Humanists, the Happy Heathens  🔗 **Source:** [Humanists, the Happy Heathens](https://share.snipd.com/episode/3e8430ca-7d74-43e5-b036-39c9db4b3e1e) ## Highlights - **Renaissance Humanism Centered The Individual** - Renaissance humanism shifted focus from church authority to individual dignity and practical learning. - Thinkers like Petrarch promoted studying classical texts to cultivate virtue and apply knowledge to civic life. Transcript: Chuck Yeah, they put it like this. It's a progressive philosophy of life that without theism or other supernatural beliefs, bit of a dig, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment That aspire to the greater good. And, of course, if you don't know what theism is, we're talking about, you know, religion and God. So it's like, hey, you can be a good person and have a moral and ethical center and strive to do those things without God at the center of it. Josh Yeah, for sure. And most humanists, yeah, I think it's fair to say most are atheists, or at least agnostic. At the very least, if they do believe in a God, he's not an interventionist God. He's not playing a role in our lives day to day. Maybe you could also interchange that definition of God with the universe or nature or something like that. But not God in any religious way whatsoever. And in fact, like if you do believe that, a lot of like strict humanists will say, well, you can't really be a humanist because not believing in God in that sense is a core part of humanism. And a lot of other people say, hey, you're a humanist. Who are you to tell me what I believe? And the humanist says, you got me. Yeah. Chuck And as we'll see, it, you know, had kind of been tangled up with religion here and there until it kind of landed eventually where it did. And we're going to talk a little bit about the history, though. That term humanism goes back to at least Cicero in first century BCE Rome, when that very famous writer and I are think lawyer and statesman used the word humanitus to describe like people Developing or the development of these qualities, these virtuous qualities that Chuck will talk about, like a moral and ethical center, compassion, good judgment, like being a good Person and doing good things. Yeah. ([Time 0:02:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/61c2c721-d48d-414b-b992-0ddf831ab232)) - **Empiricism And Social Contract Shaped Secular Thought** - Early modern figures like Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes secularized inquiry by emphasizing empiricism and social contracts. - Bacon promoted the scientific method; Hobbes framed society as protection from humans' brutish tendencies. Transcript: Josh One of the people we have to thank for that is Francis Bacon. Yeah. Known as the father of empiricism. He also invented bacon. And he also had a big hand into coming up with the scientific method. Chuck Yeah, yeah. We talked about him and that. Josh Yeah, for sure. Which has been largely abandoned by science in the last hundred years. Yeah. Chuck Well, he argued for really studying like what we call social sciences now. He kind of kicked that off as well, the systemic study of like the human passions. But all these people that we're going to talk about here in the next little bit were Christian. So this is sort of this is where it was still a time when it was still tangled up, even though they had these ideas. All of these people, Bacon and this next person, Thomas Hobbes, were Christian. Josh Yeah. And the fact that there are Christians who identify themselves as humanists and vice versa, that goes to show you like that those two things are not incompatible. You can be religious and care about human beings and like they don't have to oppose one another, although humanists have eventually said, yes, they do. Chuck Yeah. I mean, that's the deal, right? I mean, did I read that correctly? Is that is the modern humanist movement was really where they were like, we're really separate from and congruous with belief in God. Yes. Yeah. OK. Josh So we mentioned Bacon. What about Thomas Hobbes? Because he came up with the social contract, which is basically like you and me, we basically allow a government to rule us in exchange for protecting us from nasty, brutish, short lives, Which we would otherwise have without the state or without society, right? That doesn't sound very humanist, even though it's human-centered, because he assumed that humans were essentially bad and would club you over the head and kill you first chance they Got. That's why we need government, according to Hobbes. But he's considered one of the early humanists for sure. Chuck Yeah. And he was Christian as well, but he did not write a lot like in his writings, didn't write a lot about God. He kind of put that to the side and said, you know, if we want to understand who we are and what it means to be human, we have to look at it through just a very sort of secular and like very reasoned Approach. Right. Josh Exactly. ([Time 0:09:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/74fb77dc-89ed-4d53-ac67-93cf1a6157d3)) - **Paine And Bentham Modeled Practical Humanism** - Thomas Paine and Jeremy Bentham exemplified early humanist activism for equality, welfare, and animal suffering recognition. - Bentham famously asked not 'Can they reason?' but 'Can they suffer?' and donated his body to science. Transcript: Josh He was probably, yeah, he was like the first person that you can point to and be like, that guy's a humanist. He even says so himself in not so many words or more than those words. He was a pamphleteer who helped get the American Revolution