h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Kurt Vonnegut says in his novel “Timequake” that “Humanists, by and large educated, comfortably middle-class persons with rewarding lives like mine, find rapture enough in secular knowledge and hope. Most people can’t.”

For the most part, I have to agree. While I don’t necessarily think that financial stability or a good education, in and of themselves, make a person’s life more rewarding, I do believe that people who are well educated and at least reasonably comfortable have more opportunities to create rewarding lives for themselves, and therefore have less need to seek other sources of hope and comfort.

Most discussion of humanism compared to religion I’ve participated in, or followed along with, has pointed out at least some correlation between level of education and ties to organized religion or religious faith. Many people, as they learn and understand the scientific principles that make things work, find they no longer need parables and folklore to explain those things. Many people find that they no longer need to attribute things they don’t have the answers for or don’t understand to some “higher power”.

What interests me is the “rewarding life” part of things. I’ve always considered my life to be a reasonably rewarding one, even during times of poor health or financial hardship. I’ve never had “faith” from which to draw hope, self-worth, or as an excuse to externalize blame and relinquish responsibility. Some of the faithful believe that the only thing that leads to a rewarding life is a “personal relationship” with the deity or deities of choice.

I’m sure the need for deities, prayers and incantations, and religious fellowship, stems from the same need that drives some people to stuff their faces with food and booze, to abuse drugs, to become addicted to things that are inherently harmless when enjoyed in moderation. Religious faith is different, though, in that there is nothing inherently harmless or moderate about it, regardless of how fluffy and nice some adherents might be.

Would anyone be interested in discussing?

Certainly there is a link between humanism and education I think, but I've a feeling that the comfortably middle class bit is something of a non-sequitur. Being educated about life and the universe at least gives you a basis to expect that supernatural entities are not needed to define existence.

I suppose one thing that humanism can't really offer is hope. In a sense people try to be realistic and tend to adopt the view that Darwinism does operate around us - projects fail, relationships fail, people fail, and in the end we die, full stop. This is deeply depressing stuff for religious people who want there to be a sense of hope and purpose in their lives.

I would guess that a big interest in 'philosophical outlook' questions tends to require a good degree of middle class comfort, that others are too busy getting on with their lives.

So an interest in humanism is much like a taking a big interest in a religion, or, for that matter, a political movement.

(What the heck happened to my original post? I didn't even type that in Word first.)

I agree about the middle-class bit perhaps not being a prerequisite.

Though here in the States, a lot of the most religious people (not so much the political pundits who play at religion to pander to them) do live in poverty, some fabulously wealthy people have been, or at least pretended to be, involved in some religion or other.

Maybe the connection is the hope you speak of. I do think it's possible, though, to have a sense of hope and purpose without religion. I wonder what the difference is in the sense of hope itself? Other than potential "afterlife" and what have you, which not every religious person I know is sure about, but seems to be a big part of the appeal.

I think we posted at about the same time there, Extra Bold. Sorry.

What about those people who aren't 'comfortable", but who are actually quite poorly off, who have a big interest in religion? What is it about the religion that makes it seem worth investing time and effort better spent getting on with life?

Yes, you're right to say that humanists can see hope and purpose in their lives. I guess what I meant was more some sort of divine intervention when things are bad - something that humanists would reject, but which would be very much a part of a religious person's mental repertoire.

Yeah, I was raised to believe in that sort of divine intervention. I think what I'm trying to find a way to describe here is what it is that allows non-religious people, including me, to internalize that sense of purpose and hope, as opposed to relying on external "forces" or influence.

I suppose sometimes it's just easier to pass the buck, but it can't be *all* that.

I've got a couple of really religious (and pushy) people involved in my life (albeit tangentially) these days, and I'd like to be able to describe to them what it is that gives me purpose and hope and all those other good things, without the need for divine intervention or cosmic brownie points.

Chance / chaos perhaps? Knowing that the world is continuously changing and that new opportunities happen all the time? Accepting that positive things can happen both externally and through new insights that we come up with?

Most modern mythologies teach that adversity is something that is done to you on purpose by a higher power. An atheist doesn't have to feel like the victim of someone else's twisted plans whenever things are going wrong. An atheist also doesn't stand around waiting for intervention from a higher power, but seeks real help or takes action.

Another thing much easier for an atheist: acceptance. I've always appreciated the wisdom of the serenity prayer "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." But there's an idiotic sign along one of the highways around here that says "Prayer changes things." So where the atheist can accept things and move on, the god-botherer thinks they just need to pray harder, or that there's some personal fault that they're being punished for.

I agree with you in regards to acceptance. The god-botherers I'm dealing with seem to have particular issues with acceptance.

