HumanistLife

Humanism and the hereafter

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A humanist funeral ceremony.

A humanist funeral ceremony: family members and friends meet to celebrate the life of a deceased love one. 

It seems that primitive man, everywhere and in every culture, had an instinctive belief in some sort of existence after death.  For the primitive psyche perhaps there was no other way to come to terms with the dread and mystery of death.  As the traditional religions evolved, elaborate myths were created, claiming that every man had an immortal soul that survived his bodily death.  In a master-stroke (deliberate or otherwise) traditional religions linked the fate of this immortal soul with good behaviour in this life. Ordinary people, conditioned as they were from early childhood to adapt to regimes of earthly reward and punishment, readily accepted this vastly magnified scheme of reward and punishment that extended into eternity.  Morality, which really had its roots in human nature, became a prisoner of reward and punishment. ‘RAP morality’ (reward-and-punishment morality) is perhaps a good name for it.  RAP morality gave religion an iron grip on the lives of people. As Sam Harris says in his outstanding book, The End of Faith: “Without death, the influence of faith-based religion would be unthinkable.  Clearly, the fact of death is unbearable to us, and faith is little more than a shadow cast by our hope for a better life beyond the grave.”

              Unspeakable atrocities were committed by the medieval Christian church in the name of saving souls.  Russell tells us that “The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately dash their brains out; by this means they secured  these infants went to heaven..” and goes on: “In countless ways the doctrine of personal immortality in its Christian form has had  disastrous effects upon morals…”  The horrors of the Inquisition are too gruesome to describe.  In our own time we have the phenomenon, in the Iran-Iraq war, of children being used for clearing minefields.  They, and their parents as well as the commanders who let them get blown up, evidently believed that ample rewards awaited these children in paradise. (It must, however, be mentioned that reliable firsthand accounts of the use of children in human wave attacks are rare.)  Suicide bombings are an everyday occurrence in Palestine, Iraq and Pakistan. So problems arising out of a belief in life after death are very contemporary and very real.  And the tragic growth of suicide bombings has given them a wholly unexpected twist.  How differently William Empson’s Ignorance of Death reads today!

“Heaven me, when a man is ready to die about something
Other than himself, and is in fact ready because of that,
Not because of himself, that is something clear about himself.
Otherwise I feel very blank upon this topic,
And think that though important, and proper for anyone to bring up,
It is one that most people should be prepared to be blank upon.”

            In most humanist statements, there does not seem to be a pointed reference to the issue of life after death.  This could be because the humanist rejection of the supernatural also entails the rejection of the idea of an immortal soul or life after death. However, the Memorandum of Association of the Indian Humanist Union (June 12, 1960) does state: “Though Humanism is not identified with any views about the factual question of life after death, it does not accept the goal of salvation. It is content to fix its attention on this life and this world.  It is concerned with the preservation and furtherance of moral values in all relations and spheres of life, and with the building up of a better and happier human community.”  Narsingh Narain has elaborated this further:  “…There is no need for us, as Humanists, to consider the evidence for and against human survival.  For whether we survive or not makes no difference to our practical ideals.  Moreover, the craving for a future life is unhealthy, if only for the simple reason that our wishes can make no difference to whatever the fact may happen to be.  Belief in a future life was not based on evidence.  It was an expression of faith arising out of a certain mental background.  The important thing is to outgrow that mental outlook, not to disprove survival, or to rule out faith altogether.”

            The problem is that, while this position will be seen by humanists  as being eminently  logical and pragmatic, it will do nothing to induce the ordinary believer in traditional religions (to whom life after death is a fact) to re-examine his world-view.  The Humanist Movement came into being to provide an alternative to traditional religions, and its main task is to address the major factors which have given traditional religions such a grip on their adherents.  Of these, the two most powerful factors are:  belief in a personal God; and life after death.  Sam Harris is right when he says: “What one believes happens after death dictates much of what one believes about life, and this is why faith-based religion, in presuming to fill the blanks in our knowledge of the hereafter, does such heavy lifting for those who fall under its power.  A single proposition – you will not die  –  once believed, determines a response to life that would be otherwise unthinkable.”