started despite moving to America just two years before the revolution started. That's how effective his pamphlets were. Yeah. Chuck He was very forward thinking. He was arguing very early against slavery. He's, you know, had an idea for what we might call universal basic income now. Very much believe in the equality of all humans. And he has this quote that's that's really pretty great. Like I'm a big pain guy after reading up more on him. Sure. My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. Pretty nice. Josh Yeah, there's pretty much no better way to sum up the humanist view in a nutshell than that. Yeah. The French Revolution also, there's a couple of people who get called out a lot, Jacques Hubert and Antoine Francois Mamoro, um, because they established the cult of reason where they Would actually go in and seize churches in France during the revolution and, um, repurpose them. I saw into temples of reason. Um, I read about them on the collector, which is a great website that explains all sorts of different philosophies and stuff. Great website. Anyway, the French Revolution itself basically said, Catholic Church, you're out. And then they were like, okay, well, wait a minute. We're all about Reason and Enlightenment. What are we going to fill the vacuum left by getting rid of the Catholic Church? And all of these ideas like the cult of reason kind of came along, which was essentially create humanist temples to logic in humans, in humanity, remove God from the equation altogether. Chuck Yeah, for sure. And buddy, do you think I like Thomas Paine? Don't get me started on Jeremy Bentham, because after reading up on Jeremy Bentham, I wish I had named my daughter Jeremy Bentham Bryant. Josh That would have been a great name. Chuck I really missed an opportunity because Jeremy Bentham was a great dude. He was working for welfare programs for the poor early on. He didn't believe in slavery, obviously, child labor. And this was like decades before anyone else was talking about this stuff. He was into animals. And we'll see that's some of the criticism from humanists is that they they kind of stop at humans. And that's not to say that humanists can't be like pro-animal or pro-environment because most of them probably are. But Bentham very early on when it talked about like the suffering of animals, he said the question is not, can they reason? Because that's what animals were just animals because they can't reason, they don't have brains like us. He combated that with the question is not, can they reason nor can they talk, but can they suffer? Josh Yeah. Chuck What a thing to say in the 1700s. Josh Yeah. I'm glad you explained what you meant by he was into animals because I was confused at first. Oh, come on. One of the other cool things about Jeremy Bentham is he willed his body to science. He donated it to science early on. And they used it. They said, thanks a lot, buddy. Here's your skeleton back. Because as part of his wishes, he wanted to remain at University College London, which he helped found as a secular college open to everybody. And he's still under glass at the University College of London, dressed up in his own clothes. He's got wax hands with gloves on. He has a wax head. And apparently he originally wanted his head to be part of it. So they use some, I guess, some Maori technique of desiccation and it didn't go very well. And his desiccated head is still around. But they're like, Jeremy, we do not you do not want us to leave this on your body because you look so great with the wax head. We're just going to keep this separate under glass itself. Yeah. Chuck Up with Jeremy Bentham. You mentioned the secular college. He went well beyond separation of church and state, where he was like, colleges should have nothing to do, there should not be religious colleges. He really wanted to draw a strong divide between God and kind of all the institutions. Right. Josh He was also the father of utilitarianism, which is essentially if at its worst, killing one person saves two people, then you kill that person, which gave us things like the trolley Problem as a utilitarian thought experiment, essentially. ([Time 0:12:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/93359611-a1ea-4ed3-bb35-9350d38157a0)) - **Manifestos Shifted Humanism From Religion To Life Stance** - Humanist manifestos formalized the movement but evolved politically over decades to avoid being labeled a religion or tied to communism. - 1933 manifesto called humanism a religion; later versions (1973, 2002 Amsterdam) reframed it as a life stance. Transcript: Josh Because you can't have liberal thinkers and communists together and not come up with a manifesto. Right. It's just going to naturally bubble up from those people being together. And in 1933, I think they drafted the first humanist manifesto. And it basically said, so, and this is where, this is one reason why religious people don't like humanists. It took direct aim at religion, right? Yeah. And then this is why people who aren't religious don't like humanists. It also called humanism its own type of religion. Chuck Yeah. Josh Take that, Chuck, and run with it. Chuck Mixed messages. Can I read this bit from the 73 manifesto? Yeah. Or wait, this was, okay, the 73 was the manifesto part two. Josh Yeah, sorry, 1938, I believe. Chuck 33 was the first one, I think. Josh Thank you, we got there. Chuck Okay, 33 was the first one. 73 was Manifesto 2, and this was from 73. Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our lifespan, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of Human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers. It's starting to sound a little bit like Scientology there. And provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life. Josh Yeah. It also smacks of transhumanism too. Oh yeah. Which is denoted by H plus. Stellark. It's a branch. Yeah. It's a branch of humanism where you graft a human ear onto your forearm. Chuck Right. Oh boy. Josh Man, I can't believe you remembered his name. Chuck It just came right up. If you're a longtime listener, you remember when we first talked about Stellark, the transhumanist who did, in fact, graft a human ear to his arm, complete with a little speaker. Like, it heard and worked, right? Yeah. Josh I think it, yeah, it had a Bluetooth speaker, which is probably dead by now. Chuck How many Q-tips do you think that guy's gone through? Oh, gross. Josh He's like, got ketchup in there again. Oh, man. So the reason that they wrote the 1973 Manifesto 2 was because Manifesto 1 had a lot of, well, it was of its time. Yeah, yeah. It was very pro-communist and socialism. It was anti-capitalist. It even said, quote, the existing acquisitive and profit-motivating society has shown itself to be inadequate. It said it was a religion. So in 1973, they're like, let's just kind of get rid of some of this. Let's not call ourselves a religion of any kind. We'll still take aim at religion, but we're not going to call ourselves a religion. We're going to drop the whole like communist capitalist, you know, West Coast, East Coast war in our own manifestos. It went in 1980, 1988, 2003. In 2002, so all these were American, by the way. In 2002, it finally went international, which what's called the Amsterdam Declaration of Humanism from 2002. ([Time 0:28:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/52ce1734-04aa-4788-bad1-691efdaf25b8)) - **Question Received Wisdom And Use Evidence** - Use senses and reason to form beliefs instead of accepting received wisdom. - Andrew Copson and Josh encourage grounding views in evidence, scientific inquiry, and personal investigation. Transcript: Josh One, we use the senses and reasoning when we're seeking out the truth to understand what the world's all about. We are all about rationalism. We're all about scientific inquiry. That's what our stuff is based on. It's not based on supernatural beliefs. Again, it's not based on received wisdom. It's about using rationalism and our own senses to understand the universe for ourselves. Chuck Yeah. Can I just make a quick comment? I don't want to get too political, but using the census and reasoning like that is missing, I think, a lot today because we're in a world now where there are very powerful people in the World that are literally sort of gaslighting the rest of the world and saying, like, what you're seeing and hearing is not the truth. Like, even though you're seeing it and hearing it, understand So to see someone stand up and say, hey, one of our big tenants is going to be to use like to see stuff and hear stuff. And like, that's what it is. Yeah. Josh You know, I find your reasoning sensible. Yes. Chuck Affleck, Affleck. What else? Viewing humans as the product of natural biological processes and seeing death as the end of individual consciousness. So you're not going to an afterlife. You're not going to go hang out with Elvis and Tom Petty. Once you're gone, you're warm dirt. Josh Yeah, there's nothing after that. It's a real bummer part of it for sure. Chuck It is, but I've always, well, I've always in my adult life believed that. And I don't think it's a bummer. That's just, uh, yeah, I don't think it's a bummer. Josh You know, I believe that for years and years and years, and I've just recently kind of started to, I don't want to say go back, but just kind of expand the possibilities more than I used To. Because I was exactly what you're talking about. Like, that's it. Like, you're just, it's lights out. You don't even know it's lights out because you don't exist anymore. Just like you didn't exist before you were born. This is exactly the same thing. It's just tacked onto the end of your life, not the beginning of your life. Chuck Yeah, I like that you're exploring that. I think that's I think I'm not opposed to anyone and their beliefs. So I think it's great, especially when you get older and you're in your 40s and 50s and you start kind of radically exploring new ideas. I think that's very valuable. Josh It's funny. I have been doing that a lot lately. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode on humanism. ([Time 0:40:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f1cc5dd0-8d02-448e-95c5-8cbe8b1491df)) - **Create Meaning When Life Has No Intrinsic Purpose** - Existentialist-style humanism accepts no inherent cosmic meaning but urges individuals to create personal purpose. - Josh frames it as: if there's no afterlife, it's up to you to make meaning and live intentionally. Transcript: Josh Yes. And from my recent exploration, that is essentially the basis of a philosophy called existentialism, which actually is born out of nihilism. And it's basically saying, yes, there's no God, there's no meaning to life, we're all a fluke. But that doesn't mean you can't live a great, fulfilling life that has meaning, that is meaningful to you. So go figure out what your life is, what you want it to be, and make it meaningful. And I think that's, if you do believe that there's no such thing as God, that to me is essentially the best mentality you can take on. That if there's no afterlife, if we're all a fluke, then it's up to you, pal, to go make meaning for your own life. Chuck Yeah. Like live with intention, I