"Are you a humanist?" topic closed (to the edge)

Which is something I don't entirely understand, really. I just wanted to contribute to this topic, support my fellow prog admirers, who are not worshipping gods, but I cannot, because it is now "closed". And all that despite growing humanist community worldwide in general and a progressive decline in supernatural beliefs! Yes, there are some troubles in and around those Arab worlds at the moment, and we currently witness a lot of non-sensical killings in the name of one of them gods, but America and its allies are trying to sort this out. Yesterday I read about woman's beheading in Oklahoma due to some christian-muslim argument - when will this finally end?

Now, if I may kindly ask, and as an annexe to the closed topic - which of you support which of the following two options:

A: The topic was closed through the act of god. 

B: The topic was conveniently closed by one of us, to prevent further contributions to it, so it won't "bump up" and disturb believing hearts.

So, are you a humanist or not? Check below for the answers and you might find out that you are, actually, a humanist. Although you might never knew it!

If you went for an A: People who believe this are believers, or sort of "goddists" (they believe in god(s)) Your faith is rather strong, in god you trust!

If you went for a B: People who support this idea could generally be pigeon-holed as non-believers, or atheists (according to christians), or infidels (according to muslims), or humanists (they believe in humans, aren't they?) In humans therefore is your trust. You're very likely a humanist. So what? Nothing, just saying.

BTW, does anyone know what happened to mystic fred, who originally started the topic? He's not around since June 2013 and his contributions to the forum were quite valuable

There is no god, only science. The science is that all topics lock automatically if they are inactive for a period of time. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this policy but being human and not a machine means that I have forgotten what that reason is.

C: The topic closed automatically after a period of inactivity. 

The last post in the thread was 20 October 2009 at 20:01 GMT, since this was 155,865,600 seconds or 4 years 11 months 8 days ago it locked automatically.

Agreed, although before science as it is today, god and religion were early "science". For an ancient man to find an immediate answer for burning questions, the likes of why the sky is blue, why there are lightnings, there was always a simple answer - god created it like this. Religion also helps with issues like afterlife and bereavement. I therefore think that creating god and religion by a man was a part of human's evolution to make life easier.

I went today for an inaugural Sunday Assembly in my area (Bournemouth, UK) and it was fabulous. Lots of entertaining and inspiring stuff. And all that without worshipping "the great architect of the universe" and his relatives. Local christians and muslims call those assemblies an "atheist church", but it's not only for atheists, but for everyone, not only those looking for an alternative. I know such assemblies are taking place in London since a while now, and they proved to be quite successful, but it was the first time down in Bournemouth. Now I will need to find some music for them as a background theme. Lady Fantasy, you think..?

 

This is the only thing a mortal can honestly state about themselves. 

Would you agree, though, that declaring there is no God because i don't believe in such things would be as intellectually arrogant as insisting that there is God,  purely because I choose to believe it?

 

Nope. The only reason any human is aware of the concept of god(s) is because another human told them that. 

That's it.

No other reason.

In this 250,000 year old game of Chinese Whispers we are all supposed to believe that at the beginning of this chain of a human telling another human telling another human telling another human telling another human telling another human telling another human telling another human ...telling another human about the existence of magical beings that no one can see or touch are actual magical beings that no one can see or touch. 

Now we "know" that a lot of these magical beings that no one can see or touch did not really exist, in our enlightened age we "know" that Ra, Horus, Isis, Apollo, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Hestia, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, Feronia, Minerva, Novensides, Pales, Salus, Fortuna, Fons, Fides, Ops, Flora, Vediovis, Saturn, Sol, Luna, Vulcan, Summanus, Larunda, Terminus, Quirinus, Vortumnus, Lares, Diana, Lucina, Perseophone, Baccus, Airmed, Belenus, Borvo, Brighid, Grannus, Baldaeg, Erce, Gēat, Helith, Wuldor, Thor, Freya, Odin/Wodin, Loki, Eostur, Pan, Ceres, Kali, Sedna, Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, Xolotl, Xipe-Totec and Hotu Matu were all "mythological" and that they were created by humans. 

It is not intellectual arrogance to insist that these gods do not exist and that they never existed. We don't doubt their existence or non-existence, we are not agnostic about them, we did not stop believing nor did we rejected them, we out-grew them and we rendered them obsolete. We no longer needed to believe that the sun was carried across the sky by a god or that the wind was created by another god, as an explanation for those natural phenomenon a god was obsolete.

We now "know" that all the humans telling other humans telling other humans telling other humans telling other humans... telling other humans about the existence of Horus, Isis and Ra were not telling the truth, they were not being dishonest because they truly believed those gods existed, even if at some point in the dark uncharted ancient history of Egypt the human at the beginning of the chain must have woken up one morning and decided that the magical power that makes the sun rise every day shall be "Ra".... and has the head of a falcon (so he probably should have decided not to eat cheese before going to bed too). He wasn't a liar or the deliberate fabricator of a myth, he honestly believed that was true, and he told other Egyptians and in the absence of a better explanation, they believed him.

Most christians no longer believe that the Devil/Lucifer/Satan exists as a demonic creature (or creatures) and that hell is an actual place. Most followers of the Abrahamic religions no longer believe that the "historical" events described in the first few books of bible actually happened - for example they believe that the Garden of Eden and the Deluge are allegorical rather than factual. They do not believe that the two most epic and spectacular events staged by their god actually happened... this is like accepting that David Blaine cannot really levitate but really can push a cigarette through a solid coin (while admitting he's quite good at card tricks).

So why is doubt the only honesty?

It is honesty to believe in a god if that is what you believe. It is honesty not to believe in a god if that is what you believe. Neither position is born out of arrogance, intellectual or otherwise.

I am not a theist, a deist, a pantheist, an agnostic nor an atheist: I am a nontheist, moreover, I am a post-theist.  I believe we are approaching the stage in human development and understanding of our environment where we no longer need to believe that all the things we do not understand or cannot explain require a god to explain them. We may never be able to find an explanation for everything, in fact I postulate that it is impossible for us to explain everything. I do not so much reject gods and other magical entities as the explanation for those unexplained things as believe that they are fast becoming obsolete as an explanation. That is honesty, not arrogance.

I won't my friend, but they would happily classify/pigeon-hole you as a potential "multiculturalist". Unfortunately, according to the current German chancellor, who gave multiculturalism a lot of chance and time, "multiculturalism doesn't work". I think Britons also realised this, they are just not bold enough, like Germans are, to admit it.

 

Not sure I would say it's arrogant as a rule,  though I have met some atheists who are.

There's no way for us to know conclusively if there is anything 'other' so that's why I think for now , for me, agnosticism is the only tenable position.