            Humanism cannot afford to remain ‘blank’ (or agnostic) on this issue; just as it is not agnostic about a personal God.  We must affirm that there is no scientific evidence for personal survival after death.  However, death does not have to be equated with non-existence; although Hume (reportedly in a conversation) held that there is no more difficulty in conceiving my non-existence after death, than in conceiving my non-existence before birth, and no reason to be distressed by either.  We can look upon our existence as being of two kinds: conscious, and consequential.  While my conscious existence ceases with death, my consequential existence does not. In many different ways and in many different spheres every individual’s life interminably affects the future.  This thought gives one responsibility and hope, and a sense of worth.

Countering pessimism

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[W]e see, surrounding the narrow raft illumined by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; from the great night without, a chill blast breaks in upon our refuge; all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul, which must struggle alone, with what of courage it can command, against the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears.
From “A Free Man’s Worship” by Bertrand Russell

How full is this glass?

How full is this glass? Vir Narain muses on consolation and optimism.

 

Bertrand Russell was a courageous and defiant man who would not hesitate to discard a comforting belief – perhaps even if he suspected that it was true.  Along with other humanists, he wanted people to have the courage to give up the comforting religious myths about a caring and loving God and face life as it was.  As Narsingh Narain said: “Our ancestors solved the problem of pessimism (in so far as they did solve it) by convincing themselves about a future life guaranteed by the existence of a merciful and all-powerful God.”   So “… belief in gods produced an unintended result by restoring that optimism which is natural to life but had suffered disturbance as a byproduct of man’s mental evolution.  It was more necessary to regain that optimism than to achieve external results.  A life weighed down with chronic fear and anxiety would lack the spirit and the power to face and survive misfortunes.  In comparison the lessening of the severity of the misfortunes themselves was not so important.”  Russell conceded that: “… belief in God still serves to humanise the world of nature, and to make men feel that physical forces are their allies.”

It is very important, but practically impossible, to avoid using words such as hostile, friendly, pitiless, uncaring etc. when discussing the relationship of man with nature.  It is perhaps best not to attempt it here.  Russell talks of “humanity amid hostile forces”.  Carl Sagan says:  “The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.”  Narsingh Narain says: “Let us have the courage to accept the fact that the universe does not care for us, for the human race or for life.”

I shall argue that there is an element of exaggeration here; perhaps as a reaction against all the religious nonsense about a loving and caring God.  If humanity was surrounded by hostile forces, as suggested by Russell, it would not have survived even for a nano-second.  The anthropic (a needlessly anthropocentric misnomer) principle cannot be lightly dismissed. The very existence of life shows that the laws of nature are pro-life which, of course, entails being pro-death as well.

“The philosophy of nature” says Russell “must not be unduly terrestrial; for it, the earth is merely one of the smaller stars of the Milky Way.  It would ridiculous to warp the philosophy of nature in order to bring out results that are pleasing to the tiny parasites of this insignificant planet.” (Emphasis added).  But these tiny parasites are, as far as we know now, the only living beings in this unimaginably vast universe. And size is not everything. Isaac Asimov tells us: “Man’s three pound brain is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter known in the universe.” In any case, we cannot escape being terrestrial when dealing with the relationship of life with nature, with the philosophy of life. The Philosophy of Life is a subset of the Philosophy of Nature.

According to Russell, “Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naïve humanism; the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and it is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy.  All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy.” Even if optimism and pessimism are ‘cosmic’ philosophies: they have an exclusively human context and deal with human attributes.  A little biology – rather than a little astronomy – might be more helpful in understanding the relationship between life and nature.

The astonishing facts of evolution which has produced so many, and so diverse, near-perfect forms of life; the incredibly complex immune systems which are constantly fighting to protect each individual   creature from infectious disease; the delicately poised and infinitely complex ecosystem which holds these life-forms in balance and, above all, the miraculous emergence of creatures which are capable of abstract thought, all point to the life-promoting processes of nature. The pessimistic view that nature is hostile or indifferent to life as such is not supported by the facts of science.  Also, this view promotes an unhealthy man-versus-nature mindset: nature is to be conquered or subdued.

