Despite mankind having a lower selfish material nature he also possess potentially a higher noble nature. It is through God’s intervention through Messengers, or Prophets, that mankind is given the opportunity to choose his higher noble nature which in reality constitutes true liberty. It is on the foundations of that liberty that societal cohesiveness can be derived and upon which a lasting constructive civilization can be built.
All of that can be had without religion, messengers, or god beliefs. Secular humanists are typically interested in mans potential for nobility and in his own self-actualization.
Is that what you see going on in the world today? Do you ever turn on the TV and watch the news?
Actually, I seldom watch the news. What I see is around me is quite good. I live in a beautiful part of a beautiful planet, where life is peaceful and stimulating. I have a positive world view.
And how successful would you say their interest in man's potential for nobility is in bringing it about?
Secular humanism doesn't exist to make man more noble, but it has given the world much, including science and the modern, liberal, democratic state with guaranteed individual freedoms. It's given the West modernity, public health, public education.
you are leaving out entirely the breakdown of law and civilization.
That's not what I see. Are you an American living in America? That country is falling apart. They can't stop shooting one another. Perhaps that's where you get your nihilism from.
Or maybe its religion. Religions promote their own need in part by creating dire narratives which only they have the solution to. I don't know as much about your religion as I do about Christianity, but that religion teaches that we are born defective and worthy of destruction, with the only salvation being provided by their god - you know, one way. Some of the darkest worldviews I encounter here come from such people.
We left America and relocated to a mountain lake a mile up in Mexico's Sierra Madres ten years ago. Life has getting better for these people over that time.
And the world over, life is better for more people than ever before in history.
I would say if real answers did and do not come forth through real Messengers of God, despite the interest of secular humanists, what can be ascertained now going on by merely turning on the TV and watching the news, mankind as a whole is teetering on the precipice of destroying itself.
We've had these messengers for millennia now. If you believe that all that they have accomplished is to bring, "mankind as a whole is teetering on the precipice of destroying itself," isn't it time for a new approach? Man is the source of the only useful message, and it comes from the . The world has been marinating in religious thought for millennia now. Only in the last few centuries have we come to see the power of leaving religious ideas out of decision making and deciding what is good and what is true by the application of reason to evidence and compassion, not faith, revelation, messengers, or other religious beliefs.
with the coming of every new Prophet or Messenger sent by God spiritual qualities of goodness are taught through which evil deeds can be avoided entirely.
Not needed, at least not in this life. I solved those problems decades ago, and without religion. As I indicated, all one need do is apply reason to compassion to determine how to be a good person. I think that religious beliefs often impede that process by introducing defective values to be accepted on faith.
Would Christianity be so atheophobic and homophobic if it actually followed the Golden Rule rather merely giving it lip service and subjecting both of those demographics to its institutionalized bigotries? I'm pretty sure that the people willing to be messengers for that message would be better people had they been raised in the values of secular humanism.
Baha’u’llah wrote that religion is the chief instrument for order in the world and that the vitality of belief in God is dying out in every land.
many people lack a sense of spiritual inner defectiveness
I do. I have no sense of any spiritual defect. I can and frequently do experience awe, mystery, gratitude, and connectivity to my world. And I reject the Christian notion that I am a sinner in need of redemption. I reject the religious notions that matter is base, flesh is evil, humanity is sick, and that one should disengage from the real world and turn ones attention to an alleged god and afterlife instead, and hope for something better after death. To me, that's a spiritually defective worldview.
What program do secular humanists have to build a new world order on earth?
What secular humanism offers is a worldview based on the belief that man has the potential to do great things, and that we should embrace reason and compassion, not faith or revelation, if we are to make this world the best it can be.