think, is another good way to say that to like not just be someone who things happen to. Josh Yeah. Or live without Netflix. That's another way to put it too. Chuck Uh, what's another one view moral behaviors. Um, like, you know, consider other people's needs. Like humanism is, is not a, uh, a self, um, uh, uh, inward looking thing. Like you're looking inward, but you're acting outward, if that makes sense. Josh Oh, it does. It makes perfect sense. Chuck It's not a self-centered or self-centered. That's what I was looking for. Josh Yeah. You're not self-involved. You care about other people. And yeah, by doing that, you're developing yourself. That's part of self-personal development, right? You're also not relying on any doctrine to teach you ethics. Although you can go find ethics from like, say, the great Greek philosophers or Buddha or, you know, Taoism or Confucianism. Like you can go find these wherever you want. You can even read the Bible or something. And, you know, like Thomas Jefferson edited the Bible. He took all the miracles out and just basically made it a really great moral handbook. You could do the same thing. Right. And still gain these ideas. Yeah. The point is, you're not supposed to take anything wholesale, including ostensibly humanism. Like you should not just go, OK, I want to be humanist. Tell me how to be because they're going to say, no, you got to go figure that out. ([Time 0:43:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f832ce79-5445-470d-b94f-256432390a75)) - **Treat Humanism As A Toolkit Not A Creed** - Don't adopt humanism as a fixed doctrine; explore ethics from many traditions and choose what works. - Josh suggests drawing on philosophers, Buddha, Confucius, or even a Jefferson-edited Bible for moral guidance. Transcript: Josh Yeah. You're not self-involved. You care about other people. And yeah, by doing that, you're developing yourself. That's part of self-personal development, right? You're also not relying on any doctrine to teach you ethics. Although you can go find ethics from like, say, the great Greek philosophers or Buddha or, you know, Taoism or Confucianism. Like you can go find these wherever you want. You can even read the Bible or something. And, you know, like Thomas Jefferson edited the Bible. He took all the miracles out and just basically made it a really great moral handbook. You could do the same thing. Right. And still gain these ideas. Yeah. The point is, you're not supposed to take anything wholesale, including ostensibly humanism. ([Time 0:44:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/91f63217-ea64-4449-95d3-d8044cfd9128)) - **Main Critiques Question Humanist Moral Foundations** - Major critiques claim humanism can't supply moral foundations without God or overestimates human moral capacity. - Christian theologians assert God grants meaning; some philosophers call humanist optimism naive. Transcript: Josh They get it from all sides. Other atheists, other philosophers, Christians, obviously. Christian thinkers basically are like, dude, you can't have meaning in your life without God. Theology teaches us that God is what gives your life meaning, you chump. And that's essentially the most basic criticism of humanism. They basically say you can't be ethical or moral or have meaning or value in your life without believing that there is such a thing as God. Right. Chuck You mentioned atheists. There are also atheists that say, you know what, a little too much credulity going on about the value of humanity and like that we can all just improve ourselves. And I mean, I think there are some very prominent philosophers from the 20th century that are very much anti-humanist. Josh Yeah, they called themselves anti-humanists. ([Time 0:48:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/329e0b7d-d541-4b2c-863d-590ab88ef638)) - **Structuralism Undermines Humanist Individualism** - Structuralist critics argue institutions shape identity so profoundly that self-made meaning is illusory. - Post-structuralist thought says individual rebellion may just reproduce the same structures that formed it. Transcript: Josh Apparently, the structuralist and post-structuralist movements of philosophy that came out of France in the 60s and 70s, I think maybe even into the 80s, they were very much anti-humanist. And they were like, the individuals don't matter other than, you know, we don't go make our own meaning. Everything we are is some very prominent philosophers from the 20th century that are very much anti-humanist. Basically created by institutions and structures that we're born into and there's basically no way out. So stop being silly and naive. Chuck Yeah, that's interesting to me not to do an episode on necessarily, but I'd like to poke around the structuralism a little bit more. I'd never heard of that. Josh I have been doing that. And it is very interesting. Essentially, what they're saying is like, you are so shaped by institutions that these cool thoughts that you think you have, the interactions you have with other people, all of them Are shaped by the institutions we're born into. It's hard to argue with that. Right. But so much so, Chuck, that those cool thoughts, those amazing things that you're saying, those interactions with people, all they're doing is reinforcing those institutions because They're all within that structure. So you're just teaching other people how to be in that structure too by even rebelling against it as a form of reinforcing the structure. It's very grim. ([Time 0:49:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8d0e31d9-47b4-4cae-8415-6fbd1eb4116a))