Start With Humanism

[rug]

02/12/2017 11:52 pm ET
J. H. McKenna, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer, History of Religious Ideas, University of CA Irvine

For your own self-designation, begin with the broadest most relevant category and call yourself a Humanist.

This classification encompasses all others. After the word Humanist you may add your preferred subset label: Humanist Muslim, Humanist Christian, Humanist Buddhist, Humanist Atheist, Humanist Agnostic. It is important that these subset terms do not precede the word Humanist. We are Humanists first, and what we are after that is secondary or tertiary or even further down the line.

We are Humanists first because we are human infants first, insusceptible of further branding at that time. No infant is Muslim or Christian or Atheist or Conservative or Liberal or even American or Dutch or Egyptian or any of the like. An infant is simply human, inducted by dint of that condition into a decades-long participation in ‘basic human goods,’ chief of which are friendship, play, learning, skillful performance, and the rearing of children.

We are Humanists first because Humanism is easiest to believe. There are no fabulist doctrines to embrace. No winged ponies. No uncertain nativities. No staggering saintly pedigrees. No post-possessed recuperations. No impracticable moral embargoes No otherworldly opinions on textiles that drape the body. No deistic dietary whims. No lurching angel trumpeting doom. No underworld chamber brutalizing dissent. Humanism says simply that human ingenuity is the source of goodness and therefore a source of delight. Easy assent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/j-h-mckenna-phd/start-with-humanism_b_14715364.html

[Jim__]

1. I see. So, a Roman Catholic is a Roman first, and Catholic just tells us what type of Roman she is?

Maybe we should start with trying to understand each other first, and worry about the labels we use somewhere down the road.

[Bretton Garcia]

2. Be a human first?

One among many others.