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Tribe of the Star Part 1
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Jack
I Listen.

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Check out the first piece now!

Jack
I Listen.

HubPages
Fiction

I explained to Ryan what I was looking for, and what he sent me was so personal and informative, that I asked if I could publish the entire email. So, here is what Ryan Sutter has to say about Humanism, and how he found it. Enjoy.

I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and stayed one until I was 30 years old at which point I lost my faith in it and didn’t know what to call myself or what I believed. I took the Beliefnet Belief-O-Matic and found out that my beliefs were most closely defined as humanist. Not having really ever thought about humanism before this, I was a bit surprised to find a web site telling me that I was one.

I went on to study it a little and found that the whole idea of humanism was fairly straightforward and could be boiled down into the statement: Do what is right because it’s right and there may be nobody else to do it. In other words, we live in a world that may or not have any supernatural element, but that really should have no bearing on being a good and moral person. Goodness and morality are things you need to practice if you want them to exist in the world, they don’t come from somewhere other than us and if we don’t do them, they don’t exist. This is a compelling alternate reason for living a clean moral life as opposed to the reward/punishment model of Christianity.

You don’t do good and avoid evil in order to reap a reward or avoid a punishment, you do so simply because you wish for good in the world and you wish to avoid evil in the world and you let the supernatural aspect take care of itself, if there is such a thing.

That is humanism and it is my deep belief that even the religious person who hates or fears the “godless atheists and secular humanists” basically lives a moral life for the same fundamental reasons, if you press them on it. Most Christians will admit that they aren’t restrained from killing their neighbor and raping his life because they are afraid of God but because they know it’s the wrong thing to do. They know this innately, because they wouldn’t want it done to themselves. “Do unto others” is a very humanist statement.

Of course, in conversations with religious believers (including my own father) I’ve come to realize that this is not what humanism means to fundamentalist eyes. To a lot of people it seems that humanism means “whatever man decides to do is right” or “there is no god so we’re screwed, ACK! let’s call our pathetic plight ‘humanism’ and worship ourselves”. The first commits the naturalistic fallacy and the second conflates humanism and atheism. Humanism does not glorify people or set them up for worship. The whole concept of worship means to give praise and obedience to a higher power. When you are a human, and a humanist, you are not suddenly a higher power. In fact, it’s humbling. You look at yourself and your limited capabilities and you look at humankind and their messy psychological and sociological situations and you realize that we all need to work really hard to solve our problems, cooperate more, communicate more, help each other more, because if we are all we have then none of us is an island, none of us can operate without considering the fates of the others, and we all need each other. Kinda’ knocked me down a peg from when I thought I was personally fashioned in God’s image, while simultaneously making me feel a sense of civic and moral obligation as opposed to how I felt when I thought God would charge in and fix everything. The sense of personal responsibility implicit in humanism is extremely powerful. I think that explains why so many humanists are involved in social justice and activist causes, as well as volunteerism. They have to be, on some level, or their conscience nags at them because all it takes for bad people to have their way is for good people to do nothing.

I have found a lot of prejudice against humanism over the last 5
years. People say Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot were humanists, to
which I say bullshit. Humanism is a philosophical justification for moral and humane behavior. If a psychopath or despot commits acts of atrocity and cruelty, their actions are immoral and inhumane and therefore anti-humanist, whether they believe in a supernatural or not. Like I mentioned earlier, humanism does not say there is no God, humanism says that regardless of the metaphysical state of things, if we want to see good in the world we have to do it ourselves. The sad fact is that some people decide their is no God so they DO murder their next door neighbor and rape his wife, and other people do the exact same thing and say God made them do it, or the Devil, or whatever. The point is, that any behavior that is anti-human is anti-humanist and people can decide to be evil with or without belief in God. When people start to connect the two questions of “Does God exist” and “How should I behave” as if they are inextricably linked they are committing a fallacy. They are two separate questions that do not necessarily relate.

Thanks for the insight, Ryan.

Jack
I Listen.

Basic Ideology 101
Lesson #23
The Battle of Human Action

Check out the first piece now!

Jack
I Listen.

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Into it’s smallest, simplest parts. Down to the molecules, further if you can. See it for what it is at its core. Then reassemble it, piece by piece, block by block. Compare every piece. Compare the whole. Let nothing go unnoticed. Weigh it against your conscience. Weigh it against logic. Weigh it against the fire that burns inside you.

Now what do you think of it? How does it weigh? How does it feel against logic and against your fire?

—-

Jack
I Listen.

Basic Ideology 101

Lesson #21
The Battle of the Feather

redemption – noun
1. an act of redeeming or the state of being redeemed.
2. deliverance; rescue.
3. Theology. deliverance from sin; salvation.
4. atonement for guilt.
5. repurchase, as of something sold.
6. paying off, as of a mortgage, bond, or note.
7. recovery by payment, as of something pledged.
8. conversion of paper money into specie.

redeem – verb (used with object)
1. to buy or pay off; clear by payment: to redeem a mortgage.
2. to buy back, as after a tax sale or a mortgage foreclosure.
3. to recover (something pledged or mortgaged) by payment or other satisfaction
4. to exchange (bonds, trading stamps, etc.) for money or goods.
5. to convert (paper money) into specie.
6. to discharge or fulfill (a pledge, promise, etc.).
7. to make up for; make amends for; offset (some fault, shortcoming, etc.)
8. to obtain the release or restoration of, as from captivity, by paying a ransom.
9. Theology. to deliver from sin and its consequences by means of a sacrifice offered for the sinner.

