It is important to remember that Humanism is a type of belief, just like anything else.
Dictionary definitions tend to promote a public relations definition of Humanism but this does not tell the full story.
Humanism is a doctrine that teaches people’s duty is to promote human welfare it also emphasises a person’s capacity for self-realization through reason; and rejects religion and the supernatural.
I am not disputing this definition and I know there are many ethical and rational humanists.
The purpose of this blog is to make the point that there are many branches, or sects, if you like that arose as a a result of humanist philosophy and some of these are less than desirable.
Many people do not realise that they are humanist sects and it is important to point this out, especially as the more radical humanist offshoots will stop at nothing to destroy religion.
The most influential sects of humanism both currently and historically are:
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Darwinian humanism
Charles Darwin rejected the idea of God and the spiritual, although it is clear he remained a humanitarian. He, for example, was ardently against slavery in all it’s forms.
His great mistake was to adopt an offshoot concept called “Survival of the Fittest”. In fact this was not a theory deeloped by Darwin but was a theory conceived by Herbert Spencer in his book “Principles of Biology.”.Spencer drew parallels between his ideas on economics and Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection.
The two theories are actually quite different but nvertheless Darwin adopted the “survival of the fittest” theory as synonymous with natural selection in his 5th edition of “The Origin of the Species”.
It is clear to an impartial obsever that there was a lot of truth in Darwin’s theories, though, of course, these have been expanded and fine tuned over the years, as would be expected. Darwin was a genius but in my view Darwin made 2 great mistakes.
Firstly he allowed the two entirely different concepts of “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection” to become synonymous, when they are not the same concept at all. This gave scientific credibility to the activities of war mongerers, ruling classes and other nasties throughout the world. The second was the classification of man as an animal and the rejection of all religion. This also helped the bad guys, because if man is an animal it is ok to send him off to war to get killed and boy did they grab the bull by the horn on that one!
The truth is his theories cast doubt on many aspects of the Middle Eastern/Western Tradition of religion; the tradition that includes Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It was a mistake to reject all aspects of these religions, and, like many Humanists, he did not really understand what religion is.
The new scientists and Humanists of the 19th century entirely ignored the Eastern Model of Religion which has no conflict with Darwinian theory at all. Perhaps he has no knowledge of this of had a Christian arrogance towards them.
Survival of the Fittest Humanism
This is the theory favoured by madmen, dictators, bullies and psychopaths. Simply defined it means “only the fittest organisms will prevail”.
This philosophy is favoured by governments and dictators because they can interpret this to mean basically “The one with the biggest gun will prevail”.
The old Soviet and Communist regimes adopted this as one of their main “moral codes”. Insane people are always they are superior to others. If you add to this the theory that Man is only an animal you have a recipe for mass murder of your enemies.
“The fittest” is such a subjective term it can be used as an excuse to kill all your enemies as well as people who might become enemies some time in the future.
While it is true that religious extremism killed a lot of people in history, it is also a fact 10 times more people were murdered in the 20th Century by the godless, moral code free Humanist sects than in the entirety of the rest of known history by religion sects.
Communism
A philosophy created by Karl Marx (May 5, 1818–March 14, 1883), a humanist. Marx was a German Prussian.
He developed a political philosophy that rejected capitalism entirely and advocated bringing in socialist workers states through revolution.
His teachings named religion as “the opiate of the masses” and after the formation of the Russian and Chinese Communist states religion was rejected in those countries, Churches were torn down and religions practice was banned.
Out in the bath water at the same time as religion went the main moral code and the communal tradtiions that went with it (the Ten Commandments) a long with a lot a lot of the ethical traditions of Christianity.
This was replaced with the moral code of “Survival of the fittest”, “the end justifies the means” and “Obedience to the State”. The communists also adopted the philosophy that man was an animal and this justified the subsequent killing of millions. No one really knows how many died under these communist states and the later ones such as North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia but many think it is well over 100 million. This was easily the greatest mass murder in history.
Eugenics
This is the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics.
Again this arose out of the theory of Natural Selection and was first formulated by Sir Francis Galton, drawing on the recent work of his cousin Charles Darwin. As with “survival of the fittest” this really has little to do with Natural Selection but is often considered a branch of it.
Once again this theory is nonsense for 3 reasons.
