BIHI on God and Religion

By Gordon Gamm

The mission and purpose of the Boulder International Humanist Institute (BIHI) is a positive message. We are exploring certain world views, i.e. authoritarian, Humanism, and postmodernism with a criteria of ascertaining which of these offers our best chance for a more peaceful world and fulfilling life. It could be said that BIHI is about the sociology of ideology and religion. It is our conviction that the Humanist ethic and perspective on public policy offers our best chance for a peaceful world. In order to evaluate an ethical perspective it must be tested by the criteria of what would happen if made universal. Thus, for example, any religious world view that demonizes or disparages others that are not members of their denomination or religion could not serve as a moral model for public policy. Religious ideas that purport to privilege my religion in God's eyes by asserting that we are chosen or that demonizes unbelievers or the un- baptized could not serve as a moral model for public policy.

The Boulder International Humanist Institute is NOT anti-religion, anti-God, anti-belief. Neither could it be said that we are PRO religion, pro God, or pro belief. What matters is the social impact of ideology, ideological fanaticism, ideology trumping considerations of social impact. For our purpose what matters is the social impact or how people behave as a consequence of their belief or disbelief in political or economic or religious ideology, or God. For us, the significant question isn.t .Do you believe .?. but .What difference does your belief make?.

Sam Harris, our last speaker, along with Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, have been characterized as engaged in a war on religion. We don.t know if they would characterize themselves as engaged in a war on religion. BIHI does not have that .war. as it.s goal. We share Sam Harris. belief that faith should not trump rational consideration of social policy based on our best judgment of the social impact of our choices. We share Sam Harris. message that religion doesn.t deserve to be treated with deference when espousing stupid, harmful, dangerous ideas in the name of some supernatural assertion of truth because faith claims can not be critiqued for their rational consequences. We share Sam Harris. disbelief in a supernatural realm of reality that is inaccessible to scientific study or sensory based validation. We do not believe it is relevant to social policy and do not have any evidence to affirm that there are souls that pop in and out of sperm, fetuses, and people that effect their legal personal rights. We do not believe it is relevant to social policy and do not have any evidence to affirm that there is a higher order of spirit that is directing the universe in an unknown way.

On the other hand, we recognize that many valuable contributions are made by compassionate religious people toward creating a better world. We support the comfort that some find in the solace that their God provides to them in times of personal tragedy. The problem for us arises when they assert that their comforting God serves to bludgeon others as a moral dictator that knows the moral rules and that those rules should be obeyed without regard for their social impact. The problem for us arises when they ask us to ignore science to believe faith based assertions about altering nature by thought transference, belief, and prayer. The problem for us Humanists arises when religious people and God believers implore their congregants to turn off their brains and let their religious leaders think for them and instruct them about unquestionable moral right and wrong.

On issues of social and public policy most Humanists hold similar positions on a host of political questions because a rational consideration of the social impact of those positions appears to favor a different policy than opposite positions based on faith. For example,

Most Humanist take the positions:

• 1. Homosexuals should be accorded the same legal rights and benefits as heterosexuals, including the right to be viewed as .married. partners. There is no rational basis in social policy to treat people who have a preference for a committed love relationship with someone of the same sex any different than someone who has a preference for loving someone of a different skin or hair color than we (heterosexuals, blondes or Caucasians) would prefer.
• The principle opposition to homosexual equal rights follows from religious scripture and religious dogma that purports to condemn same sex behavior as unacceptable to God. This makes no sense when viewed from a secular perspective. Arguments by religious people purport to make secular arguments that are factual lies in order to cover up for what are, in fact, supernatural justifications. For example, the notion that homosexual marriage would threaten heterosexual marriage is facially absurd.
• Stem Cell research should be encouraged.
• The principle opposition to stem cell research stems from a conviction that stem cells have a soul. The soul is not something that can be seen or validated by experience. When the soul appears was once thought by the Catholic Church to be several months after conception. However, in 1854 the Pope claimed to have a revelation from God that fetuses were ensouled from the time of conception. Religions that subscribe to souls oppose stem cell research because souls imbue fetuses with all of the same regard as persons as a fully developed child. These stem cell people are treated with having the same legal rights as the victims of horribly debilitating diseases that someday have a reasonable likelihood of having their disease cured or substantially improved from the results of stem cell research.
• A societal goal for parenting children should be that every child born should be wanted, loved, and that the parent has the resources for giving their child a fulfilling life. Thus, women should not be compelled to bring their pregnancy to term for children they resent because they were victims of rape or incest or because their birth control failed. Birthing a child should never be the penalty for failing to use contraceptives. Abortion should be a choice for the pregnant woman carrying the fetus to decide without qualification prior to viability. Contraceptives should always be available and encouraged by society to minimize unwanted pregnancies and venereal disease. If population growth for a society puts a strain on the resources for a fulfilling life for existing persons, then it may be appropriate to explore public policy that would discourage unlimited child birth.
• The principle opposition to planned parenting stems from religious beliefs pertaining to souls discussed in paragraph 2. above. Similarly, the Catholic Church has supernatural dogmas that prohibit the use of contraceptives. Ordinarily they can practice their dogmas without infringing on the interest of society so long as they are not unduly imposing the burden of abandoned and unwanted children onto the responsibility of the rest of society. Also, there are many anti-abortion believers who are not content to exercise their beliefs in their personal life, but they insist on imposing their dogmas onto others in a pluralist nation that don.t subscribe to their supernatural beliefs. The deceit in the marketing of their agenda of calling their movement .pro-life. enables them to demonize women for making morally appropriate decisions by calling them .murderers.. Women that abort fetuses for the right reasons should be respected and admired for thoughtfully considering the consequences to their health, their potential child.s life, society.s impact. The family and her doctor are ordinarily better equipped to make family planning decisions than legislators, priests, and judges.
• Creationism and .Intelligent Design. should not be taught in public school as science or biology.
• a. Aside from the fact that it is deceptive to disguise the argument for creationism and ID as if they satisfied the requirements for scientific validity, the teaching of these subjects undermines a child.s preparation for civic engagement. In that sense it is a form of child abuse. Children who are taught ID and creationism aren.t prepared for careers in science or for critical thinking about matters of civic responsibility. Society suffers for their ignorance about the nature of science. There is, perhaps, nothing more exemplary of teaching children to permit faith to trump science on matters of public policy than what is required of them to think that creationism can be demonstrated by science.
• Comprehensive sex education and parenting classes should be essential to public education in preparation for civic engagement.
• The evidence that abstinence-only sex education classes don.t achieve the highest public interest objectives is well established. It results in more unwanted pregnancies and venereal disease than no sex education. Whereas, social scientists have significant research available about how to provide healthy parenting skills and responsible sexual conduct that enhances the quality of life for parent and child. This requires comprehensive sex education that takes into account the natural sexual experience of teenagers. Ancient religious condemnation of sex and the pleasure of sex reflect a pre-enlightenment emphasis on beatitude, i.e. postponing happiness in this life for a better life after death. This ancient religious perspective overlooks the substantial benefit of modernity in what we have learned from the social sciences about the nature of humans. By condemning what is essential to our nature as human beings, i.e. sexual desire, the church manages to impose self denigration and guilt onto people who are caught in a trap of paying fealty to the church to seek redemption.
• Economic and political philosophy should be instrumental in seeking a peaceful world and fulfilling life for the citizens of the earth. Economic and political ideologues should not be ends in themselves. When their ideology runs afoul of the public interest, an economic ideology is said to manifest externalities. A free enterprise economic system may in most cases and, in general, be a best fit in serving the public interest. However, worshiping capitalism and letting the .invisible hand. of the economy dictate public policy for fear that meddling will always result in unfavorable unintended consequences is shortsighted. Reasonable regulations that are implemented by conscientious public servants provide protection against the excesses of unfettered capitalism.
