In its online religion column yesterday, the New York Times asks where the non-believers are in times of crisis like the Newtown massacre. Citing the rallying-round of diverse religious groups, the Times seems to sympathize with the non-religiously affiliated:
“To raise these queries is not to play gotcha, or to be judgmental in a dire time. In fact, some leaders within the humanist movement — an umbrella term for those who call themselves atheists, agnostics, secularists and freethinkers, among other terms — are ruefully and self-critically saying the same thing themselves. . . . ‘It is a failure of community, and that’s where the answer for the future has to lie,’ said Greg M. Epstein, 35, the humanist chaplain at Harvard and author of the book “Good Without God.” ‘What religion has to offer to people at moments like this — more than theology, more than divine presence — is community. And we need to provide an alternative form of community if we’re going to matter for the increasing number of people who say they are not believers.’”
“Community” is the buzzword. It’s the buzz of the humanist engine of social change (as well as the propellant of the last two presidential elections). In classic Darwinian species behavior, churches attempt to mutate and survive, largely unaware that in such mutation, they become irrelevant and ensure their non-survival. The Church of England is the textbook specimen. Meanwhile, dissenting Catholics find more common ground with humanism than with the Church.
An example of how this works: Habitat for Humanity, begun as the religious vision of a Protestant businessman a couple of decades ago, is now secularized. While churches often participate, it’s no longer a social endeavor of the religious, but of humanists. It is doing “Good Without God.” The ethic, the “good,” is the same; there is no religious distinction involved. The good is manifest, and the obvious question is: Isn’t that what matters? Well, isn’t it? My neighbor is an atheist. She is on the local board of Habitat for Humanity. When members of a church participate in the building of a house, she says they’re doing it because their religion requires it of them, but when secularists participate, they’re doing it “because they care.” Of which community would you rather be a part?
The NYT quotes Epstein further, to conclude:
“Mr. Epstein is currently involved in a three-year, $2.5-million project to study, develop and spread the concept of nonreligious community. . . . ‘A lot of humanist rhetoric of previous generations revolved around reason,’ he said. ‘We’d say, “We’re people of reason rather than people of faith.” But I’ve always been uncomfortable with that as the banner under which we march. We need to think of reason in the service of compassion — caring, being cared-about, a life of meaningful connection. Reason itself is the tool. When we see it as the end-product we miss the point.’”
“. . . caring, being cared-about, a life of meaningful connection” is indeed what community is about. Is it all that faith was ever about? Have we believed in God these millennia just because we really only wanted community? If so, it’s time to let go of that belief. Or maybe just follow the Protestant-mutant/Catholic-dissent example of hanging on to a religious identity for sentiment’s sake or ethnicity’s. Perhaps simply keep a deeply felt aesthetic appreciation of Catholic art—or maybe take one of the latter pages out of the PM/CD handbook: do a little semantic sleight-of-hand, and redefine “God.”
At the foundation of a strong community is a common sense of direction, a clear grasp of a purpose to life that transcends the individual, coupled with a willingness to work together to achieve that purpose.
Stalinist Russia to some extent had a strong community sense because the Russians were still in their soul a religious people, a heritage from their Orthodox and Tsarist past. Once that capital had been dissipated the Communist system collapsed, economic crisis being the final symptom of the loss of community.
Humanists can offer nothing that adds up to a transcendental purpose in life. What is left of the social cohesion of the West comes from its religious capital, which is steadily diminishing. A pure humanist creed, that relativises every absolute conviction, must surely end with society in anarchy.
Humanists may talk of a ‘caring community’ but they are really just trying to have their cake and eat it. If man is the pinnacle of reality then the next man had better get out of his way. It ends up as every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.
Dear Justin,
I had not thought of the unraveling of Russian communism from that perspective. It makes perfect sense and explains why there was such moral chaos in the wake of the soviet fall, giving birth to that new monster of depravity, the “Russian mafia.” Religious faith having long since been scuttled, the Russian people had no moral foundation to fall back on when communism collapsed.
Dena, your blogs on humanism have been excellent. Frankly I stopped reading the NY Times a long time ago. You reminded me here how revolting they can be.
Dear Dena,
I’ve thought a lot about the ‘sense of direction’ which to me seems to be a very fundamental human need, and one met ultimately only by religion. ‘The Waste Land’ and ‘Waiting for Godot’ show what happens to people when religion has been completely evacuated from their souls. They lose the notion of any purpose in life and fritter away their time either sitting in a corner or diverting themselves with hedonism or mindless acts of cruelty.
Humanism in its various forms destroys the sense of direction. Human rights no longer have their foundation in human duties. If pushed to its logical social consequences humanism has to end in anarchy.
But I think most humanists are a bit schizophrenic. Humanism gives them an excuse to separate the need for a sense of direction from its object, which is God, but they don’t want the consequence, which is the destruction of the sense of direction.
So humanists need religious people who create, at least to some extent, a society that is caring and cohesive, in order to get the fruits of that sense of direction – which basically are the fruits of civilisation. Humanists take these fruits and try to claim they can be achieved without bringing God into the picture, never realising that the day they succeed in eliminating God from society is the day their own throats get cut.
Dear Manny,
Thank you. Your comments are always much appreciated.
Dear Justin,
That phrase, “human rights,” needs a little bit of examination. It was coined by, of all people, Jimmy Carter, and has since been used by a great many people–but they don’t all mean the same thing when they use that phrase. One among them is Pope Benedict XVI; he refers to us, God’s children, created in the divine image, and heir to certain “rights” as the children of God. Other people (including Carter himself, maybe) meant something else entirely, and it’s worth a muddling over to think about exactly what they meant by “human rights.” (e.g., rights granted, given? If so, by whom? If not granted or given, then what–seized?) Whence human “rights”?
The “schizophrenia” you mention is the the topic of discussion for Mentioning Humanism, 4, upcoming.
Dear Dena,
I think you will find that the term ‘human rights’ goes back quite a bit farther than Jimmy Carter, though he may have popularised the term.
As I understand it, a human right is the faculty to do something without let or hindrance, provided that something is not bad. In the Catholic perspective, the ‘something’ is bad if it is sinful; in the humanist perspective the ‘something’ is bad if it directly harms or inconveniences another human being capable of exercising the same right (which of course precludes the unborn).
Rights tend to focus on the most important aspects of human behaviour. One doesn’t normally tout one’s right to have a cup of tea. In the Catholic perspective, again, the most important aspects of human behaviour centre around the fulfilment of one’s duties of state by the practice of virtue, as a preparation for heaven. For the humanist, who does not consider the next life as a serious goal of his life on earth, the important aspects focus around his pursuit of happiness, or maximal self-fulfilment, which is considered INDEPENDENTLY of any notion of duty.
Separating human rights from duties like this tends to justify and legalise selfishness. “I have my rights” = “Being selfish is ethically OK.” It creates a people for whom duty and the common good (if they exist at all) take second place to one’s quest for personal satisfaction. You end up with a generation of spoilt brats who will drop anything the moment it becomes a serious bother to them.
Not a good prognosis for the future.