Richard Norman on Humanism

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Can non-believers make sense of the world? How can there be morality without God? In this episode of Philosophy Bites philosopher Richard Norman, author of On Humanism, contributor to What is Humanism? and member of the Humanist Philosophers Group, explains how it is possible to lead a good life without religion.

Listen to Richard Norman on Humanism

Comments

[Jon]

Very surprised to hear Richard fall into the trap of saying (as the religious like to) that "an atheist is someone who believes there is no God".

It would be reasonable to say that some atheists do believe there is no God (though that then places a burden of proof on them to justify their position).

What Richard should have said is "an atheist is someone who does not believe in God", that's a world away from what was said.

Jon.

[Jim]

Richard Norman states that theists worship "A Super-human Being, whose purposes we are here to serve".

I want to correct this. For most theists, God is not some Cosmic Super-Dictator, but the 'Ground of our (own) Being' [Tillich]. This means that Theism and Humanism are much closer to each other than he makes out.

I am kind to my neighbour because we are both expressions of the same Source (God) i.e. we are connected. Religion is a relationship with that common Source of all things that is within me and within you and within Prof. Norman.

Luke 17:21 The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.

[Brian]

In reply to Jon, atheism is typically understood as one of two forms. Weak atheism is characterized as someone who does not believe that God is non-existent, but does not have any belief in the existence of a God. Strong atheism is characterized by a belief in the non-existence of God. Many atheists are strong atheists, and it is unfair to call the statement "an atheist is someone who believes there is no God" false.

[George Ross]

As Martin Amis so rightly puts it in his most recent book, 'The Second Plane', 'The opposite of religious belief is not atheism or secularism or humanism. It is not an ism; it is independence of mind'.