• Similarly, Communism.s failure wasn.t that it was .atheistic. Communism. It.s failure was that it became the object of worship as an economic ideology. Large numbers of people were killed to fulfill an ideology by Mao, Lenin, Pol Pot. Top down bureaucracy could not adequately anticipate and determine the needs and wants of society as well as the ingenuity of entrepreneurs in a free market economy. Featherbedding and alcoholism were rampant as people would prefer not to work if they could demonstrate that they could not be productive. This philosophy served as an excuse for failure to take personal responsibility or resourcefulness.
• Environmentalism is a significant concern of Humanists. A safe and clean environment that attempts to rationally balance the need for tapping natural resources with an appreciation for the value of the natural environment reflect Humanist values.
• The principle opposition to environmental concerns comes from people and corporations that resent any curtailment of exploration for natural resources. Global warming deniers don.t appear to be supported by the overwhelming evidence from climatologists. There are no peer reviewed journal articles by a single expert in climatology that demonstrates that there is no global warming taking place and or that humans are not an instrumental cause and must be the source of the cure. People who deny global warming are not coming from a religious perspective, they either have an economic incentive for creating phony experts who have been bought for their outcomes or are free market ideologues who can find no fault with anything that comes from the free market.
• Beneficent euthanasia is considered morally appropriate by most Humanists. The right to die bill in Oregon and in the Netherlands reflects Humanist values. They enable a competent person who is believed to be terminally ill (defined as having no more than six months to live according to his/her treating physicians) to make an autonomous decision to obtain help in expediting their death. The safeguards of the bill in Oregon required a showing by treating physicians that the person was terminally ill, a psychiatric showing that they were competent to make the decision, and provided protections against coercion by others of the autonomous decision of the patient.
• The opposition primarily came from the Catholic Church which poured millions of dollars into the campaign to defeat the bill in Oregon. Their religious argument was that suffering is redemptive and that their moral mission was to model the life of Christ who refused substance to relieve his suffering on the cross. This was taken as a message that suffering was redemptive. Another religious belief was that only God should decide when we die. However, for people who do not accept that others should dictate policy by what they believe is God.s prerogative to decide or on the basis of redemptive suffering, this opposition reflects an effort to equate their religious dogma with what should be our law.
• Humanists do not believe that we can create our reality by positive (or negative, presumably) thought. Our attitude about life, whether it is optimistic or pessimistic, loving or mean spirited, contributes to making life more worthwhile or opens doors for better resonance or friendship with others. But, there is no evidence that thinking alters the course of nature, as by fixing disease by transmit ion of ideas through space. There is no known evidence for the validity of any paranormal power, including spirits writing text through selective individuals.
• Traditional religions, ideologies, and God beliefs often short circuit the more arduous process of vigorous examination of the complexity of sound decision making. Good scholarship entails a process of rigorous research protocols that sometimes takes years of work with uncertain outcomes. In order to become an expert in complex fields of study it is necessary to be well read in the background and foundational literature and research in the chosen field of physics, chemistry, etc. In order to gain recognition for demonstrating the validity of a new theory explaining the nature of matter, one has to convince one.s peers who are well informed in the field to validate the experimental technique and results.
• These safeguards are rarely required in the field of religion. Many religions have very limited exposure to the methods and knowledge of science in their theology schools for training ministers. Some religions have little or no academic discipline in reading serious challenging literature that questions the hypothesis of religious claims. The economic benefit and power of being a minister enable people to govern others. lives because they have been designated .minister. .rabbi. or .priest.. Often they have not engaged in serious challenging scholarship in studying extensive works that disagree with the premises of their faith. The emphasis in gaining their status as preacher often is upon the fact that they .had a calling.. Thus, much of the impetus for the perpetuation of religion comes from the power and benefit bestowed upon the priestly class who have little academic scholarship to justify their expertise.

The above reflects a statement of observations about what, generally, Humanists believe about a number of social issues. They are not intended as dogmas, but they reflect years of observation of the Humanist perspective. Any of these positions are debatable and may, in time, be found by Humanists to be in error as new evidence is uncovered. However, if these positions do change it will be because new sensory based evidence has uncovered new understandings about the nature of humanity and the material world. It wont be because of some new faith revelation. As Sam Harris says - if Jesus is, indeed, hovering somewhere in space waiting to return within the next fifty years (as believed by most Americans) then we, as Humanists, will gladly acknowledge his capacity to materialize if and when he returns from an unseen and unknown place to pronounce his presence. Until then, we will not make any decisions on the basis of such an assumption.