Why are so many atheists also humanists?

Question

Don't get me wrong, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool atheist. But humanism seems to me just like another woolly-headed load of nonsense. Since when has mankind ever worked together for any greater good? It's never happened in the past. In fact, as far as I can see, the only enterprise that has ever united vast numbers of human beings in common purpose is war. And what makes human beings so damned special anyway? It all sounds suspiciously like faith to me. I don't worship gods because I don't like being sold a lie, or being told how I should think. So why is humanism trying to replace one tired old lie with another?

Answer 1

Your point is well taken.

However in defence of your quite accurate critique of history, I reply, Ideals are like the stars, we cannot reach them but like the sailor we set our course by them.

Answer 2

Who says they are!

How many of them are in the Peace Corps

How many of them are doing PRO BONO LAW

How many of them run FREE CLINICS

Atheists share a common bond with Sunday Driver Religious:

BOTH ARE OUT FOR THEMSELVES FIRST and everyone else NEVER

I'm 55 years old and never made more than $20K a year because I don't LIVE for the almight buck.

I work very, very hard.

I walk 2 miles a day to work

And I do things only about 2 million people in the world can do.

I put things on TV, on radio, into print and I do it on a regular basis and have done it for the last 35 years.

Most people with my skills negociate million dollar contracts and get to contructually have sex with your daughter.

I just do it, because I like doing it and it's fun and it's self satisfying to say, YEAH MAN I CAN GET SOMETHING ON TV

And YOU can't!

And I beleive in God and God says you're worldly possessions will get you nowhere

So I only cringed a little when I lost my Rickenbacher bass, my mothers two ornate accordions, a violin from the 1800s all because I couldn't pay my storage bill

There was between $20k and $50 k in stuff there and I owed $200

So be it.

Hey atheist, you ever travelled 3,500 miles on your own nickel to work with a 15 year old singer who you thought had some talent and didn't screw her and didn't make her family pay you and you gave up 6 months of your life and $20,000 in money to try and get her somewhere.

I do that all the time.

And I got her (we GOT her, she helped a lot) on TV all over NY and parts of the midwest and southern California and Austrlia

We got several album companies interested but nothing tanble was offered. We got to Britney Spears producer and he said we were on the right track, keep going.

Answer 3

Where is it written that Humanism means unification? You can be a humanist in your own room, family, neighborhood or town.

As an alternative to organized religion, Humanism simply explores human based solutions and explanations, rather than supernatural ones.

It's not nonsense. When you look at social problems from a humanist perspective, they makes sense, and when you apply humanistic principles to solving the problems, it WORKS!

Ask any self-actualized person.

Answer 4

I agree that humanists' hopeful views of humanity are more logical if theistically or "meta-theistically" or pantheistically based. I find atheism to be as much a faith system/s as any other. Indeed, since atheism seems to go against mathematical probabilities and other evidences of logic,IMHO I find atheisms to be more faith-leaps than most formsof theisms.
Of course, the atheistic alternative to atheistic humanism is atheistic inhumanism that the 20Cent revealed as so incontovertably horrible and pseudo-religiously in Communism and Nietzcheanism "experiments'

Answer 5

Well, I'm not really familiar with the details of what organised "humanism" stands for. But, I'm an atheist and a love my fellow man and indeed hope that people could work together for a better future. You can blame Star Trek for that, I guess. Gene Roddenberry's future I'd be happy in. What's wrong with a little optimism?

Answer 6

An atheist, who doesn't believe in God and isn't caught up in all the divided views about the nature of God and what God requires, can look at fellow humanity and see more sameness of wants and needs than a religious whose Big Thing is to sort and separate people under different religious labels.

Answer 7

It depends what you mean by humanism; there are different sorts (and not all of them secular). But I suppose most modern humanists are secular. The ones I know simply believe in promoting a world view that doesn't have unnecessary (especially supernatural) baggage. I suppose they're also in favour of making the world a better place. But that's about as religious or faith-based as it gets.

Answer 8

There are no atheist! You see you don't have the authority to claim to be an atheist! The Bible is the authority and the Bible says in Romans 1: 18-23

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles."

You see the Bible says you believe in God but you suppress the Truth. Therefore there are no atheists only suppressors without excuse.

Answer 9

Mankind has always worked together for the greater good. It hasn't always worked. We live with people we love people we deal with people everyday. It just makes sense to take care for each other and help if we can. all throught history this is how man survived.

Why would I get a thumbs down for this answers? seriously why?

Answer 10

Because secular humanism is the religion of atheists. Ignorance of spiritual realities means that you either believe in humanity as the ultimate reality, or you believe in nothing at all.

Answer 11

So many Atheists are also humanists because each of us has an inborn desire to worship SOMETHING.

If they do not believe in God, they will choose the next highest thing on Earth, man.