because humanity is shit and tries hard enough to destroy itself than any efforts to save it would be useless
you see? actually we agree about something.
I see a lot of evidence in contrary to that:
- non-religion and atheism are growing all around the world;
- dictatorships in Muslim world are being fought against and brought down;
- Youtube is being filled with atheism, skepticism and discussions;
- here in Brazil, a lot of Christian religions (Catholicism included) have just tried to manipulate their believers in not voting for our current president, and, well… they failed badly;
- a recent survey in Brazil has shown that more than 50% of Brazilians are in favor of legalization of abortion (although only in case of rape and risk of mother’s life);
- new laws related to legalizing abortion and criminalizing homophobia are being created and waiting to be approved;
- there is a new “anti-homophobia kit” that is intended to be distributed in public High Schools here in Brazil, it promotes integration and understanding of
homosexuality.
I don’t know how the situation is in the rest of the world, but right now I’m optimistic about Brazil.
Homophobia is today what slavery was a couple of hundred of years ago. It looks like a dead end, since religions and culture are completely homophobic, but religion used to promote slavery of Black people as well. Yes, it will take lots of years, only the new generation will be able to accept new ideas (old skins cannot hold new wine, as Jesus said 
) and only when the new generation grows up that things will start to change.
You can see discussions in the Internet with a lot of religious fanatics being angry, intolerant, writing in capitals that atheists are going to hell… and that is a good thing! It means they are being bothered, atheism is getting them out of their own comfort zone. That is the first step to change themselves, and sometimes they do change.
Atheists are popping in religious families. In the beginning, they don’t like it, they are intolerant and try to convert them back, but after years they often prefer to be a less radical and have a good relationship with their children than discriminating atheists forever.
So, if you want an immediate response, well, that clearly won’t happen, but, if you are patient (as patient as Gandhi was when he was beaten up by English soldiers), then you might see things change bit by bit 
What would a humanist do to actually change mankind for the better? I mean every religion and ideology tried that, it’s the very purpose of religions.
Would a humanist try to move others to become humanist? if yes, how far would he or she go in order to achieve that?
Is being humanist enough to make humankind become more human?
theres still lots of slavery bros
Sorry I hadn’t realised it until your post
Atheism and atheist groups have been politicaly active for the last few years, I guess a stereotype for an atheist is that they always are trying to start a debate with someone about god. But atheism is considered to be its own religion/nonreligion by many people, since if you are you can’t be a religion and therefor are in its own group. If a person asks what religion you practice, atheism is one of those answers. So in that sense it is a large enough minority and Contraversal i suppose (When I mean contraversial I mean how it is a large enough group that some religious fanatics attack it, like going on how atheist should leave america since it is a country “under god” and “In god we trust” but since you can be christian and humanist, or atheist and humanist then there is no reason to have large groups specific to it.
Jesus christ’s message to love all I understand and support, to try not to start war, and to help all was pretty much what he was telling people. well that and spreading the word of god but that is less of philosophy in my views.
Buddha, I understand that being spiritually enlightened (And by spiritually anlightened I mean mentally)and at peace with ones self are important to understand and practice.
Gandhi he is just a hero to all people, I mean he was just amazing for what he had done in his life. “An eye for an eye will make everyone go blind” I can somewhat agree with his thoughts on foriveness and punishment but also feel on the other hand that sometimes people do do bad things, horrible things and should be rightfully punished. Infact I agree with the death penalty to some extent.
Confucius is also a big role model on my list, I mean i think that everyone has their own natural rights and government should follow its people instead of it being more allong the lines of legalism.
St. Francis of Assisi, to be honest I know very little about him and his work, all I know is that he focused on animals and the enviorment. I do believe that we should attempt to protect the enviorment as much as humanly possible, and that we Have to find cleaner ways to obtain energy. If we do not do either we are screwed
Not a correct answer. If a person asks me what religion I practice, I tell them, “I don’t. I’m an atheist.” I know it’s supposedly cliched by now, but evidently, it’s not: Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
But, back to humanism…
I’m not so sure about that. Maybe in proportion to human population. Slavery today is much more secret and subversive, mainly sex slavery.
i would rather be a forced labor slave than a sex slave.
