.29.09 @ 2:51PM

Har humanismen en värdegrund? « Kaffepaus links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

Frithjof Schuon komprimerar hela sin filosofi på 2,43 min När mörkret lägger sig → Har humanismen en värdegrund? mars 24, 2009 · Inga kommentarer Axess länkar till en till en text i American Spectator, skriven utav den välkände brittisk tänkaren och samtidsbetraktaren Roger Scruton, som tar upp “ den nya humanismen “. Jag tycker den har viss bäring på den förrförra posten om den…

ruth| 3.30.09 @ 2:53AM

Byron and cam, lovely posts. Both made me think. Thank you--and God bless you.

don| 3.30.09 @ 4:46PM

Two things I find as motifs (in the comments rather than the article) that are unsettling: 1. The shocking lack of faith in the human ability to decide on and adhere to any kind of Millsian 'accepted moral code' outside of religious tenet, and 2. the willful ignorance of thousands of acts in the name of religion in the recent and distant past that go violently (or should go) against the moral standard of an intelligent person.

Pingback| 3.30.09 @ 8:23PM

Humanism « Our Better History links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

Humanism « Our Better History Our Better History It’s about time Home About Humanism Roger Scruton is nostalgic for the old humanism. “Our parents called themselves humanists. They had been raised as Christians, but had lived through the Second World War and lost faith in the God who permitted it. They regarded humanism as a…

help| 4.1.09 @ 12:11AM

I dont believe in free will. Im glad i read this article. i do believe in a god. is it selfish to be a perfect human due to fear in judgement? is selfishness a virtue? yes, i believe so. regret is the devil that brings you to hell during your death and hallucinogen trip on DMT (pituitary gland). live your life thinking this way and i believe the world will be a better place. treat others are you would treat yourself. treat yourself as you would want others to treat you. thats the one i have trouble with.

emansnas| 4.2.09 @ 8:25AM

As a purely pragmatic matter, what is the advantage to society in dissuading the religious from their beliefs? Especially when those beliefs result in responsible moral behavour. It seems clear that some (substantial?) percentage of same having lost their motivation to behave morally/responsibly would behave otherwise with consequent negative effect on society. Thus I would suggest that such efforts by Dawkins et al are ill conceived to the point of being irresponsible. Belief wise I'm in agreement with the Santa Clause for adults theme, but I'm not about to spoil little Johny's Christmas by destroying his hopes and dreams to selfishly and sententiously display my superior intellect not only at little Johny's expense but arguably at the general expense of the entire family as well. The "old humanists" Scruton refers to had exactly the right idea.

malachip| 4.3.09 @ 2:14AM

That was quite a lengthy essay to address Scrunton's singular concern that "enjoy life" is a prescriptive for blithe selfish hedonism.

It is possible to "enjoy life" by contributing to society, raising a family, caring for others, working toward the commonweal, etc. Not surprisingly, "new humanists" in my experience do exactly that.

John| 4.3.09 @ 10:38AM

Episode 27 of Books and Ideas is an interview with Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson and The Happiness Myth.

http://docartemis.com/blog/2009/03/28/podcast27-hecht/
WARNING: This e-mail is a suspected phishing scam.

Jennifer Michael Hecht: Doubt (Hampshire College 2007)
Hampshire College Science & Religion Lecture Series: Jennifer Michael Hecht - "Doubt - Where you'd least expect it". October 25, 2007)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=96457410329702788&ei=ZWbTSazjPI2grwLWioSCBQ&q=jennifer+michael+hecht

symphonyofdissent| 4.5.09 @ 1:45PM

Having been a long time humanist and having recently been converted to a religious faith, I have come to understand that religion does provide several things that can be provided by other sources but provides them in a more comprehensive and useful form than one could acquire elsewhere. In other words, religions in and of themselves are laboratories for good values and behavior. A good church will push its members through its structure and ideas to goodness and directly push them to keep in mind virtues and ethics. A good faith will also build a deep rooted appreciation for everything in the world around and a view towards the universality and harmony of all things.

Having been a humanist I find myself returning to beautiful and magnificent locations I had seen as a humanist and realizing that I'd never truly SEEN these places in the same ways. I'd missed out on some function as necessary to joy and beauty as my other 5 senses.

This article is quite perceptive in that I find the new atheist movement has a hard time articulating positive humanist values in any way. I was very involved in my campus humanist club in the past few years and found that every meeting centered around planning debates or events critical of religion. I once proposed for and pushed that we do a secular channukah ceremony in which we light candles each representing a share humanist value such as true, virtue, reason etc...and I got the strangest looks and expressions from fellow members. To be fair, we can't expect a truly oppressed minority to be too concerned with a positive rather than negative identity.

I think that President Obama's shout outs to those not of faith is a big step in allowing humanists to once again define themselves positively.

elaygee| 4.5.09 @ 5:54PM

Tick tick tick. Every day another few thousand delusional religionists die and a few thousand humanists are born or converted.

srfwotb| 4.5.09 @ 6:38PM

The author seems to have no idea what it is to grow up with no religious influence at all. The idea of "nobility" without God might last, in echo form, like an accent, for a generation or two.

