Talk:Humanism/Archive 1

message: Originally untitled initial comment of this talk page
Humanism as a worldview is so dead to most Wikipedians that it is listed in Category:Renaissance. Wetman 02:13, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Humanism – ''long dead, or a new term?''

message: This subsection holds a personal view on the article's assumed TOPIC, which is not the purpose of article talk pages – and a reaction thereupon.
Humanism is not dead, God forbid ;-) The mistake secular humanists make (if they make any, of course...) is that theism, or deism, and religion are one and the same. In rejecting the first two, they unaccountably toss out religion with the bathwater. 
A case can be made that life, love and nature are sacred to humanity. Further, the edifice of a "church" can perform functions on behalf of humanists that they cannot do alone. An example is teaching humanism, promoting world community, and opposing divisive theistic influences from an equal footing. 
Humanists need to view Man scientifically, and to have an institution that oversees our interests. For too long, the organized religions have benefitted from the granular, unorganized state of humanism - so much so that we remain close to a medieval world where mankind remains in poverty.
Once humanists understand the value of the "church" edifice, minus the theistic and supernatural aspects assocaited with it to date, then the movement will come into full flower. 
Only then will we emerge from being considered as mere atheists, from being viewed in terms of who we are not, rather than as the species seeking to govern ourselves, as we are.
Dwight G. Jones
dwight@man.org 30 Jan2005
:Dwight, thanks for providing a fine example of what bias really looks like.  Alienus 16:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Religious Humanism will come to the fore

message: This subsection holds a personal view on the article's assumed TOPIC, which is not the purpose of article talk pages.
So basically humanists choose to assume the best in people, instead of expecting the worst in people.  So it leads to a mindset where you want to see the good in people even though you know not everyone is good instead of just expecting that everyone will backstab you and is bad?  Can anyone clarify if this is true, or what they believe it means. — QuestionMan 29 Mar2006 03:29 (UTC) (was unsigned, undated; other contributions)
:This is not at all true. What you're describing is optimism, not humanism. Humanism asserts the value of human beings; it doesn't assert that human beings are trustworthy, perfect, ideal beings (though it may assert that there ain't anything better to choose from). It's possible to believe (quite realistically) that humans are capable of backstabbing one another, without turning one's back on humankind altogether. -Silence 05:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Humanists tend to believe that human beings matter in the sense of being worthy of our caring about their well-being, and that they have an inherent capacity to be good even if they don't always manifest this. Humanists do not "assume the best" in people in the sense of believing that people will always act in good ways. However, humanists tend to "assume the best" in people in the sense that they observe that when people are treated in a way that assumes their goodness (insofar as this is consistent with a charitable interpretation of the available evidence), then this will tend to elicit their best. Another way of saying this is (to paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh) "what you water is what will grow": by focusing on human goodness, without denying the existence of other human aspects, one tends to encourage the flowering of that goodness. Humanists believe that there is lots of goodness out there waiting to flower if one provides the proper opportunity and encouragement, and that human beings feel most fulfilled when manifesting their goodness. -Rhwentworth 16:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In short (and rather roughly), humanism says that humanity does not need a god to tell it what is good and what is not, it can figure that out on its own with simple logic. └ VodkaJazz / talk ┐ 21:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, even shorter: Yeah, some people suck, but we're still the only game in town. Al 00:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: So Basically...

message: This subsection holds a personal view on the article's assumed TOPIC, which is not the purpose of article talk pages. — It was originally untitled inserted underneath Ibn-arabi's 3 Jan2006 comment (on history of humanism), to which it has little relevance
I was introduced to Humanism by someone who thought I would be interested. I was. I could see myself being one. However, from reading the article, I would not want to be a Humanist.
I mean, a lot of Secular Humanism sounds like a peeve against religion, like another Satanism. A mere reaction by the disillusioned, against religion, but by the sophisticated...?
The Humanists I have talked to, all have their own philosophy. All different. I realize that with intelligent people this happens. So why do Secular Humanists reject so strongly Religious Humanism? Are they anti-religious first and just want to belong to something? Does that make Sec Hum just a social club?
There are anti-religious tendencies in the article. Yet Humanism came from religion. I don't understand how the Humanism of today apparently belies its spiritual legacy. Is Humanism so fickle?
Elementalwarrior 14:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sec Hum social club

