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From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: The Annotated Humanist (part 1 of 4)
Message-ID: <1020@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Apr-84 00:13:46 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.1020
Posted: Fri Apr 20 00:13:46 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Apr-84 01:04:28 EST
Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA
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[A commentary on 550@uofm-cv.UUCP "Humanistic faith." Since the article
long, I will split my reply over several articles.]

> I agree with Protagoras that "the human is the measure of all things"

Which human - of 6000 years ago, of 2000 years ago, of last century, or
one of the varieties today?

> ... the purpose and practice of humanism is to ...
> (b) seek to elicit the possiblilities of life ...

This paragraph in Winsor's article is exactly Tenet 15 of the 1933
Humanist Manifesto. Paralleling this are
  8. Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human
    personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development
    and fulfillment in the here and now. ...
  9. ... the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a
    heightened sense of personal life ...
  12. ...encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life.
Basically, if it gives you pleasure, do it. Forget the future, forget if
it's perverted - go to it!

> (c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for
>     all, not merely the few.

So if you conflict with my satisfaction, kiss your life good-bye.

> "human beings are responsible for their own destinies."

Responsible to whom? Other humans? Also, Clarence Darrow (I think it was
he) argued a case regarding a teen-ager caught in some heinous act; he
told the court that if they allowed the books that the boy got his ideas
from into the public library, how can they accused someone who acted on them?

> humanism is "an accomplishment, not a doctrine."

Fertilizer. For someone who is in full agreement with the Humanist
Manifesto and all its "Humanism {believes,asserts, recognizes, maintains}"
this is a flat-out contradiction.

> ... the scientific method is the best means we have for advancing truth.

To quote Pilate, "What is truth?"

> humanism ... sees the human being as the highest form of life, an end
> not a means, the creator of moral values, ...

If we are the end, can evolution (the foundation of humanism) take us no
farther? (You mean no Khan? :-) Are we so omniscient that no other
branch of the evolutionary tree will supersede us?

Man as the creator of moral values is more moosepoop. Man of himself can
do nothing better than relativistic morality => circular reasoning. Then
again, humanism admits that there are no "cosmic guarantees of human
values..." (Tenet 5) => Not even life is sacred.
-- 
				The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
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