Pursuit of pleasure as an ideal might be alright if it didn't so obviously bring up the question of whether or not the stronger should avoid taking advantage of the relatively weak in the pursuit of that ideal, and if not, why not? Don't worry, after all. The fact that this is not seen as problematic shows that even in New Humanism a remnant of the old, more idealistic philosophy still quivers. There still lives that idea that if we all weren't so burdened with inherited false guilt from our various archaic religions, that all would be well in that area.

But I'm from LA, pursuit of pleasure central for generations. I know it becomes a problem. Modern UK should have realized it by this point, too.

Thomas| 4.5.09 @ 7:44PM

The essay is just one big straw man. You've completely made up what the "new humanism" represents and argue against it. Pretty easy, eh?

Problem is, you've defined humanism falsely.. and I think you've done it intentionally, because your argument is so weak.

bad writer.. bad

beergoggles| 4.5.09 @ 8:40PM

Yet another article to group with the whackjobs who think the 50's were great, women and negroes knew their place, oh and so did atheists.

We're the new humanists and we're coming for your little god. It's got nowhere to hide where we can't find it.. oh wait.

Pingback| 4.6.09 @ 10:52AM

Scruton on those nasty atheists - News and Opinion Blog of Blogs links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

Scruton on those nasty atheists - News and Opinion Blog of Blogs Scruton on those nasty atheists To link is not to endorse -- something to bear in mind as I link to this essay on "the new humanism" by dour conservative Roger Scruton. As usual with Scruton, it's elegant, blinkered, and occasionally unfair, but there are also challenging observations for those who do not share…

Pingback| 4.6.09 @ 8:29PM

de libertate » Neu und alt links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…parenting passport patriotism police progressivism Racism religion riots sex sexting smile teenagers Neu und alt Robert S. Porter | Uncategorized | Monday, April 6th, 2009 Andrew Sullivan says: Roger Scruton wants the old humanism back: The new humanism spends little time exalting man as an ideal. It says nothing, or next to nothing, about faith, hope, and charity; is scathing about patriotism; and is dismissive of…

paul| 4.9.09 @ 12:47PM

I too would concur with the gentleman who recommended G K Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". G K was a brilliant writer and journeyed through atheism to faith (like so many others aka C S Lewis, Dr. Norm Geisler, Frank Turek, Lee Strobel). Yet I would no more say any of them were "threatening" in their espousing of their beliefs than I would say that black is white. The likes of Hitch, Harris, Dawkins & their ilk, seem to be the histrionic zealous angry men who feel it's their duty to eradicate any beliefs except what they deem valid. I agree with those above also, who pointed out that the old humanists, lived in a largely Christian environment, but now society is mainly post-Christian (even in North America). It seems they lived on the empty gas tank fumes of their previously Christian morality and ethics, but the modern generation is 60 or more years and several generations removed from even that.

Trackback| 4.16.09 @ 1:02AM

Wrdw, on Wrdw, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

... controversy: unlike other article writing wrdw to help you to submit your best foot forward and energize your article marketing can help their kids stay away from your article. article directory editors and ga school closings is the gold coast where... - The American Spectator : The New Humanism ...

Trackback| 4.24.09 @ 2:40PM

Mudkipz, on Mudkipz, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

... literally constrain yourself to writing two or three articles and submit them to want more subscribers, I write more articles. then, hold their interest stimulated. if you are using wsbtv weather right pa lottery might find yourself in a small scale... - The American Spectator : The New Humanism ...

Trackback| 4.26.09 @ 3:10AM

11alive, on 11alive, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

... happy writing and promotion guide' download it free here: wjbf of list building if you follow all carroll shelby available on many directories webmasters check only the articles short. your copies with valuable and useful wjbf that is post... - The American Spectator : The New Humanism ...

josh| 5.26.09 @ 8:26AM

Interesting, intelligent debate interspersed with mad christian rants and bible quotes put a smile on my face.

Pingback| 7.7.09 @ 8:56PM

Our Culture of Accusation | Paul and Kaelin links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…and to not repay evil for evil. We see secular humanists blaming all the world’s evils on religion. Bill Mahar does this a lot. The British Humanist Association is running an anti-God campaign ( read about that here ). Honestly now! That’s simply absurd. Most wars, genocides, and mass atrocities (such as the numerous ones last century) are rarely because of religion and almost always out of lust for…

Jack| 8.9.09 @ 11:41PM

I would much rather have moral integrity because I *want* to, rather than because I feel I *have* to for fear of a 'jailkeeper' deity.

Fear is a very powerful motivator, but it's not the one that I'm going to accept for myself, or for others.

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Pingback| 9.25.09 @ 1:49AM

Download Gods of Emptiness – Consumption Is Freedom? at Gehennae Metallum via Rapidsh links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Enemy of the people. Enemy of the … Facebook Sucks « toxic culture Educated Finns earn less with longer hospital queues | Finland for … After the boom — Garth Turner – Commentaries The American Spectator : The New Humanism The New Encyclical | Catholic Exchange Marc Mordechai Gafni- Updated Biography- February 2009 « Marc … indiainteracts.in is a social media platform, where users can … Thought…

annie| 9.30.09 @ 1:55PM

Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic and humanist said "The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so."

elle| 10.4.09 @ 9:13PM

I don't think that humanity and religion cannot be mutually exclusive.
I can be non-religious and still have morals and principals. I don't need to fear a Deity in order not to hurt people and do wrong things.
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