Secular humanism ...

I have committed myself to writing something about religion and secular humanism for the autumn, well really I want to find a space between them, if that makes sense. Partly because I have an unclear conception of both of them. My instincts are towards secular humanism in a way, but annoyingly I have left my borrowed copy of Richard Norman's short introduction in the bedroom in Orkney. I have a lot of time for his work. But I think my problem with the proposition set out on Amazon, 'that it is ultimately through the human capacity for art, literature and imagination that humanism is a powerful alternative to religious belief', is that I am completely uncertain about the status of one of the terms of the opposition, viz 'religious belief', and doubtful at least about the other. To put it another way, is Norman trading on a particular conception of religious belief? Well 'trading' is too cheap a word here, but there is something from which he wishes strenuously to dissociate himself, and, if it is spelt out in a certain way, then I would be on his side of the barricades, though presumably that metaphor of civil strife is not quite right. In any event, we should have to ask whether that conception is the only one available, and whether we should conflate 'the religious' with 'religious belief' at all.

I think the crux for me is going to be a conception of the moral life that is at once fully engaged with 'our human capacity for art, literature and the imagination' but which also forces us towards a 'non-religious' notion of 'spirituality' or 'transcendence'. Philosophers have been here before, of course (John Cottingham, John Haldane, Anthony O'Hear) . The question really turns on our answer to the question, what constitutes the human? and on whether we have to find something within what we think of as 'religious' to augment what we think is entailed by the 'secular'. Unfortunately many people think that so-called 'non-realists' about religion are simply secular humanists in disguise, but then they need to tell us what they have in mind when they talk about secular humanism. The real issue is about the nature and the conditions of the moral life that are taken to be involved: by either side.

Still, I have a few months yet. Beacons only have significance when they can shine brightly in heavy seas, where there are strong currents and hidden skerries. We need them, we can see them, only when we are already in danger. For some reason I connect this thought with the concept of spirituality. One thing about writing a blog is that you tend not to look back over older posts, or at least I don't, and so you don't see the pattern that is emerging, if there is one at all ... And so, beacons, danger, the need to find something else, something that rescues us from a condition by which we feel endangered (and you do not head towards the beacon, but keep at a distance), though what is endangered, and what needs to be let go of? The metaphor of 'spirit', 'breath', 'wind' ... indicates a contrast, life rather than death, something heard, news from elsewhere, beyond the bunker, where both of these are metaphors for felt conditions of oppression and release. 'Spirituality' is a term that derives from these metaphors, and so belongs to, in the sense of having its origins in, a particular religious tradition, but the conflicting human possibilities it refers to has wider application and can be understood outside the terms of that tradition. Thus the concept of Buddhist spirituality' makes perfect sense, even though the juxtaposition yields a mixed metaphor ...