Firstly -“defects” is an entirely subjective concept, and it has been interpreted by all kinds of loony’s. Secondly, it is not scientifically sound, there is lots of scientific evidence to suggest that selective breeding also concentrates hidden undesirable traits, strengthening them and causes the species to fail. Finally, Eugenics only addresses undesirable and desirable physical traits, there is no actual evidence to suggest a genetic factor influecing such factors as personality, sanity, intelligence mercy and ability, this is despite many efforts to do so. It therefore is not a solution for human problems.
Eugenics was adopted by the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s as a philosophical excuse to establish a power base and murder their enemies. Eugenics has been largely discredited because of this but it raises it’s ugly head occasionally.
Nazism
Before Humanists start sending me hundreds of emails screaming foul let me say that I only include Nazism here because it was a curious and deadly hybrid of Humanism, Religion and pseudo-Norse mythology. Hitler was a definitely a nut but also a clever one. His book Mein Kampf blends traditional Christian Democratic hatred of Jews, with Eugenics (a Humanist philosophy) and the Gods of Norse mythology and he blended these together in such a was as to hjave the maximum appeal to the unique character of the German people at the time. It got him into power. No one really knows whether Hitler was religious or not, at times he appeared pro religious, at other times humanist.
What resulted was the coming together of an ancient assumption of superiority, along with the ancient Norse celebration of war, the feeling of superiority over other races, the extermination of ancient enemies (the Jews) with a modern scientific justification (Eugenics) and the extermination of many other types of people considered inferior with the same justification.
It would all be dismissed as nonsense except it caused an entire people to back Hitler resulting in the deaths of 30-35 million people in Europe alone, It probably made sense at the time but I don’t think anyone can really make complete sense of it nowadays.
Psychiatry and Psychology
These are sciences that arose based on certain theories and assumptions made in the nineteenth century.
The word “Psyche” is Latin for soul and “iatry” is a suffix meaning medical treatment. From the Greek “iatreia” meaning healing, this came from “iatros” meaning treatment. Ology is Latin for “the study of”. Therefore Psychiatry should really mean the “treatment of the spirit” and Psychology should mean “the study of the Spirit”.
In actual fact these sciences arose in the 19th Century out of Humanist’s desires to find a non religious, non spiritual answer to the human condition. Psychiatry and Psychology therefore abandoned the study of the spirit and studied man entirely on the basis he was an animal.
Observing that certain limbs moved when the brain of a frog was stimulated early Psychologists concluded that the brain was the centre of thought and humans were animals who were handled best by being controlled like animals. This is an entirely unscientific and baseless assumption that is still unproven today.
Thus Psychiatry became the Science of behavioral control.. Governments around the world, for obvious reasons, favoured Psychology and Psychiatry and they have been receiving massive and steadily increasing funding ever since. They have also allied large drug companies by promoting psychotropic drugs and giving them scientific credibility.
Psychotropic drugs (to make the person docile) are the favoured method of “treatment”. In extreme cases other treatments include electro shock (destroying parts of the brain with electric current, causing memory loss and docility), and lobotomy (surgically removing parts of the brain to remove memory and make the person docile). All of psychiatry’s treatments are based round creating docility and memory loss. Psychiatry has used the massive government and corporation funding to pour billions into promoting itself, and remove its competitors, which are in the main considered to be religions and unaffiliated therapies.
So all-encompassing has the PR and advertising campaign been that these professions are supported by governments and most of the general public despite there is no record of Psychiatry or Psychology ever curing anyone and there being better therapies available. Psychiatry and psycology are easily the most damaging of the extant Humaist sects.
There are many other branches and offshoots of Humanism but I think the main conclusions are:
a) Science and humanism do not disprove religion; they only disprove certain aspects of the Western/Middle Eastern tradition, mainly parts of the Old Testament.
b) A scientist can also be a religions person. There is no real conflict if religion is understood.
c) Some Humanists are good, some humanists are evil, some religious people are good, and some are evil.
d) Some sects of humanism are bent on world domination through their, as are some sects of Christianity, although at the moment the Humanist ones are winning, mainly because governments and corporations favour their philosophy.
e) Both Humanism and Religion are bad things in the hands of evil people who believe in them fanatically and believe killing is justified.
f) Both Humanism and Religion have been altered in their basic principles by evil people for the purposes of gaining power, and this has resulted in mass murder.
g) Simple philosophies can become dangerous and expensive in the hands of pseudo-scientists.
h) The moral code and spiritual values taught by religion tends to curb the worst excesses of madmen, as evidenced by the the statistics on mass murder of the two movements.
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