Humanism

[vernard]

One of the great religious humanist pioneers, John H. Dietrich, pointed out:

For centuries the idea of God has been the very heart of religion; it has been said "no God, no religion." But humanism thinks of religion as something very different and far deeper than any belief in God. To it, religion is not the attempt to establish right relations with a supernatural being, but rather the upreaching and aspiring impulse in a human life. It is life striving for its completest fulfillment, and anything which contributes to this fulfillment is religious, whether it be associated with the idea of God or not.

Read more about Humanism here.

Comments

[teague.livejournal.com]

Very interesting! Thanks for the link.

[dwivian]

Good link, but I hate that quote. It's as if I said, "For years, people have thought of TCP/IP as the very heart of the Internet, but my group thinks of the Internet as something very different involving pigeons and wifflebats...."

Redefining a word makes for dangerous communications. Religion has been, and continues to be, the amalgamation of cultic practice and belief. Humanism, while a belief, seems to avoid the issue of cultic practice and thus is more a philosophy. Religion differentiates itself in that it has proscribed actions that are adhered to from a sense of devotion, while philosophies may engender realms of actions based on simple motivations. Humanism works to promote "anything which contributes to" the fulfilment of human life, while religion guides one to very specific portions thereof.

Though, packet switching could be quite interesting with a pigeon and a wifflebat, now that I think about it....

(Eddie Izzard once said, "Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion - they're two words which are both....different. In spelling.")

[st-darwin.livejournal.com]

Actually, there is a RFC for IP over carrier pigeon. No mention of wifflebats, but that could fall into the 'special measures' security category.

[dwivian]

Why am I not surprised. Well, there goes my analogy....