Last June, my significant other's grandmother died. His aunt (daughter of the grandmother), her husband, and their daughter behaved in a really appalling manner. First, there was ranting and raving that some demon or something had "stolen" her away. Then the usual "up in heaven with Jesus" stuff, accompanied by some nonsense about "part of god's plan". It really creeped me out.

Ideas such as adversity being part of some "plan", or a "test" of some sort, seem really vile to me.

I think Blatherskite alludes to another thing that really causes huge problems for religious people - the question "why?".

When the tsunami hit the Indian Ocean a few years ago, the sheer scale and extent of damage had religious people asking "why?" everywhere. "What did these people do to deserve such things?", was a common question. "What is God trying to tell us?" was another. Attempts at religious leaders to answer these questions only raised more answers - and some answers bordered on psychosis (ie. suggestions that the misfortunate victims had it coming to them).

To an atheist it was just a huge earthquake. They happen. It's better to think about "What can be done" than to waste precious mental cycles asking unanswerable questions about some supernatural entity's presumed motivations for such a calamity.

Similar "why?" logic appeared after Katrina, and happens all the time when people succumb to cancer, heart disease and all manner of illnesses and misfortune.

Some of the answers religious people have for the "why" questions are indeed pretty "out there". Natural disasters and terrorist attacks as divine retribution for licentiousness and debauchery. Ha.

A friend of mine (one of the hippy-dippy New Agey types) and I were talking once, and he brought up the concept of karma. I said that I don't believe in any such thing. He told me that I rejected the idea because I couldn't cope with the idea that the bad things that have happened to me were my "fault". The idea that illness and natural disasters and terrorist attacks are some sort of cosmic spanking seems like more a way for organized religions to bully people into toeing the line.

One thing I have notices about religious people and the question "why". While many religious folk do attribute anything good that happens in their lives as being "blessed" or "rewarded" by some deity, I have noticed a tendency to attribute misfortune, illness and disaster to a higher power, but to take credit where successes are involved. Seems a little contradictory to me.

Coming in rather late...I can see where Vonnegut is coming from. It's a little like in Forster's 'Howard's End' when Leonard Bast asserts that art and beauty are just things that make rich people feel good after their dinner.

But. I think it's quite wrong to make the leap to say that Humanism is a trait of the wealthy while the poor are prone to religion. Yes, "Religion is the opiate of the people". But this is because the wealthy have a vested interest in dishing out the opiate...and even in *believing* in a belief system in which they must, obviously, be god's chosen ones. But remember - there's been many an example of grassroots radicalism that has challenged the religious status quo. Some of these have been anti-hierarchical religious movements (eg Protestantism and especially Quakerism, Presbyterianism, Methodism; Islam). In other cases, as the working class have become radicalised, they have spontaneously discarded religion. That's enough Marxist dialectic for one day. . Further - amongst the working classes - at least, amongst the organised ones, there have been traditions of mutual support, of communitarianism. If that's not Humanism, what is?

Ah, Kurt does like to goad.



As for the "Why" questions. Spot on! what an irrelevant question. It's worthy of a two year old. "Daddy...why is the sky?" "Why is it Christmas?" "Why are you so hairy?" (Science, of course, asks "How?"). Atheism requires abandoning such questions and realising there *is* no purpose in life. Humanism, as opposed to Nihilism, is the realisation that "We're here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." (Vonnegut, again).

Or, as a famed Northern Irish mystic sang:
"Ain't no why why why why why why why. It just is. That's all there is about it" ('Summertime in England' on the otherwise lousy 'Common One' album).

I disagree about science not asking why. Just that it doesn't ask why as much as some would like and it also asks how.
Why does an electron orbit not decay? Why do we not see the UV catastrophe? Two whys that resulted in Quatumn Mechanics.

I'll try rephrasing it. "How?" and "Why?" are used somewhat laxly in everyday conversation.

Science asks:
"What are the circumstances by which this has come about?"
That's different to:
"What is the purpose of this?"

Take evolution as an example. It's not a process that drives towards delivering little sunbeams for Jesus.

Also...Scots English treats How and Why slightly differently to English English. To us folk,
"How does an electron orbit not decay? How do we not see the UV catastrophe?"
would be grammatically acceptable.

The kind of "why" I was alluding to was a moral "why" - asking a presumed entity their moral justification for inflicting suffering. If this presumed entity does not exist then it's a pointless question to ask, isn't it?

But it's the same entity, isn't it?

"Why does the universe exist?"
"Why did God create the universe?"
"What is the moral direction that God wishes us to take in the universe that He created for us?"

Take a look at your catechism.

But absolutely right. If there is no "why" to the universe, there is no "why" to morality. It's an impersonal universe in which we are driven to act morally as a genetically-determined social survival strategy.

And if there is no "divine" entity watching over us, dictating morality, casting judgement, and doling out rewards for various behaviors, what exactly is it about genetically-determined social survival strategies that make life "rewarding"? Other than keeping us alive, I mean.