Tom Holland on the biblical roots of humanism

[rontimus]

This man is a genius who has helped me immensely. He is a god among historians.

[sotonteve]

#That'sHumanism < look up for yourself rather than being told, and make your own mind up

[cole]

This is a model example of how to give a speech by reading a manuscript

[douglaswilson]

How about talking to atheists from various religious backgrounds - Hindu, Buddhist, Mohammedan - and trying to find out how much of their ethical beliefs come from their waters and how much may be immanent in humanity - perennial?

[douglaswilson]

Jordan Peterson thinks that the Bible is literally true in its own way, that it is about spiritual matters, not primarily about history. I think that the historical truth is important though, to try to correct some of the stuff. For example the extreme punishments dating back to thousands of years BC. If Jesus be a spiritual vision of intensely religious cults and not a historical person, then two thousand years of persecution of the Jews for crucifying Him are not valid. They would not be anyway, because according to John it was only the High Priest and a Jerusalem mob organized by him, not the thousands of followers and healed persons, and not the Jewish nation as a whole, and it has been too long to keep a grudge, especially one so contrived. The trouble with atheism though, is that one also needs a philosophy of freedom and humanitarianism strong enough to pinch hit for faith in God, and this is pretty intellectual and of less popular appeal.

[DB]

Christianity is the greatest story ever sold...and the Jews got brutally massacred for centuries because of it

[atamani]

So when Bible stories are archeologically proven to be true...then what ?

[douglaswilson]

I guess you mean that Genesis influenced the waters, which imperceptibly formed the point of view I acquired from our culture, not that its stories directly made a big impression on me.

They did a bit, but so did Prometheus, Icarus and Phaeton, Pandora, the pride of Cassiopeia and of Arachne, Orpheus and Eurydice, Atalanta, Scylla and Charybdis.

[Edit: also {Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Electra, Orestes}, {Odysseus, Calypso, the suitors, Telemachus, Penelope}, Ceres and Persephone, Phaedra, Oedipus and the futility of trying to escape the fate seen by a soothsayer. I can't see how to take a moral from the stories of Noah and Adam and Eve that I could usefully apply in practical living. Of the Greek myths only Icarus, Phaeton, Scylla and Charybdis.

The New Testament parables are more comprehensible guides. ]

[douglaswilson]

I understand what you say and don't deny it, but have some associated ideas. Benevolent aspects

of religion - I call the stories instructive myths, not childish nonsense. Faced with Inquisition

philosophy, throwing homos off rooftops, the curse on the descendents of Ham, unegalitarian

treatment of women, death penalties for adultery - literal Old Testament needs to be resisted. A

prime example is the law to murder, by stoning in front of her family, brides found not to be

virgin. Some women are born without hymens. God would know this and to be just would have to

make an allowance in the law. So God did not write the law. It is not a sure absolute truth valid for

all time. It is probably from an ancient tribal patriarch or priest, immersed in the superstitions of

that time, and determined to keep women in their place. Therefore, the other Old Testament

ordinances are probably also mere human creations. Since such punishments and prejudices still

exist it is important to downgrade our belief in them as eternal divine truth in order to avoid

persecuting and excessively punishing. The tendency to regress to fundamentalism makes this

more urgent, since modern liberal religious ideas which bypass the old beliefs, to be more

humanitarian, are being discarded by some pressure groups who have considerable political

influence. Not to throw out all the counsel of the Old Testament, but to recognize that we no

longer hang men for stealing a loaf to feed their starving family, and that Jesus said something like

the Golden Rule is the Law and the Prophets, despite that elsewhere He said that not a single

verse could be neglected.

I think that this leaves us on our own, But I think that we can manage. If Jesus was not historical,

then Mark is a moral fable, written by a human without benefit of true divine revelation, and it is

in many ways darned good.

People may be going fundamentalist because science, liberal philosophy and government taking

over religion's traditional charities is eating away at belief and they see no alternative but to close

their thinking minds in order to keep the faith.

[DJTheTrainmanWalker]

The reverence of humanists for humanity?

It's pretty clear that the reverence humans have for our own species pre-dates Genesis and probably every other text by decamillennia. That's pretty much what anthropomorphisation of natural forces. Is human ego writ large.

And Genesis is hardly a high point in the history of human 'reverence' for our species... Rather the reverse... it reduces humans to mere manufactured things, dependent on a handout of meaning and significance from a deity. But then that's the pitfall of egotism as it ultimately trivialises what it seeks to aggrandise.

Humanism is a pretty obvious divergence from the rather trivial human ego on display in Genesis.

[zandvoort]

Tom H has really disappointed me. I used to respect and hope he returns to the humanist light one day.!