Okay, Let’s think about these definitions for a moment.  The most important thing to notice is that the idea of ‘redeeming’ or ‘redemption’ is based entirely on something that was supposed to have been paid for to begin with.  The problem with this is that with the promise of redemption, we accept a debt.  This will not do for free-thinking people.

Redemption no longer has a reason to exist.  Instead, things should be paid for at the time of service, or things should be free.  We seek redemption for our actions.  We should have a free conscience after our actions, thus negating the need for redemption.

Our thoughts have no business creating the state of debt or guilt that brings on this concept.  We should pay for our thoughts accordingly and promptly, and not take on states of debt at all. If we can do this, then we can experience true freedom.

Jack
I Listen.

Basic Ideology 101

Battle #6
Freedom.

(definitions care of Dictionary.com)

“It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.”

– Saint Augustine of Hippo: The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408]

Saint Augustine’s ideas on the nature of truth and science are essential to modern understanding and have influenced many great teachers and philosophers of all ilks.

-Jack
I Listen.
I do that Travel thing sometimes, too.

Basic Ideology 101

Lesson #2
Saint Augustine and the Reconciliation of Science and Scripture

We are going to talk just a very little about the idea of “Gnosis.” Gnosis is the state of enlightenment that some believe can be achieved through knowledge. At one time, there were many Gnostic sects for many religions, but in present day, very few still exist. We are not going to concern ourselves with where they are and what they do. Instead, we will focus on the idea alone.

The idea of Gnosis, or enlightenment though knowledge, is similar to other things we have talked about, such as Zen and Existentialism. I often find that these three philosophies are more closely tied that most would like to admit.

Gnosis encourages learning and compassion. And as such it also encompasses the “Live in the Now” ideas of Zen and Existentialism.

So, let’s add this brief part of the ideas to our shamanic thoughts. Knowledge is power. That has always been true. Living in the Now gets rid of things that stop human advancement, such as anxieties. If you live in this present moment, and realize that was has past is just a story book, and what is to come is merely science fiction, it becomes easier to make this, and every, moment count.

There are hundreds of ways to say this, and it has been said over and over for centuries, but really understanding the idea is what matters. Understand that the you that is reading this is only you for that moment. After this moment has passed, it is not you anymore. You are already on the next moment, gleaning more information further down the page.

Convert your idea of time into still frames, or seconds, or motions. You can break it down to the most basic thought, and then when you run through all of those thoughts it becomes the flipbook that we call memory. And just like a real flipbook or film reel, sometimes pages, or slides become lost or damaged.

I’m starting to ramble a bit, so let’s pull this together. It’s hard for me not to ramble, knowing this is the end of a class that I’ve taught for more than a year now.

So, if we can gain knowledge, and remain fully aware of our past and future, without letting it hinder our abilities here in the Now, we might reach that state of Gnosis or enlightenment. Sounds pretty difficult, right? Well, you’re the one that wanted to be a shaman. :p

-Jack
I Listen.
Developmental Theology 089
Lesson #52 – End of Class

• That Tall Dude – Quality blog, not afraid to ask tough questions, and one of the most humble guys you’ll ever meet.
• Twitter Stars – Mark Davidson is Web 2.0
• Max Gladwell – Max does some great stuff on ecological and social change.
• The Entropy Report - Scarab does a great job of gritty truth here.
• Slap/Pop – Lou has got some really cool stuff going on here, but he needs to write more.
• Chronicles of Beast – Beast is a pro-runner. Looking forward to doing the Vermont100 with him this summer.
• Evil Science Chick – So cool it hurts.
• Mellisa Maples – I just love seeing things from the Turkish bazaar!
• prp2 - Peter is one of my favorite people. Great Stuff.
• puntiglio - Again, Soren is one of my favorite people. Great stuff.
• The Musings of a Young Intellectual – Christy does some incredible poetry here.

That’s all for now. If you were not listed, please do not be offended. I’ll be doing a “Part 2″ tomorrow!

-Jack.
I Listen.
I Travel.

This used to be so easy.

Loki.
Developmental Theology 089
Lesson #41
02.02.08

Update:
Wow lesson 41!!! I’ve been doing this for 11 months now. I’ll do a very special March for the first anniversary blog post. You may also notice the “About Me” page. I took down a lot of the ads, because they didn’t generate enough to warrant damaging the viewing pleasure. I’m doing lots of freelance gigs, which I will make known here in some way. Contact me if you want me to write something for your magazine/ezine/blog(guest blogger). I’m also going to try and put together a collaborative blog/zine in the next month or so, and anyone interested needs to contact me. Think of my writing style, thrown against different news and views. That’s what I’m looking for in collaborative authors. Strong, straight edge writing a must. Dark humor is a plus, cynicism, conspiracy theories, music, movies, TechGeek, strong adult fiction, up-to-date news, just give me your pitch! Use the contact form below.

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