Is secular humanism a faith? And is it a plausible faith?

[MikeN]

[quote=“rowland”]This has come up in another context in this board, so let’s break it out here.

It’s been asserted here that humanity is making steady progress, becoming more enlightened and more moral. It’s been further asserted that this is the result of human reason and man-made laws. If the first premise is false then the second is meaningless. And the first is on very shaky ground indeed.

Reality: human upward progress is far from steady. History is full of republics falling to tryanny, of the rule of law collapsing into bloody anarchy, of dark ages, Great Leaps Forward and reigns of terror.[/quote]

It depends on your definition of ‘steady’. If you mean continuous or unbroken, then no. If you mean accumulative, then yes.

Example: “After the D-Day landing, the Allies made steady progress towards crushing Nazi Germany”
Someone might object “What about the hedgerows of Normandy? What about the Battle of the Bulge? That wasn’t steady.”
The reply might be “Hey, they hit the beaches on June 6 1944 and Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. That’s pretty steady.”

As for morality, I don’t see moral codes converging on any particular point. In every age, in every society, some things are approved and some things are forbidden; however; there is no persistent pattern of movement except churn. For every new “freedom” or “tolerance” there is a new restriction or a new thought crime invented. For every systemic oppression overthrown, a new persecuted class is designated. And… have you noticed? Anti-Semitism is on the rise again. Yes, old evils come back.

Not just any particular point; the point we have is one that grew out of Western historical experience and thought and was basically imposed on everyone else, if you’re talking about democracy, religious tolerance, freedom of speech,political equality, and equal rights for women. There was a deep swerve into racism in the 18th and 19th C, but we have largely (officially) recovered from that.

Anti-semitism is somewhat on the rise in Europe, driven by
a) Larger Muslim populations, and a more extreme ideology
b) Anger with Israel on the Left for its occupation policies, which has morphed into anti-Semitism at the extreme.
c) a lot of good-old-fashioned anti-Semitism was still around, but had been driven out of polite society by the horrors of Nazism. Now, with the resurgence of right-wing nationalism and ethno-centrism in places like Hungary, it has made a comeback. Note though, that in France even Marie LePen has had to try and silence her old man.
As for the rest, a lot of Christian anti-Semitism was discredited by the Holocaust, and the recent embrace of Israel by fundamentalists has drained a lot of the rest (Mel Gibson excepted!)

And what of science? Science is done by human beings. It is a particular way that humans approach the world.It happens to work quite well, but it rests on fallible humans, human values, human society. It has never existed apart from all this. When human perversity asserts itself and societal values shift away from reason and empiricism, science will collapse. Already, science is corrupted by ideology and politics. The ghost of Lysenko lives in the Global Warming cult. Science is on its way to being nothing more than a meaningless word.

No, the ghost of Lysenko lives in the politically-inspired rejection of science driven by self-interests of the petroleum lobby.
It certainly is meaningless in the mouths of Rick Santorum or Republicans pushing Creationism in the schools, like Bobby Jindal.

The preponderance of evidence, both from history and from everyday experience, show that human goodness is offset by human evil, and there is no sustainable progress. I believe enlightened Western civilization has passed its peak and is in the early stages of decline. The savages that have recently taken over the Cradle of Civilization are poised to push aside the effete, decadent heirs of the Western tradition. They have the elan and the momentum; all we have is inertia and complacency.

Really? With what? You know who else had elan? The Ghost Shirts.
I really don’t understand how a ragged ass bunch of Holy Warriors armed with rpgs mounted on Toyota pickups can turn conservatives into such jelly-kneed blubbers.

Will the West be utterly destroyed? Perhaps not. The Dark Ages were followed by better times, but before the better times there had to be the Dark Ages. Our culture is now as decrepit as the Roman Republic in its last days. We would be all set for another lengthy Roman Empire except that the Saracens are here already. I expect the coming Empire will be cut short, and we may live to see the next Dark Ages.

I think your history is a bit off here. The Roman Republic was hardly decrepit- it just had a dysfunctional political system.
After all, during the time that Republicanism was collapsing the legions were conquering Spain, Gaul, North Africa, Macedonia, Greece, the Near East and Egypt.

And you think we’re about to have a resurgence of the West in an Imperial form except said desert banditos will- do what?
I know some conservatives have been shrieking about ISIS teaming up with Mexican narcotics dealers to ship Ebola-infected Guatemalan children across the border- but really, that’s sooo 2014.

Secular humanism is simply unrealistic. This triumphalism of human reason already starts to ring a bit hollow. Man is a marvel in comparison to the nematode, but he is not all that he thinks he is.

Any Woman could tell you that.