Narsingh Narain quotes Colin Wilson as saying: “… the task of Humanism is to attempt to destroy pessimism wherever is appears”. This is an important task which is becoming more difficult with the passage of time. Increasing urbanisation and industrialisation – among other conditions of modern living – are leading to unprecedented levels of angst and alienation.  Presenting a needlessly gloomy picture of nature does not help.

As the half-full/ half-empty glass cliché shows, pessimism and optimism represent two mutually exclusive attitudes which are not necessarily fact-dependent. Only a robust and positive attitude in the face of adversity can enable us to cope with the vicissitudes of human life. As Narsingh Narain says: “Let the tender-minded continue to hug the old delusions or invent new ones. For the tough-minded, stoicism is the only dignified answer.”  Iris Murdoch’s observation: “Anything that consoles is fake.” is largely true.   But the belief that nature supports life is not a consoling myth.  Even down to the level of the individual, as our immune system shows, nature is at work to preserve life up to a point.  Inevitably, it withdraws this support in the fullness of time. This shows nature’s triune character as creator, preserver and destroyer.

Even without the idea of an uncaring or hostile nature, the challenges to man’s fortitude are enormous.  If this idea no longer seems to conform to the facts as we know them now, it should be discarded.  Homo Sapiens must guard against becoming Homo Ingratus

Humility and Humanism

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The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

                                                      T.S. Eliot, ‘East Coker’

I think it can rightly be claimed that the humanist movement essentially represents a revolt against certitude.  For the early man, in the face of mysterious happenings, unexplained phenomena and hidden dangers, the quest for certitude was a basic psychological necessity – essential for survival.  In our times the growth of scientific knowledge has changed all that.  Mystery and dread of the kind that the primitive man faced have been taken out of our everyday lives; but the habit of assertive certitude, and its offshoots, authoritarianism and intolerance, remain.  Where this habit has survived almost intact is among the followers of traditional religions, but others are not immune to it. Not even Humanists.

Narsingh Narain wrote: “It seems to us that the most objectionable feature common to all religions is not supernaturalism but authoritarianism, that is, the attachment of finality and infallibility to their teachings.  The latter’s ancestry is not traceable to the primitive man’s personification of the forces of nature, but to the formation of an authority-accepting centre in the human mind, as part of the mechanism of psychosocial evolution, and its subsequent exploitation alike by rulers, priests and others.  This authoritarianism is the more harmful and dangerous as it has not been confined to the religions; its influence has been much more pervasive — authoritarianism and its offshoots, dogmatism and fanaticism, are to be found everywhere in the world today, and we feel that the primary function of Humanism is to help in the transition from an authoritarian to a non-authoritarian society in all spheres of life” (emphasis added).

One distinctive feature of Humanism is its emphasis on the tentative nature of all knowledge.  As Clive Bell said: “Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.”

This is intellectual humility; and it is an indispensable part of the Humanist outlook.  On the other hand, we have the ‘true believer’.  “The true believer”, Arthur Koestler said, “moves in a vicious circle inside his closed system: he can prove to his satisfaction everything that he believes, and he believes everything he can prove.”  For the true believer anyone who holds a different belief is by definition wrong, deluded.  It has to be admitted that this attitude can be found among traditional religionists as well as Humanists and atheists. “This glow of conviction”, says Michael Ruse “is directly antithetical to humanism in the more generous sense, but it dogs ‘Humanism’.”  Thus, he adds, “One finds the enthusiasm of the true believer, and this encourages a set of unnerving attributes: intolerance, hero-worship, moral certainty and the self-righteous condemnation of unbelievers” (emphasis added).

Don Evans says:

“As with religious and secular humanism, there seem to be two mind sets in approaching and understanding of religion: (1) religion is an intrinsic part of human nature and can no more be expunged from that nature than sexual desire or the need for society, and (2) religion is an unnatural imposition on human nature which should be dispensed with.

“Humanists today are far from resolving this conflict of approaches, although it is possible that further developments in psychology and anthropology may shift the balance one way or the other. Humanists in the first camp, whether religious or secular, are far more tolerant of religious manifestations generally, and are more concerned with preventing excesses and abuses than with achieving total abandonment of religion. Humanists in the second camp, often considerably more vocal, seem to have a perpetual grudge against anything religious and seem to be in a constant state of warfare against any and all signs of religious sentiment.”

