Project Reason is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
Often, at least as portrayed by the media and people of faith, when a person commits a horrific act, and after a period of time perceives the awfullness of what they have done, they fall back on religion as a mindset which provides them with some ability to live with themselves.
As a non-believer, a humanist, should I someday find that I have done something horrific, what type or types of solace does humanism provide to me so that I could live with myself. I can’t pray for forgiveness (talking to imaginary beings seems pointless); I can’t say “it was God’s will” or “God works in strange ways” since fictional characters can do anything that their inventors want them to do; so these statements would be self serving.
Since I would have to face up to the reality that I did carry out this “terrible act”, and that I did it of my own free will, without regard to what happened to the people who were the recipent of this act, how do I live with myself. I could not think of a single “humanist” strategy that compares to what religion has to offer.
This discussion excludes the hypocritical prisoners who have “found God” to get better treatment at prisons, or sociopaths (and the like) who may not experience the feeling of guilt. This is about people who truly experience remorse after realizing what they have done.
Humanists understand humanity. They understand homo sapiens as a biological system. They understand the vast imperfections of biological life. they understand we make mistakes, some of them terrible ones, and we must reconcile our lives with those mistakes. Humanists understand that we evolved emotions such as empathy, sympathy, forgiveness, cooperation, altruism and guilt. One bad act by a humanist does not cancel out many other good deeds. Humanists live for this life, for better or worse, for they do not expect another one. Humanists are existentialists and not essentialists. Existence is far from perfection and/ or even understandable. Our existence is dependent upon forgiving each other, if possible, and moving onward and upward, not asking forgiveness from some imagined higher deity to obtain comfort.
Life is not easy, for humanists or anybody else, but reality does not owe us comfort, explanation, purpose or convenience. I can live with myself as long as society can live with what I have done. That is as good as it gets.
Life is not easy, for humanists or anybody else, but reality does not owe us comfort, explanation, purpose or convenience. I can live with myself as long as society can live with what I have done. That is as good as it gets.
If I found myself riddled with guilt over a specific act, I’d probably try to coax my dream world into providing me with a symbolic story that might help me feel better. If the person I wronged were still alive, I’d apologize profusely.
How do you coax your dream world? Maybe by writing and talking about the incident.
If I found myself riddled with guilt over a specific act, I’d probably try to coax my dream world into providing me with a symbolic story that might help me feel better. If the person I wronged were still alive, I’d apologize profusely.
How do you coax your dream world? Maybe by writing and talking about the incident.
I understand your strategy. Writing about incidents does help, even if they are bad as beating someone up, stealing thousands of dollars, burning down someones home, or even running them over with a car.
...but let me make up some fictional very very bad act as an example of what I’m talking about. You are 19 years old on a hike in the Rockies. You come across a family at a national park. You tie up the three kids 16, 12, 8. You rape the mom in front of the kids and husband. Then kill her by cutting off each limb step by step while she begs for mercy. You cut off the husband’s head as he asks you not to hurt the kids. You then kill each kid slowly by mutilating them while each kid watches the other die, etc etc.
You go to prison, or you don’t get caught. Years go by. You are now 30. You keep thinking of what you have done. As an adult, the realization of the awfulness of the act hits home. You are a humanist. How do us humanists forgive ourselves for such horrendous acts? I don’t think your strategy would work for these types of bad things. It’s interesting that those that believe in God have strategies that allow them to live with themselves.
Jeff, is your hypothetical realistic? I’m guessing that it might be, but it seems remote. At any rate, it’s way out of my league. I was thinking more along the lines of how I used to beat up my younger brother and only stopped when he outgrew me in height and strength. I’ve apologized to him but still feel terribly guilty at times.
I guess if I were a person who’d done what you described, I’d find a razor blade or a bunch of pills and take care of it that way. I’ve never understood how a person can jump off a high building or bridge. A woman who sold me a motorcycle back in 2002 ended up riding hers off the highest cliff in northern California one day. How could she have done that? She’d also tried to sell me armored riding clothes but I declined. Obviously, people don’t act all that consistently.
I could never be a shrink because I’d recommend some people to kill themselves in any method they feel comfortable with. Are you thinking of a particular patient of yours with your question? I’ve heard about some neurologists working on being able to eliminate torturing memories in people. That sounds promising, but again, if I were a shrink, I’d still recommend suicide and keep the surgery (if it ever develops into a legitimate treatment) for people who more-or-less innocently harm or kill others and as a result can no longer find peace of mind no matter what they try.
Probably not. I was thinking of the woman who drowned her kids;
The teenagers who killed Pamela Smart’s husband, and for that matter Pam Smart herself. Pamela smart was a teacher who recruited her 16 student (Whom she was having an affair with) to kill her husband.
The 2 men who broke into the doctors home in connecticut and killed the whole family, etc.
I don’t even know if any of these people are believers.
nv - 28 April 2012 08:30 AM
Are you thinking of a particular patient of yours with your question?.
No, not any particular patient. Just reading about how people do terrible things, find god and feel that because of God (or a belief in God’s forgiveness) that thay are changed and even more puzzling, can live with themselves. They might say “Oh when I did that I was different person”.
A humanist has no “get out of jail card” for his/her conscience, at least none that I can think of. If these people who commited such bad acts “found” humanism they would not have the type of solace that religion (rightly or wrongly) provides. Your example of writing and talking about it and Avogadro’s comment is all I could come up with myself.
Probably not. I was thinking of the woman who drowned her kids;
The teenagers who killed Pamela Smart’s husband, and for that matter Pam Smart herself. Pamela smart was a teacher who recruited her 16 student (Whom she was having an affair with) to kill her husband.
The 2 men who broke into the doctors home in connecticut and killed the whole family, etc.
