Secular Humanism

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Sorry for the delay in answering you, but you deserve an answer:

The real criticism of ideologies is less the philosophical debate, it is the functioning of society. Rome's absolute truth did not fall in wide parts of Europe because a Augustine Monk from Wittenberg wrote some clever texts, but because this ideology did not serve societies' needs any more. Luther's ideas were not new in his time (see e.g. Hus), he was successful, because society changed.



What about that murder is wrong, because if we would declare murder for legal or good, we would produce a society in which no one would be save of his life. Declaring murder for wrong does serve a purpose. It is hard to think about any society in which allowing murder generally would be helpful, but there were societies in which killing was within a legal framework an accepted form of conflict resolution and served a purpose (e.g. within the mediaeval feud system, which abolishment in the 15th century - e.g. in Perpetual Peace of 1495 - marked the creation of the modern state). Even today law differs very exactly in killing with purpose to kill someone, not directly involved, in combat situation in war (in the most cases legal) and someone on the street in peace (almost all the time illegal).

So the statement "murder is inherently wrong" is not generally accepted as true fact, but depends on the framework of society and what society see as acceptable for its functioning.



I do not redefine, but try to see thinks from their function and not from the declaration.



At first: Not all ideologies seek progress. Historically the most ideologies were created to preserve societies.

To put things form the "head to its feeds": The secular thinking is a brainchild of the bourgeoisie, the first ruling class in know history which established a system, which inner nature is those of a constant revolution. I like to quote here again Marx:



On a first viewpoint it sound absurd, but as our society stands, the basis of its existence is the continual destruction of everything it is based on: A kind of permanent revolution. Therefore upholding the constant critic of its own basis is the basis for the stability of this system. Stopping this permanent revolution will lead to stagnation and the collapse of this society. You need here the revolution to avoid the revolutionary end.



They did not "refer" to fact, but the declared that they would refer to facts: That's a difference.



The existence of theology does not prove the existence of a god. The teaching of law at universities does not prove that law is science, etc.



The only reason for upholding laws and moral is the function of society. That's all. A law has a purpose like the post office. If something better is found, there is not need to uphold a law (or to continue running a postal service).

There is nothing mystical, eternal or unquestionable regarding laws, moral etc. pp.



I like to quote here Goethe in his Faust, when he let speak Mephistopheles:




Do not overestimate the influence of the elites here: Otherwise the USA would be a long time ago agonstic.



Because of the means of self-destruction we did in the meanwhile collected. When the Count of Manderscheid went mad, he was a problem for his peasants, when the Spanish Inquisition burned some heretics or Jews, it was not a world wide problem. If the USA would turn mad than it will be a global problem.

Here is the main difference. The combination of bronze-age ideas and technology of the 21th century is just too dangerous. Not only in the case of the USA as a super-power, but also in the case of smaller states: Just think about the fact that Pakistan is chronic unstable and has the nuclear weapon.

We just do not have the luxury any more to waste our time with irrational ideas.

The issue is that an ideology that is consciously considered false cannot function as an ideology. It will undermine itself. So, I don't have to say that the philosophical debate is where these questions are *truly* solved, the issue is that it cannot be ignored because the question is still about truth, even if the answers are unrelated to truth. If we deny that our answers are related to truth, while upholding truth, then we engage in a fundamental and open contradiction that would be destructive to the ideological basis of society, as open contradictions cause issues for cognitive dissonance.

In any case, changes in theology also happen in reaction to society, but the question of theology, God, is still not considered a social construct that is altered at will for society, but rather is usually taken mythologically and metaphysically to be a being of great power who under the atheist view just does not exist. If God is interpreted in a manner to deny this existence, why not morality?

Finally, if ideologies are not ultimately philosophical and in relationship to truth, then why should a person believe them? After all, doesn't the act of believing make a truth-claim? If a person can express no value in any ideology, then why would the ideological construct of secular humanism be much different?


Well, no, "murder is inherently wrong" IS generally accepted as a true fact. If you ask people if murder is wrong as a matter of fact, then people will generally say yes. Some of the more religious people might say it is part of a religious commandment. If they didn't then the question really wouldn't be whether murder is wrong, but rather whether or not people are willing to tolerate a particular person to be murdered. This would destroy society, as each person would act in a more openly egoistic manner rather than keeping to the social norms. The issue is that we cannot just take "society" as a mass that makes decisions, but rather each individual in society is a decision maker, and each one of them has to interpret the social rules to their own understanding, and if the social rules repudiate their own validity, then this individual actor has little reason to follow them. This is unlike past societies that really *did* believe that they were acting upon truth claims, and that believed in God or rights or some other such.