There are indications that “Humanists in the second camp” are gaining ground. They see religion as an unmitigated evil.   Christopher Hitchens says: “Religion looks forward to the destruction of the world…. ” and goes on: “It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion.” This kind of strident humanism provokes a response in kind. According to R Joseph Hoffmann: “… by the early years of the twenty-first century movement humanism gave birth to a more uncompromising form of radical secularism in the form of the new atheism with its anti-God and oddly Orwellian postulate: All religion is evil. Some religions are more evil than others. Before God can be disbelieved in, as Christopher Hitchens argued in God is Not Great, he has to be roused from his slumber, bound, tried, and humiliated for his atrocities. If he is not available, his avatar, the Catholic Church, will do.

“Movement humanism as it has evolved is not really humanism. Or rather, it is a kind of parody of humanism. A better name for it would be Not-Godism. It’s what you get when you knock at the heavenly gate and no one is home.”           

Walter Lippmann was undoubtedly right when he said: “In the great moral systems and the great religions of mankind are embedded the record of how men have dealt with destiny, and only the thoughtless will argue that that record is obsolete and insignificant.” Humanism must not cast itself thoughtlessly in the role of an enemy of religion.  It is a successor of religion; and has, in fact, been born of what Lippmann has called the “higher religions”.  The real enemy of Humanism is a dogmatic and aggressive approach to beliefs.

Rethinking aims and strategies

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Vir Narain: The new atheists border on dogmatism. Pictures: Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett at the 2012 Global Atheist Conference.

Are the ‘new atheists’ undermining the international Humanist movement? Pictured: Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett at the 2012 Global Atheist Conference.

 

Humanists, secularists and rationalists everywhere are becoming increasingly concerned – even alarmed – at the role being played by traditional religions the world over in promoting instability and violence.  Not long ago traditional religions seemed like an anachronism that would fade away with the growth of science and rationality.  That has not happened.  Science, as knowledge of the physical world, has hardly had any effect on the mindsets of millions of ordinary people.  On the other hand technology, spawned by science, has had a profound effect on the way every individual on this planet lives. Among other things, technology has put enormous destructive power in the hands of individuals and small groups.  Now a small group of fanatics – even an individual – can cause more death and destruction than a whole army could even a hundred years ago.  With the tensions created by increasing migrations and interpenetration of cultures, such groups can pop up anywhere.  In societies which are at the receiving end of these transitions there is an understandable sense of insecurity.  Traditional religion is seen as an evil that has to be combated.

The Amsterdam Declaration of 2002, the official defining statement of World Humanism, states: “Humanism is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion.” This is more specific than the Amsterdam Declaration of 1952: “This congress is a response to the wide spread demand for an alternative to the religions which claim to be based on revelation on the one hand, and totalitarian systems on the other.” Religion was not seen as an unmitigated evil, but perhaps as a necessary stage in the evolution of human society which now had to be outgrown. It would not be correct indiscriminately to tar – or gild – all religions with the same brush.  As Narsingh Narain said:  “…an analysis is necessary for a proper understanding of  the complex phenomena which  have been grouped under the name ‘religion’, so that we can build our own organisation on solid foundations and also be able to have a sympathetic understanding of the faiths of other groups.” This sympathetic understanding must, of course, extend to all religions – even to the ones that are most antagonistic to humanist values.

Over the last few years it has become increasingly clear that the objective of providing an alternative to traditional religions has lost its salience for the Humanist Movement.  Other issues and causes, undoubtedly worthy in themselves, have caused attention to be diverted from the main aim. To the extent to which it does engage with traditional religions, Humanism has mainly adopted an attitude of rejection and ridicule.  The “sympathetic understanding” is missing.  If the vast masses of people have to be weaned off their dependence on the myths and divisive dogmas of traditional religions, this sympathetic understanding is indispensible. Humanism has to see itself as a successor to traditional religions, not as an enemy.

Freedom of thought is a prime Humanist value: dogmatism is its very opposite. Some religions are more dogmatic, and therefore more intolerant, than others. These religions, in other words, are more ‘hard’ (dogmatic and intolerant) than others. The Humanist Movement, to achieve its objectives, has to identify the religions which offer the greatest resistance to its efforts to advance Humanist values. For this it is necessary to grade religions according to their ‘hardness’.

