Humanism Made Silly by a Humanist

A few months back I came upon this humanist propaganda video. Of course, Humanism is a subjective dogma of atheists. What is funny is that it contains the refutation of Humanism within the narrative. Watch the video.



Did you catch it? In particular, note the self-defeating relativism at 1:15. The self-defeating claim is that there is no single "meaning" of human life. We all create our own, "different strokes for different folks!" Of course, this means there is no meaning. The video (presupposing an objective morality of the "decent folks") then presents a smorgasbord of benign activities that one of the "decent folks" might choose to be "happy." It is a rather self-serving selection! Cherry picking comes to mind. The reference to "drawing," in particular, evoked me to laughing ridicule.

"How can I be happy?" That's an implicit endorsement of a supposed benevolent epicureanism, hedonism, or egoism -- select a "meaning," take your pick. It's all relative. Individual happiness is the supreme goal. Individual happiness is a matter of individual tastes and a matter of personal opinion. That admission raises the following questions.

Conspicuously absent from the activities are such things as sexual promiscuity; marital infidelity; pedophilia; women murdering their unborn children for the sake of future "happiness;" Hitler Youth; Islamic terrorism and so on. All these are activities that make their practitioners happy and their lives "meaningful" according to their subjective tastes conditioned by external influences. No doubt "decent" humanists will reject some of these as acceptable practices. But they have no objective reason to reject any. In the amoral humanist universe, all "standards" are subjective and arbitrary. The video essentially admits as much.

Of course, the humanist will object to the mention of Hitler youth and terrorists (abortionists probably not), since the greatest "value" to a humanist is Humanity. But then, "Humanity" is a rather meaningless term. Its vagueness can be used as a cloak and justification for eugenics, ethnic cleansing and other activities whose goal is the "greater good" of Mankind "on the whole" according to arbitrary principles. Who is to dictate what is "best" for the "universal man," for humanity in the whole? Totalitarianism comes to mind -- the individual is expendable for the sake of "Humanity" in the whole. Of course, the benign benevolent humanism of the video (which leans to a libertarian view with potential anarchistic tendencies) conveniently ignores such philosophical problems that undermine its own foundations. It presumes an objective morality that Humanism cannot provide. To the extent that a Humanist adheres to true morals, he does so by borrowing them from the objective morality of Christian theism.

In summary, if "meaning" and happiness are subject to individual preference (shaped by influences external to the person, according to the video) then nothing is off limits according to Humanism -- including those who reject Humanism as the basis of a "meaning" of life. Humanism is a bankrupt philosophy with no foundations. The video admits as much when it says: "Humanists do not see any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it." The base ingredients of Humanism -- mere chunks of the universe interacting with other chunks of the universe within a Godless and amoral evolutionary universe ruled by "chance" -- provide no ground for any of Humanism's unargued presuppositions.

The video ends with "That's Humanism!" What it shows is that Humanism is intellectually foolishness. How appropriate that it was narrated by a comedian, Stephen Fry.