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ERCougar · 04-13-2008, 03:10 PM

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to an interview on NPR with a "pastor" of secular humanism at Harvard. Essentially, he leads a sort of church of atheists who still wanted the sort of guiding moral influence/support that a standard religion provides without the need to profess a belief in God. I didn't hear the whole interview so I'm not sure if I understand his role completely, but as I've thought about it over the last few weeks, a few questions have come up.

As I understand secular humanism, one of their tenets is that they reject faith and claim that reason is the ultimate source of truth. It seems to me however, that if you're going to hold on to any sort of ethic, you have to accept some level of faith in that you can't prove the superiority of that ethic to others. How do humanists reconcile that?

The second tenet that I understand is that they believe that moral decisions should be guided by what actions are beneficial to the entire human family. To me, that's a belief in God--i.e. something that's larger than your own existence that guides your moral decisions. It may not be the standard God of the Bible (or any other religion), but the essentials are there.

So we have faith in a supreme entity. How is this different from any other religion?

I'm obviously a non-philosopher treading in philosophy so this may seem a little amateur, but help me out here. I'm also not interested in starting a debate--I'm just curious in hearing your point of view on this.

04-13-2008, 03:10 PM	#1
ERCougar Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 1,589	Question about secular humanism A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to an interview on NPR with a "pastor" of secular humanism at Harvard. Essentially, he leads a sort of church of atheists who still wanted the sort of guiding moral influence/support that a standard religion provides without the need to profess a belief in God. I didn't hear the whole interview so I'm not sure if I understand his role completely, but as I've thought about it over the last few weeks, a few questions have come up. As I understand secular humanism, one of their tenets is that they reject faith and claim that reason is the ultimate source of truth. It seems to me however, that if you're going to hold on to any sort of ethic, you have to accept some level of faith in that you can't prove the superiority of that ethic to others. How do humanists reconcile that? The second tenet that I understand is that they believe that moral decisions should be guided by what actions are beneficial to the entire human family. To me, that's a belief in God--i.e. something that's larger than your own existence that guides your moral decisions. It may not be the standard God of the Bible (or any other religion), but the essentials are there. So we have faith in a supreme entity. How is this different from any other religion? I'm obviously a non-philosopher treading in philosophy so this may seem a little amateur, but help me out here. I'm also not interested in starting a debate--I'm just curious in hearing your point of view on this.