message: Content originally of the above section title, for getting shown in Contents like other subsections, this subtitle was created on 21 Aug2006.
if humanism is defined as "man is the measure of all things", it seems that many of the people on the list don't fit- plato, particularly, but others as well.  Bertrand Russell, for instance, may have been a humanitarian, but that isn't the same thing as a humanist . . .  can some justification be given for their inclusion?  --Heah 18:14, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: if the definition defined the term your point would be well taken, but alas, it is just one of many possible definitions of the term.  beyond that definitions  rarely function as ways of determining what is and what is not something.  many of the people on the notable lists are self-avowed humanists, and thus are humanists inasmuchas they did live a life that was not humanist. --Buridan 11:45, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Either the list of humanists stays here, or... we create a category Humanist and tag those people's entries, then link to the category page.  However, since the content is not currently reproduced elsewhere, and it is neutral in that it is non-exclusive in its intepretation of humanism, i think it should stay until other means of representing the knowledge is found. --Buridan 13:10, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Plato, Bertrand Russel

message: Originally a separate section a little farther down, moved here on 21 Aug2006.
I snipped the list and put it here, the resolution should probably be to cut the list in the end because it does not 'add' to the article.  The right way of doing this is to create a categoy and add people to it, then for us to link to that category.  Then if we want to have subcategories as suggested above, we can.   I'll work on the category in a few minutes. Category:Humanists already exists, let's just use that.
I added all of the people that have pages to the appropriate categories. --Buridan 18:00 - 21:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Lists

message: New Humanism (disambiguation) and Neo-humanism probably both need to be represented on this page. Tedernst 05:43, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: New Humanism and Neo-humanism

message: Per comments on my talk, I may agree. — St|eve 19:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Steve, you made a round of changes after I started my last edit, so I had an edit conflict. I did my best to merge our changes together, but some of your work might have gotten lost in the shuffle, so please give it another look. In the future, it might be helpful if you left some indication that you were working on the next version, as I did in my conversation with Wilson Delgado. — Alienus 23:46, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed Philo box

message: Originally a separate section, made subsection on 21 Aug2006.
Here is a source for jesus as a humanist, I assume others can be found
*"The fact that Jesus was a great humanist has been lost on the feeble minded. In religious humanism, people are the first and primary consideration. People are more important than dogmatic, brittle, religious laws, creeds, rules, theologies, beliefs and man-made doctrines. Religious laws and institutions are not sacred.  Jesus attacked authoritarian religion at every turn, replacing it with a humanistic religion. His insistence that “the Kingdom of God is within you” was combined with a blinding emphasis on the needs of human beings.“The sabbath was made for people ... people were NOT made for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27)  The humanism of Jesus: what a breath of fresh air that blows through the theological smog.".
*"Religious Humanism is as old as Jesus."
--Silverback 17:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Jesus was a great humanist"

message: This section had been created (titled 'POV') at top of this talk page.
The entire tone of this article does not maintain a neutral and balanced POV. Historical and contemporary humanism are much more religious then as presented here. The largest humanist groups are religious not secular. 2ct7 21 Feb2006 (was unsigned, undated)
:Disagree. Unless you cite specifics in the article that are POV I will disagree. Oh and PLEASE SIGN YOUR POSTS Signature guideline -- ×××jijin+machina | Chat Me!××× -- 18:08, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Style: POV

message: This subsection had been created as section at top of this talk page, immediately above section 'POV' that inappropriately stood there.
This article is very biased. It is opinionated, reactionary, revisionist, and apologetic especially in its treatment of religion. 
Humanism isn't just a set of beliefs but also practice, so is religion. (no need to get into discussion of existence of god for this). Historically, that is, not just in current opinion of some[!], humanism as practice was the cornerstone of good behavior and manners towards others, a practice to be cultivated through letters, as prescribed within religion. 
So, to say throughout this article things like:
"Humanism can be used in some ways to fulfill or supplement the role of religions in some people's lives"
is a blatant and artificial attempt to provide an explanation where one is not needed. In fact the point is extremely trivial : that, in history, religion and humanism were one and the same. 
To say that humanism 'fulfils or supplements' is an extremely subjective POV type observation where religion is seemingly 'using' humanism. The writer may believe that but its not true if the religious person is a model humanist for no other reason than being religious (and so practising humanism good civil behavior because of its religiously mandated value). 
This condescending thing goes on and on in the article, ending up with a very superficial, especially historically superficial, unsuccesful and perhaps false essay. 
I've belaboured this before (two historical points .. ), but the essay seems to have gotten worse.
best
--Ibn-arabi 12:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV2