I don’t even know if any of these people are believers.
nv - 28 April 2012 08:30 AM
Are you thinking of a particular patient of yours with your question?.
No, not any particular patient. Just reading about how people do terrible things, find god and feel that because of God (or a belief in God’s forgiveness) that thay are changed and even more puzzling, can live with themselves. They might say “Oh when I did that I was different person”.
A humanist has no “get out of jail card” for his/her conscience, at least none that I can think of. If these people who commited such bad acts “found” humanism they would not have the type of solace that religion (rightly or wrongly) provides. Your example of writing and talking about it and Avogadro’s comment is all I could come up with myself.
Jeff
I find it very difficult to believe I’d find myself in similar positions.
I find it very difficult to believe I’d find myself in similar positions.
This is not about me or you… at least I hope not.
I could not think of any “Humanist” equivalent to the type of religous solace that might help some believers live with themselves should they commit a serious act of cruelty. It just isn’t in the humanists tool box.
... and it appears that none of us can come up with anything else other than:
1. Rational thinking is a deterent to commiting these acts.
2. If we do commit an act, at least try to apologize.
3. Talking about it and writing about it might help us to live with ourselved after the act was committed. but it won’t make it go away.
4. Some of us couldn’t live with ourselves in any case.
I could not think of any “Humanist” equivalent to the type of religous solace that might help some believers live with themselves should they commit a serious act of cruelty. It just isn’t in the humanists tool box.
So no “systemic” (or even institutionalized) way for non-believers to abdicate responsibility for personal behavior ... yeah, I think there’s probably something to that, but I’m not sure it really amounts to much. This is a community thing. We have professional services to cover these kinds of issues, and we have whatever community/network of friends we’ve each developed. I’m not sure religion really handles such things any differently, there’s just a “systemic” tradition, and the communities and their functions are generally much more established.
Jeff, I think you could add hypnosis—including self-hypnosis—as well as meditation techniques. Or you could read Sam Harris’ writings about free will and, if you fully buy into his statements, your understanding would be that you’d had no choice in the matter.
I could not think of any “Humanist” equivalent to the type of religous solace that might help some believers live with themselves should they commit a serious act of cruelty. It just isn’t in the humanists tool box.
So no “systemic” (or even institutionalized) way for non-believers to abdicate responsibility for personal behavior ... yeah, I think there’s probably something to that, but I’m not sure it really amounts to much. This is a community thing. We have professional services to cover these kinds of issues, and we have whatever community/network of friends we’ve each developed. I’m not sure religion really handles such things any differently, there’s just a “systemic” tradition, and the communities and their functions are generally much more established.
If you’re a Catholic, you can go to confession and become hypnotized by the experience, which can be highly therapeutic.
Since I would have to face up to the reality that I did carry out this “terrible act”, and that I did it of my own free will, without regard to what happened to the people who were the recipent of this act, how do I live with myself. I could not think of a single “humanist” strategy that compares to what religion has to offer.
Jeff
The reality based approach to doing something horrific is to resolve to do better in the future. How do you live with yourself? Who else do you think you can live with? Having done something horrible, you can wallow in self indulgent guilt, or get on with your life and do better. If you feel your crime has incurred a debt, work to pay it and make amends the best you can.
Of course, if your goal is to deny the reality of what you did, and renounce your debt, then religion is the ticket for you. Declare moral bankruptcy and have your sins washed away by the Blood of the Lamb.
A thought experiment - would having a get out of the reality of your crimes free card makes you more or less likely to commit crimes in the first place?
I could not think of any “Humanist” equivalent to the type of religous solace that might help some believers live with themselves should they commit a serious act of cruelty. It just isn’t in the humanists tool box.
So no “systemic” (or even institutionalized) way for non-believers to abdicate responsibility for personal behavior ... yeah, I think there’s probably something to that, but I’m not sure it really amounts to much. This is a community thing. We have professional services to cover these kinds of issues, and we have whatever community/network of friends we’ve each developed. I’m not sure religion really handles such things any differently, there’s just a “systemic” tradition, and the communities and their functions are generally much more established.
Not so much institutionalized help, more like spiritual help. What I was getting at was the notion of living with one’s self knowing that you commited some terrible cruelty…
Do you remember the MASH episode where the ultra conservative Major winchester was being interviewed by the press promoting his work as surgeon even though he screwed up a case. Because he screwed up the case he declined to be used in the article. The exasperated news man told him “no one would know”.
and the major answered “I WOULD KNOW!”
If me or you did something horrible, we would know. Religion has the means to supply people with a mechanism of self forgiveness, Humanism does not.
I find it very difficult to believe I’d find myself in similar positions.
This is not about me or you… at least I hope not.
I could not think of any “Humanist” equivalent to the type of religous solace that might help some believers live with themselves should they commit a serious act of cruelty. It just isn’t in the humanists tool box.
... and it appears that none of us can come up with anything else other than:
1. Rational thinking is a deterent to commiting these acts.
2. If we do commit an act, at least try to apologize.
3. Talking about it and writing about it might help us to live with ourselved after the act was committed. but it won’t make it go away.
4. Some of us couldn’t live with ourselves in any case.
Jeff
Have you read Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky? Raskolnikov, the atheist/humanist commits a bloody murder while carrying out his plan to rob a corrupt money lender. How does he live with himself? Well, he seeks forgiveness in many different ways but it torments him endlessly almost to the point of madness. Eventually something entirely human gives him the forgiveness he was searching for . . . no god comes riding in to save the day, at least not as far as I recall? Anyone else have a better memory of the book? Isn’t it Sonya’s love for him that eventually cleanses his conscience (and many years in a Siberian labour camp)?
So the short answer from the Dostoyevsky novel is ‘love.’
