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How to sneeze like an atheist and speak like a Humanist

Any topics that are primarily about humanism or other non-religious life stances fit in here.
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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

How to sneeze like an atheist and speak like a Humanist

#1 Post by Alan H » August 18th, 2017, 2:01 pm

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: How to sneeze like an atheist and speak like a Humanist

#2 Post by animist » August 19th, 2017, 12:05 pm

ISTM that the only problematic word discussed here is "spiritual". I remember being on the Theological forum, and one contributor (quite a friendly evangelical minister in California) discussed "spirituality" in a way which inevitably linked it to belief in a god. But of course the word is used more generally to mean a sense that mere "materialism" (in the pejorative sense of this word - meaning ignoring ethical and aesthetic values in favour of acquisition of possessions - rather than the philosophical one) is and should not be all there is in to life; it does not tie one to any particular belief about whether there are supernatural entities.

While I was on Theologica, I also made a point of using the word "godless" in a neutral way which contrasted with the traditional pejorative use of the word to connote "bad", and I also used the word "godful" in the same ethically neutral way: so a universe which contained a god was literally godful, while one which did not was godless. Thus "godful" and "godless" applied to the universe itself, not to the beliefs or behaviour of particular human beings

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