message: The following is an explanation to Dacoutts as to why I chose to revert his/her recent batch of edits on the Secular humanism article.  For the same reasons, I chose to revert Dacoutts' edits of the Humanism article.
Hello Dacoutts.  Your edits of the secular humanism article were quite numerous, and done in rapid succession.  I see now that you have done a similar thing with the Humanism article.  The problem with these rapid edits is that they drastically change an article without giving other editors a chance to work with you on the edits, make corrections when mistakes are found, or deliberate and come to consensus if there are significant disagreements.  Many editors have put a lot of effort into developing these articles, and to single-handedly make big changes in a short amount of time disregards their previous efforts, even though those efforts may have been well-researched or hard-won through a process of deliberation.
Many of the edits you made were either inaccurate or contentious, or else against Wikipedia formatting standards.  It is standard to bold only the title word of the article once in the introductory paragraph.  But you have bolded more than just the title word, and throughout both the Secular humanism and Humanism articles.  The errors, controversial assertions and disregard for Wikipedia formatting standards prompted me to restore the earlier version of the Secular humanism article.  I could have picked through all of the article and reverted only those parts that had problems, but they were so numerous that I chose to do a whole-sale revert.  Some of the stuff is good, and I hope you will make more contributions, but please slow down so that I and other editors have a chance to respond to your changes before the articles are transformed beyond recognition!
As for the "H" issue: The article is about secular humanism, which is just one subcategory of Humanism.  The terms are not equivalent, since there are many Humanists who consider themselves religious.  Yet you deleted many instances in the article where it said "secular humanism" and replaced it with "Humanism."  Humanism has its own article, and information about the life-stance of Humanism in general ought to be added there.  Most secular humanists I know are quite adamant about their use of the adjective "secular," and indeed, the Council for Secular Humanism almost always refers to the life-stance it promotes on its website and in its publication Free Inquiry as secular humanism, not Humanism.  The authors you cited who were in favor of the capital H, sans adjective, were expressing a preference, and inviting other Humanists to adopt this preference, for a number of strategic reasons.  As a Humanist, I agree with their suggestions, but they are not the final authorities on how Humanists and secular humanists ought to refer to themselves, and many humanists disregard their preferences.  An encyclopedia article, like a dictionary, ought to describe how terms are actually used, not prescribe the so-called "correct" way to use them.  If you were to edit the secular humanism article to indicate that some secular humanists prefer to call themselves Humanists, that would be fine.  But not all of them prefer that, and it's not the only correct way. Rohirok 02:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A blitz of edits, and why they were reverted

message: This subsection had been created as section though it simply replies on Rohirok's 25 Feb2006 02:16 (UTC) criticism.
Many editors have put a lot of effort into developing these articles, and to single-handedly make big changes in a short amount of time disregards their previous efforts, even though those efforts may have been well-researched or hard-won through a process of deliberation.
The problem is that they are wrong, and the world body responsible for secular humanism has officially endorsed the view that secular humanism is correctly known as Humanism with a capital H, and no adjective. 
As for the "H" issue: The article is about secular humanism, which is just one subcategory of Humanism.  The terms are not equivalent, since there are many Humanists who consider themselves religious. 
Yes, secular humanism (correctly known as Humanism) is one subcategory of "humanism" but NOT Humanism. However, how do we then distinguish between the general term humanism (which can also be typed in Wikipedia as Humanism, and still get to the general term only), and the correct term for secular humanism, which is Humanism? Maybe what we need is a disambiguation page. However, the secular humanism page should be the correct home for all content pertaining to Humanism (as in secular humanism). If you are humanist (little h) and have secular views, that means you're just a liberal humanist (same as humanist) with secular views. However, I repeat, Humanism is the official correct term for my beliefs and I completely resent your action in reverting my edits. This is a question of freedom of religion and belief, and you are deliberately suppressing my rights. 
The authors you cited who were in favor of the capital H, sans adjective, were expressing a preference, and inviting other Humanists to adopt this preference, for a number of strategic reasons.
The IHEU is the world organisation for Humanism (secular humnanism), not just some authors with opinions. They are not suggestions, but endorsed official statements.
Many of the edits you made were either inaccurate or contentious, or else against Wikipedia formatting standards.  It is standard to bold only the title word of the article once in the introductory paragraph. 
I accept that my bolding was excessive, and would agree to change that aspect of my edits.--Couttsie 02:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrong, wrong, wrong

message: Wikipedia uses the "neutral point-of-view", which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view; presenting each point of view accurately; providing context for any given point of view, so that readers understand whose view the point represents; and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view." It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. When a conflict arises as to which version is the most neutral, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed; hammer out details on the talk page and follow dispute resolution. 
and also keep in mind:
Disambiguation in Wikipedia and Wikimedia is the process of resolving ambiguity—the conflict that occurs when a term is closely associated with two or more different topics. In many cases, this word or phrase is the "natural" title of more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different topics that share the same term or a similar term.
Dacoutt's many edits reflect a non-nuetral POV that Humanism is only what the IHEU defines it to be and that the many Humanist organizations that are not due paying members of the IHEU have no right to use the term Humanism (or at least be defined as Humanist in Wikipedia). 
Moving the more general previous article on Humanism to a disambiguation page was not an act of good faith. Disambiguation is for different topics that have the same name, not for the general definition of a topic so that the non-disambiguated page can have a specific non-nuetrual POV article.
2ct7 15:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia:Five pillars