Perhaps to rephrase this, then if this were a past society, then "God exists" would be generally accepted as a true fact, even though we know that the acceptance of this claim is due in part to the framework that society exists in.


The issue is that morality is not subservient to other functions. Take the statement "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.", this statement either has some amount of literal truth, or it is an outright lie, as it states that justice(aka morality) is above pragmatics. The issue is that if we take this literally, then you are redefining, as the morals do not truly have a function even if the rules understood within society end up being useful. If the statement is false though, then this and a lot of other expressions must be outright lies. I would side with the former definition, as people really do believe in their moral ideas without regard for pragmatics. This can be seen in acts of heroism, suicide attacks, rejection of society, etc, all of which can be seen, all of which undermine the well-being of the individual, and some of which stand against the greater workings of society or the world. To just take morality to be a societal thing, rather than as something viewed as transcendent and theological, seems to require that a large number of actions cannot be truly understood from an individual perspective, while if we take the theological perspective of morality, then more seems to make sense, but morality cannot be considered on the level of something consciously constructed.


Well, no. The basis of it's existence is not the continual destruction of everything it is based upon. It's basis is more related to concepts such as freedom, progress, and things of that matter, but not continual ideological shift. It is true that our society is based upon the flexibility of social and economic relations as well, but those are not the same as the ideas, which in some cases have lasted hundreds of years. I disagree with your idea of the continual critic for that reason as well, as many of the roots of modern society really stretch back hundreds of years. In fact, this is perhaps very explicitly found in the US, which has had no massive shifts in government or major wars on it's soil, as opposed to Europe, which has had more shocks that have resulted in greater changes. In the US, the Constitution is held up by many people in the population as an idol, freedom and liberty are often extolled, the founding fathers are usually well-spoken of, etc, while the US is still on a similar level of economic progress as most other nations(although we can argue that culturally it has changed less). There are a lot of unquestionable dogmas in these societies, and I would still argue that if we question the ground norm dogmas on their content, we would undermine the stability of laws in society.



Well, the declaration clearly states that there is a matter of fact. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." So long as the issue is one of facts, then my point still stands, unless we are claiming that the people here are engaged in some form of lying.


No, but the thoughts of theologians do show what they might mean when speaking of a God. The teaching of law at universities can be used to show what law is to be defined as, etc.


Well.... no. Some laws aren't up for debate. Traffic laws, which are purely instrumental might be, but issues such as the 1st Amendment to the Constitution are often held to have mystical qualities by the population, and cannot be reasonably rejected by most people.

Not only that, but a person isn't society. Upholding the function of society is not an issue to the average person, who has little control over their society. Upholding the function of society has large-scale implications. So, the issue that comes up is that if the small scale appears to be less stable, while the large scale keeps on going, then why is there no collapse? I would have to argue that something that isn't purely rational is entering our equation, a social norm that is not just self-maximizing, which would make laws to be something mystical. In fact, we see in experiments that authority *does* have unusual powers over decision making, as can be seen in the Milgram experiment, where people go against what they believe should be done simply because a man in a coat tells them otherwise. That would not make sense unless laws and authority were above reason.


I might not be much of a poet, but I do not see how this actually changes the basic conversation. It seems as if the devil is talking about something metaphysical, while I am talking about something sociological.

I never did overestimate their influence. My own idea claims that their influence is limited.


Dussel, that does not address the problem I put forward. I argued that human society will not allow it to be looked at from the inside using a scientific lens, as behaviors that require ignorance of their own functioning are likely to exist.

Not only that, but who defines the luxury? Who defines the waste? If value is subjective, which it would be if valuation is a function of human psychology, then there is no objective luxury, and there is no objective waste, and the preference for wasting time with irrational ideas can vary from person to person and nobody could even launch a criticism. If you actually have reified luxury and waste, then you aren't likely good at self-examination as those concepts cannot exist out in the universe. If you haven't, then you are just speaking rhetoric to promote your idea to be considered a truth-claim when it isn't. If the entire matter of secular humanism is rhetoric though, then how can any thinking human being honestly believe it? Particularly while recognizing that it is rhetoric?