Any other Humanists out there?

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I mostly got humanist view, yes. In true humanism is not by definition atheist, it's more about a tolerant and individual approch to religion accepting atheism as well as theism. (At least that's how I see it.)

I had a joke that goes....

If a Vegetarian eats vegetables. What does a Humanitarian eat?

@Orwell: The reason I did not use the adjective "secular" is because there is a push within the Humanist movement to not do that. If you go the the IHEU website you can find the article explaining why. It's something to do with other versions of Humanism being quite obscure and, in any case, the differences being so small as to be insignificant. They felt it was better to have a unified movement than to focus on this very small differences. Since religious humanists aren't very common, and it's quicker to say without the adjective anyway, I've decided to follow that and just say that I am a Humanist.

^^^^

There are plenty of Christian humanists... a great deal of Christian doctrine is based on humanist principles. However, if the Secular Humanists wish to regard themselves as primarily secular, they can. We can take Solzhenitsyn, G.K. Chesterton, Dostoevsky, John Paul II, T. S. Eliot, John Henry Newman and St. Thomas More*..... as far as divorces go... I think they just got screwed

*This is not to mention the non-Christian Theistic Humanists, of which there are a great deal.

@PJW: I disagree with your interpretation of Hamilton. First of all, the Edenists do not have "computer's in their minds"--they have genetic engineering. And one of the themes is that they still ARE human. They are very exceptional humans, but they are still most definitely Homo sapiens. The Adamists have their neural nanonics, which is essentially a computer in their mind. But that makes them no less human then you are for using your computer right now. The other thing I notice is that, if you want to argue that the Adamists are more human, then you have a pretty good argument for trying to transcend that. It is the Adamists who cause almost all of the pain and suffering in those books. Only the rarest of Edenists are even remotely capable of the atrocities that your average Adamist commits.

Now, to tie this into Humanism. A Humanists does NOT say that we should worship the human condition. Humanists say that we should try to live an ethical lifestyle, and I think Hamilton makes a strong case that perhaps our best way to do that is to improve ourselves to be more ethical, while still retaining our essentially human aspects (which is exactly what the Edenists do).

As for your stuff about Dickens... I give up. I honestly don't understand what you're talking about, but what I can understand I do not see it as relevant to what I consider it means to be a Humanist.

TheKing wrote:

Actually I have heard of them. Sorry, I forgot. But the problem with them is:

1. Politics: Unleashing nuclear bombs in space is touchy, so not likely to happen.

2. Health: These sorts of rockets would be too heavy to get into orbit using chemicle boosters. If we ever build a space elevator I suppose that might work though. You could launch them under their own power, but that would release radioactive fallout into the atmosphere, causing up to 10 extra cancer deaths per launch. Even if you are cold hearted (as I often am) and say that is insignificant, try convincing the general population.

3. Will: There simply is not enough drive to go to another star at present. We wouldn't be able to use the resources around them and the journey would take so long that the administration sending them off couldn't take any credit when they arrive.

Of course, none of these make it impossible for the use of these technologies. And if we start mining Uranium on the moon or asteroids the health concerns can be done away with. But there aren't many people who seem to seriously discuss that technology anymore (sadly). So I stand by my opinion that we won't be seeing interstellar travel anytime soon (at least, not with a crew) and hope to be proven wrong.

This is completely unrelated to the interstellar travel side-topic (and even less related to Humanism), but I followed that link for ICAN-II, because I hadn't heard of that one before. It sounds like it would be a feasible way to get to Mars, certainly. But wouldn't it be better just to use a VASIMR engine and a 200MW source of electricity? It would take about 10 more days, but it would be a lot safer and politically I'd think it would be easier too. Personally, I suspect that it will be VASIMR that will be used for most interplanetary travel, at least for most of this century.