Metal Reviews

Would anybody here consider himself (or herself) a Humanist? I've noticed that, in the i don't believe in atheists thread (among other Religion-themed threads here), there seem to be a lot of Humanistic ideas from various posters.

i might. i don't know much about it and don't think humans are much better than any other animals though

I'm not sure exactly what Humanism is, but I don't think people suck too much anymore.

No! I'm living in Balcan (thats goegraphical area), you can't imagine what I have seen and how do people behave, I tell you it's easier to train a dog to bark at command than talk with some people, it's just unexplainable.

As for humanism, it always seemed like organised atheism with rituals to me. Coming from a religion with lots of rituals, aren't interested. Plus a lot of the moral stuff seems like common sense. I don't feel the need to adhere to a particular philosophy in my lack of belief, either.

No isms for me at all, thanks.

I'm Agnostic, that's right.....i said it......

I'm a staunch Catholic, so don't worry about it.

There was actually a poll done here once about which religious beliefs the posters held. Atheism was the most common. But Christianity was actually at a fairly close second.

I'd consider myself a secular humanist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism).

It has nothing to do with rituals; it is simply an adopted system of ethical and moral standards. In summation, due to reason and science, all supernatural ideas need to be discarded and we need to accept secular humanism in our ethical views. It's the ethics of atheism.

Really? Hmm, that was kind of surprising, i would expect christianity to outnumber atheism by a landslide.

Was there any vote for/from a Muslim?

Huh, I was sure you were an atheist- thought thats why you sent me that PM. Your pope has one badass hat.

As for whether I'm a humanist- I agree with them in several ways, but I don't particularly like attaching myself to one philosophy over another; the closest one I'd probably adhere to is skepticism, in the Humean, rather than ancient Greek sense.

I'm going to describe my religious views in a very weird way right now.

Hansi Kursch (from Blind Guardian), when asked about his religious beliefs in an interview, stated that he's a "faithful but very critical Christian." That's about how I'd describe myself too, although I don't know what Hansi's specific denomination is (judging from his lyrics, however, I have a feeling he may also be a Catholic).

I believe in God, his only son Jesus, and pretty much everything relating to the Christian faith. However, I'm also a critical thinker. While I believe the essence of every story in the Bible is true, I also believe there are a lot of "what ifs" and deliberate over-simplifications in it (I could give some examples if you're interested). At the same time, I have my own concept of who God is, what Heaven and Hell are (though my concept of Heaven and Hell is pretty much how most educated Christians would describe them), etc. And I'm not going to deny that there are plenty of corrupt/hypocritical Christians out there (just as there are plenty of corrupt/hypocritical Atheists out there, too). But I choose just not to associate myself with them.

I sent that PM just out of curiosity. Since I was a little surprised when you admitted to being an Atheist in that "I don't believe in atheists" thread.

I think that morals/right and wrong can be determined using reason, so I guess I might be humanistic in a way. I don't really know enough about it to say whether I definitely am or not, though.

Speaking of atheism...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaGgpGLxLQw

I consider myself a Christian but it seems that the longer I live the more I move away from the religion. I prefer to think of morality as something with intrinsic value rather than something you get rewarded for in the afterlife.

I'm an atheist christian. I like the ideas presented by christianity ie. treat others as you would treat yourself etc. yet nothing of the spiritual side is relevant to me. And I've been in Catholic education all my life. Catholic schoolgirls rule!

Pfff, they're naughty as a rule.