Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-20-2016, 10:50 AM)radind Wrote: I think that the most destructive force is the de facto state religion of Secular Humanism that tolerates no dissent.

There are some who either cannot distinguish between a secular philosophy and a religion, or wish to confuse the two.  I for one think the distinction still important.

Secular humanism can be an important part of one’s world view.  In informs how one sees the world and evaluates people.  I does come with a set of values.  I says a good deal about what is right, what is wrong, and what things should be striven for to lead a moral life.  Religions do all of those things.  Some caught in religious world views think only religions can or should do these things.  I disagree.

Religions tend to favor the supernatural.  There are often text books held to be in great authority.  There are often gods, personifications of the world views and values supported by the religion.  Secular humanism, just by the definition of the word ‘secular’, strives to avoid these things.  I see this as significant.  Glorifying a text or a persona anchors a system of thought but anchoring implies rigidity, an inability to move.  As a progressive, one who thinks history ought to record a series of improvements, showing how problems were solved, I am dubious about anchors.

This doesn’t imply a secular system of thought is always true.  I’m just trouble by supposedly sacred systems of thought anchored in Agricultural Age authoritarian torture based systems of morality.  If Agricultural Age texts supporting Agricultural Aged values are held sacred, how can a culture move on?  Staying secular implies the basic premises of a system can be questioned.

In the West, the basic premises doesn’t fall far from the golden rule, from equality.  The comparatively recent neo-wiccan movement has proposed as holy “do as you will, but harm none.”  This meshes at an abstract level with the Enlightenment concept of rights.  There are certain freedoms that should not be taken away, there should be no restrictions on what one is allowed to do, but at the same time one cannot harm another or take away the other guy’s freedoms.  There is an inherent tension or conflict in this.  How does one set up a system of rules and coercions that protect freedom?

Women were not and still are not entirely equal.  Blacks were not and still are not entirely equal.  Some Christians do not see themselves as being free to practice their religion as they would practice it.  Name your group and there will often be an impression among the group they they are not being allowed to be themselves, that they are not being allowed to reach their full potential.  Is the Golden Rule being disregarded?  Are people being blocked from doing as they will?  Are their rights being denied?

As a secular humanist, I have sympathy with all of the above.  Females, blacks and Christians are all humans after all.  Let them be…  let us be.  And yet, if you start setting up rigid rules that coerce and enforce equality and freedom, the victims of such rules and coercion aren’t going to feel free.  Coercing freedom seems inherently problematic, almost as problematic as not coercing freedom.  How to do it well might always be a matter of values and personal preference.  As such we have an inherently unsolvable problem.

Me, I have a problem when white male Christians present themselves as victims of oppression.  Too often it sounds like they believe that their inherent absolute right to oppress people is being taken away.  At the same time, the rules and atmosphere of political correctness can drift quite far from the golden rule and ‘do as thy will’.  Is there an inherent conflict in a militant aggressive pursuit of freedom?  Is there a balance to be struck, with no possible agreement on where that balance ought to be?

Anyway, as usual in a values driven partisan disagreement, I don’t see either extreme as being clearly correct, or either extreme as being entirely without merit.  Still, if a group is accurately described as secular, are they practicing a religion?

Color me dubious.