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Are Secular Humanists hypocritical in their own way?

Here's the thing: They speak of justice and equality yet they attack those who believe in what they do not. They make posts on social media about how "Religion is the cause of violence and all these horrible things" and it is justified as a "righteous point of view". However when someone religious challenges them to that point of view they are accused of "preaching" when the Humanist was the one talking about religion first. They make claims about religious people killing all those who aren't of their religion and yet they ignore dictators like Mao Zedong that wanted to exterminate those who ARE religious in favor of a more "rational and scientific" way to govern the people.

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  • Anonymous
    6 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Dude...everyone is a hypocrite.....we all have higher standards than those we actually attain

  • 6 years ago

    Mao, Stalin...those types of dictators killed for POLITICAL reasons, not in the name of 'there is no god'. And sorry you don't like it but a lot of the violence & murder in the past was 'justified' by some religion. There is no hypocrisy in that. Those are the facts.

    And about your complaint about accusing the religious person of preaching, without an actual recording or transcript of said conversation, how on earth are we supposed to know if you were, or the other person was just getting frustrated with you and just started being snippy?

    One contradiction that is faced by humanism is saving all these lives, even though human overpopulation is straining our natural resources...like water, and food supply. The way animals are treated.

    But what are we going to do? Watch the person die slowly of disease, shoot them and put them out of their misery, or figure out a way to expand the earth, or make another planet habitat for humans? (I guess scientists are working on that but it's going at a snail's pace)

    edit: another thing, believers can be part of a secular humanist group...like Doctor's W/O Borders is a 'secular humanist' group...that wording simply means they don't have anything to do with religion, either for or against it (like the 1st amendment means America is secular) and 'humanist' just means the person is concerned about human welfare. So a Christian joining it would be perfectly OK.

  • laslo
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    Well you are lumping people into a category and you think you know all about "humanists" but you don't. The vast majority of secular humanists bear no resemblance to the stereotypes you have listed; also, FYI, religion is tolerated in China.

  • Anonymous
    6 years ago

    Here's the thing: They speak of justice and equality yet they attack those who believe in what they do not.

    --- Attacking those who advocate injustice is not contrary to the principle of justice. Therefore, it is not hypocritical. (Indeed, one could make a case that if you advocate justice, then attacking injustice becomes an obligation.) They would be hypocrites only if they said people shouldn't pursue justice, and then they DID pursue justice themselves.

    The exact same holds true for the relation between equality and inequality.

    There's nothing about advocating "justice" and "equality" which is in conflict (i.e. hypocritical) with being zealous, or righteous, or even self-righteous. In fact, to quote Karl Hess: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

    However, where some Secular Humanists may be hypocritical is if they advocate tolerance. Because, in at least one understanding of tolerance, that principle would require you to tolerate intolerance.

    Another way a Secular Humanist may be hypocritical is if they said that religion is wrong BECAUSE it is self-righteous...and then were self-righteous about their humanism. (The difficulty here being that self-righteous is pretty subjective.)

    Source(s): Definitely not a humanist.
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  • Anonymous
    6 years ago

    They're very active too, look at all those atheist billboards.

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