Not often, it’s not the easiest topic to segway into.
Well in the UK it was a predominantly Christian system, but thankfully as the country has become more multicultural, different ideaologies and theisms are arising.
Of course, different philosophies and doctrines tend to come from cultures and locales different to mine in the UK, giving fresh insight and new ideas.
I think that many traditional religions should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt and not-too-literally, as doing so would restrict are persons own mindset, rather than coming up with new ideas and rationales themselves.
I was nothing for a while, but I found it rather depressing. It’s nice to have something to beleive in.
To help those who need it, and to protest those who’ve lost their own voice of reason, speaking up for others who can’t protest.
Sorry 'bout that, I wasn’t sure if you were srsbsns.
But I agree, in several cases people can seem very cruel. However, I feel that if more people took a humanistic approach to their lives this could be curbed and we could work on problems that others of our race have caused.
I understand your misanthropy. Some actions of man are such that no explanation could be made by a rational mind. However I feel there are some aspects of humanity that redeem us in some ways. I beleive if a humanistic approach spread to become a more global mindset, the more negative aspects of humanity would slowly drift away and we would evolve, intellectually and creatively, as a species.
I think this may already be developing, in the last fifty to sixty years there has been a soaring of intellectualism and pacifism (both I feel have relations with humanism) compared to what it was like in decades past.
I have an odd view regarding Christ, most atheists aren’t convinced he existed. I beleive Christ did exist, and whilst he was not the Son of God (who I don’t beleive exists) he did spread the message of peace, love and compassion, before being murdered by those who wanted to rule the land with hate and fear.
Buddha I respect in that he taught that a human being should take care of the enivronment in which they live, and to live harmony with the world and each other. A message that is lost in recent times I fear.
Confucius is one of my favourite philosophers, for his various lessons and teachings such as honour, respecting each other, animals and the world.
Whilst most don’t consider him to be a philosopher, I find a lot of wisdom from Bill Hicks. His outlook on life and humanity was astonishingly clear, in my opinion. For example, his ‘dream’ (one of many) that if for one year, all the trillions spent on weapons and the military could be saved, every human being in the world would be clothed and fed many times over, not one person excluded.
This is unfortunately true. I’m not saying the world and humanity is perfect now, I’m saying that I beleive a widespread humanistic approach could reduce these problem in the future. A dream I know, but a nice one.
I think you enjoyed those words very much, mmmm, integration cool it sounds yea?
you think that atheism will change everything to better? bullshit! while people have everything best they still move to worst. today when religion gives some morale (for you false but still morale) which is supposed to hold human from worst they still commit unimaginable crimes and you think anything will change? you talk about changes with so much enjoyment and you forget that those changes give humanity only more freedom to commit something bad than something good.
so what youre saying is religious people commit horrible crimes so therefore in the absence of religion they will too
makes sense
'scuse me for a moment, but religion is merely a codification of morals that come from humanity. Sometimes, however, religion is used to create false morals…such as “homosexuality is bad” or “killing is good”. Which, in and of itself, isn’t a “problem” with religion because, even without religion at all, someone will invent things to justify their own personal twisted view of the world–if it isn’t God telling you to drown your kids in the bathtub, it’s your dog.
The problem arises with the assumption that being a religious person automatically makes you good or bad–if you’re a Christian, you’re automatically good; if you’re a Muslim, you’re automatically bad. You hear stories all the time about how a prisoner gets a reduced sentence because they “found God”.
Therein lies the problem. One isn’t automatically good or bad because they’re a member of a religion. The religion is just another thing that could be used by twisted people to justify their actions (see “Fred Phelps”).
The other problem is that prominent people, such as politicians, become or are members of said “religion” and then try to and sometimes succeed in passing laws based on that. Look at how many states in the United States and countries around the world do not allow homosexuals to legally marry, as a for instance. And it gets worse in many countries; many countries consider homosexuality a crime!
And therein lies the problem, I feel; the assumptions about religion.
And don’t try to foolishly bring up Mao, Pol Pot, etc about atheism. That tired argument doesn’t hold water because they weren’t espousing atheism when they killed millions.