At the bottom of the scale would be the ‘softest’ religions – perhaps Jainism and Buddhism.  Above these, there are several major religions whose numerous denominations could occupy different positions on the scale.  The top positions probably go to certain denominations of the three Abrahamic religions. Gore Vidal (who passed away recently) once wrote: “The great unmentionable evil at the centre of our culture is monotheism.”  This is in line with Ralph Peters’ comment: “All monotheist religions have been really good haters. We just take turns.” With 2.2 billion and 1.7 billion respectively, Christianity and Islam have the largest number of adherents in the world.  Certain denominations of these two religions – Catholics in Christianity and Wahhabis in Islam – can fairly be put on top of the list. The Unitarians and Sufis perhaps have a place on the soft end of the scale.

What, one might ask, is the point of this classification?

First: it helps to remind us of our original commitment to provide an alternative to dogmatic religions.

Secondly: It helps to determine our priorities when dealing with various religions.  It helps us to shed the habit of tarring all religions with same brush as typically summed up by Dawkins: “I think there’s something very evil about faith.

Thirdly: having determined our priorities when dealing with various religions, it helps us to strategise better.  One way to strategise is to treat this on the principles of geopolitics, treating the major traditional religions as nation-states. In any case, in the real world, religion (especially the Abrahamic religions on which we have to focus) and geopolitics are inextricably mixed up. Evangelical Christianity and radical Islamism (and perhaps Orthodox Judaism, demographically insignificant but politically powerful) are now in almost open confrontation.  As a recent article in the New Statesman says:  “Puritanical yet wealthy, convinced of their God-given mission to the rest of the world, sure of a divinely inspired history… Saudi Arabia and the United States are surprisingly similar in their mixture of religion, politics and interference in other countries’ affairs. Saudi Arabia has Wahhabi Islam, Middle America has evangelical Christianity. Historically, they hate each other. Yet both see themselves as exponents of the purest version of their faith. Both are suspicious of modernity. Both see no distinction between politics and religion.”

This complicates matters for the Humanist movement considerably.  Whereas one of the main protagonists in this situation, Evangelical Christianity, is an easy target for the Humanist movement, the other major – and arguably more formidable  protagonist: Radical Islam, is almost totally out of reach. (Except possibly in the United Nations, where significant work, ably led by Roy Brown, has been done).  The result is that the Humanist movement, confined to the West, keeps skirmishing with the various Christian denominations – some of them harmless – while it is almost totally absent from the Islamic world. The IHEU has 112 member organisations in 37 countries.  Currently the UN has 192 member states. Only four Islamic states, Nigeria, Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan have member-organisations of IHEU.  What their state of health is can only be guessed.  It is perhaps fair to say that the Humanist Movement has mostly been confined to the West.  A cynical friend once remarked that the footprint of the IHEU is more or less the same as that of NATO.  There is no evidence that there is – or indeed can be – any plan to remedy this situation.  However, inexplicably, there are hardly any efforts being made to contain the growing influence of radical Islamic diaspora even within the West.

In recent years, as the depredations of terrorists and fanatics have increased, leading humanists in the West have adopted a more and more hostile attitude towards traditional religions.  If the minds and hearts of traditional religionists have to be won, this is bound to be counterproductive.  Rejection and ridicule have to be replaced with persuasion.  The rise of hardline New Atheism, with its indiscriminate condemnation of all religions, can undermine the efforts of the Humanist movement to achieve its objectives.  According to Michael Ruse: “… there is the nigh-hysterical repudiation of religion. As with religions themselves, the implication is that those who fail to follow the New Atheist line are not just wrong, but morally challenged.”  This itself borders on dogmatism.

The conclusion seems to be that the International Humanist Movement has not made any significant progress towards achieving its basic goals.  Where it is undoubtedly needed most – in the Islamic world – it is practically absent; where it does have a strong presence – in North America and Europe – it has failed to have an impact.  Clearly, we need to rethink our aims and strategies.  We must not allow ourselves to be distracted from our original aim of providing an alternative to dogmatic religions.

As of now, one is reminded of what Matthew Arnold had to say of the atheistic poet Shelley, describing him as  “a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.”