Lets try keeping this on humanism shall we
Humanism overarches both atheism and theism.
I’ve already posted in a different thread that societies and governments based on or ruled by religion suck - and that the West has improved DRAMATICALLY in the last few hundred in all areas since the rise of secularism - as well as most of the rest of the world.
Some of you can say that the world is essentially the same as it has always been and that nothing has improved, but that is clearly not true.
Our remaining problems continue not because they are unsolvable or eternal - it’s because there are still many of us who continue to view the world through a backward social psychology - that we are different ‘groups’ that COMPETE for the same resources, and that The Other group is the enemy who threatens us.
Rulers have exploited the fear and ignorance of the common people throughout our entire history, and this mechanic has been described by writers of every age - this is no secret.
Our modern civilization wasn’t built through competition, but through cooperation. Many of you may think that this is simply an ‘opinion’ of an a large chaotic system, but large, seemingly chaotic systems can be described and predicted with certain probabilities. If you’re not familiar, you can Google ‘Game Theory’, ‘Zero-Sum Game’, or ‘John Nash’.
Secular Humanism isn’t atheist, agnostic, or anti-religion. It simply seeks to promote secular government and society - to base public policy decisions and international relations based on the best of our knowledge and reasoning, as opposed to being based on fear and ignorance, or the manipulation of fear and ignorance.
The hate and intolerance of The Other is completely artificial and is perpetuated and manipulated by a relatively small group of people for their own gain. It is the cause of most of our problems and resists effective solutions.
Secular Humanism seeks to reduce the influence of fear, hate, and ignorance on societies, governments, and public policy.
The term ‘Secular Humanism’ may be relatively new, but it’s really just the same movement as The Enlightenment, just advanced a few hundred years. The Enlightenment isn’t just a color bar on a historical timeline - it’s one faction of a struggle that still exists.
Secular Humanism fucking WORKS. If you think that’s bullshit, then compare your life to that of a feudal serf. The progress we’ve made since The enlightenment is incredible. Being a human is a completely different thing now.
We still struggle with problems, but we KNOW the causes, and we have solutions - the difficulties remain in the political and social difficulties of democracy - fear, hate, and ignorance.
Yes, I was talking in proportion, because, to me, that is what counts. One more crucial difference: now all kinds of slavery against the law and common sense. In other words, society, in general, considers it to be wrong.
We think alike
I agree
I like this point of view from Einstein:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_views#Jews.2C_Christianity.2C_and_Jesus
I wish to learn more about Confucius. I watched a movie of his life, but there was no teachings or many great actions.
But only after I learn more about Buddha. I found his life so beautiful
I just remembered George Carlin, I like his ideas a lot. He is dead, though 
Certainly
Although I’m not gay, I have a few gay friends.
Well, I think atheism will not change people for the better, but rejection of religious dogmas and traditions will. These should be substituted with reasoned, insightful ideas.
My experience: if you give orders to someone without a proper reason, one gets frustrated and end up not following what you say. Sometimes, one follows what you say, in the wrong way and gives excuses. It is more common for people to use the bible as an excuse for bad behavior than for people to use it to do good things.
However, if you explain to someone why you should do this and not do that, if you explain the results of those actions to that person, then it becomes a lot more natural and exciting to try to be a good person.
It is the same with math: instead of giving instructions to be followed, people learn better if you explain them why those instructions work, give real life examples, etc.
To me, non-religion (which does not necessarily means atheism!) growing up means people are rejecting their old world view and (hopefully) will start to think.
tr;dr: Religion might not be bad, but religious dogmas are.
Actaully religion is a reason murders and wars are started. crusades, islamist groups, genocide. People also use religion as an excuse to murder and kill, is it not true that black people were considered to have been created by satan? and because of you religious fanatics who think the world will end withjout your god doesn’t mean the world will end. The world would advance dramatically if everyone was atheist, but then agoin every group says that if everyone was in their group the world would be a better place. Now can we PLEASE GET BACK ON TOPIC
Humanism is the study of humanity. Therefore, discussion of humanity IS ON TOPIC.
What do you think “humanism” is?