For me, this is nothing short of profound. Your recent illness did not impair your visionary mind. Thank you, Helen. I am sharing this with the people I love.
Goodness, you have put into words, and so clearly and beautifully written, exactly what I feel, but have never been able to articulate. You have shown why stepping away from conventional religion doesn't have to be a denial, a rejection but an affirmation of life. I, too, will share with my family. Thank you, Helen. Keep well.
This humanist “creed” is superb at any time of the year and anywhere. But it’s especially great at this festive time when many of the other (I’m now going to say) more limited creeds are ringing their bells. As a lifelong grump about Xcessive Xmas, I now have a carol worth singing. 🎵 Many thanks. I’m sharing it too. Catch phrase changed from “Bah Hum Bug” to “Aah Hug Hug”. 🤗
Dear Helen. I am overwhelmed by your thoughts Thank you for helping me appreciate humanity. You have given me much food for thought and I am still trying to digest it The piece about what makes anything valuable or precious is that it ends. For me peace of mind and deep joy are precious and yet there are days when they are not as intense but they do not end. I guess what you mean is basically our lives come to an end as do the lives of those with whom we are deeply connected so what is precious is the connection and the meaning the connections have. We humans basically need one another ❤️
This is a lovely piece of writing. It expresses my sentiments exactly. I have endured much suffering in my life. Lost two children. Beaten cancer. During these dark times, I would wonder at the magnitude of creation. The futility of our finite human existence. I realised these experiences could be turned toward good. Now, I study and teach. My mentor asks me to tell my story to prospective students. Not for pity, but for inspiration. This piece echoes my message. Material things are meaningless chattels; the relationships we hold with those we love, family or otherwise, are what really matter.
Hear, hear! The word “religion” itself comes from the latin “relegare”, to bind. I am an atheist myself but quite militantly anti-anti-religious. The two things that annoy me the most with militant atheists are that often they treat all religious people as if they were total cretins, merely proving they only understand the cretinous, and the urge many have to belittle people, which is a bit ironical for self-declared “humanists”. Obviously at some level they understand that wonder and connection are at the core of religion, and stupidly that is what they push back against. The world is obviously not going to become better if we treat people “like animals” and dismiss connection. You post Helen is a welcome pushback against that trope, and your point about how our mortality is what gives our experiences substance is profound. It also raises the question of what the afterlife is supposed to be and whether that concept actually makes sense.
Yes. Thank you. This will be read aloud at a Sunday Service of the Open Hearts and Mind Fellowship based in Austin TX, with your permission, Ms. Pluckrose. May we?
Thank you so much. I will let you know when the service will be scheduled. It’s all online and you are most welcome to join in. You are also most welcome to actually present this as a sermon for us, if you like. If so, then there would be payment of $300 for being a guest speaker.
A benevolent vision. But, I think there is an additional, scientific fault in how many atheists conceive of the cosmos as "random" and life as a mere footnote on it. I should say at the outfront that this is based on current research (e.g., see the work of Jeremy England) and all very speculative at this point. But I think there is a big opportunity for new insights about the connection between thermodynamics and biology that will make life look much less random.
I don't mean less random in the sense that it will reveal some creator-deity behind the physical world, but in the sense that the laws of physics as we know them today create an inherent tendency for life to emerge from inorganic materials, spontaneously. It's plausible that Darwin's theory is part of a larger, bio-thermodynamic framework that will explain how this worked--and why, just like for the evolutionary path from one existing species to another--this process was very non-random. In the same way it's non-random that all the air in your room doesn't spontaneously condense into a puddle on the floor and suffocate you.
To speculate even further, I can imagine that a bio-thermodynamic theory like this, informed by modern genetics, might be able to better categorize and rank different life-strategies, from amoebas up through consciousness and intelligence. Different strategies will have different inherent potentials for expansion over the planet (and beyond). The idea of life, and especially intelligent life, as just a blip on our cosmic radar may be less an eternal truth than just an accident about when *we* happen to exist in cosmic history. Perhaps that--and not the supposed triviality of life in the cosmos--is the accident that our next Copernican revolution will bring into focus.
There are real reasons to think that physics has destined intelligence to emerge and to grow in magnificent, currently unfathomable ways.
I haven’t met any atheists who believe life is random or assume this about the cosmos. Creationists frequently claim that evolution is a belief in randomness but this is obviously the opposite of true and this is pointed out to them repeatedly. Eyes seem to have evolved many times independently because they are so useful.
Right, I think the generic atheist is happy to acknowledge that for Darwinian evolution. But the view that the initial creation of life itself from chemicals was essentially an accident is common. As with the view that we're just a speck of dust in the cosmos and will likely remain that way. Both of those are based bad assumptions.
I'm not sure what that means? I do assume that we are largely irrelevant to the universe and that it is not conscious of us and that we are not watched over by a loving personal god who seems very much like a human. And that if there is a higher power, it's unlikely to be much like us or invested in us. And that we are consequently mostly only important to each other. I don't claim to know how life emerged but just assume that its a thing that could emerge or inevitably will emerge given the conditions rather than an accident.
As far a we can tell, intelligent life currently controls an infinitesimal fraction of all stuff (say by mass) in the observable universe. A lot of people assume it's always going to be that way. I think people understate the odds that this fraction will grow by vast orders of magnitude, creating a universe teaming with intelligence in the far future. It's a legitimately plausible scenario, and I find that inspiring, along with the points you make in the essay (also inspiring).
Ah, OK! I followed that. I certainly think that's conceivable but have no idea of its probability. Seems very likely intelligent life exists elsewhere, but that might just be my bias because it exists here. I don't actually know how likely that is or whether it is knowable at this point. I enjoy imagining that another species of human exists somewhere on this planet in some little-explored forest and what they might be like and how their brains might differ from ours. I read quite a lot of palaeoanthropology and could see how this interest could also be applied to entirely different forms of intelligent life although that also feels alien and different. My friend is profoundly uninterested in looking backwards in the way I do and instead looks forward to transhumanism and what could be in the way of intelligence and I think some of the things he says overlaps with what you are pointing at here.
I don't know if it is true that most people assume intelligent life is restricted to us now. A lot of people seem to worry much more than I do that there could be intelligent life out there that is alien to us and that we could develop and expand intelligence in ways that essentially eradicates humanity. I am mostly not particularly interested in this. If things along these lines are discovered or created, I will read about it with interest, but I suppose, I am a historian at heart and more interested in where we came from and what we have been.
For me, this is nothing short of profound. Your recent illness did not impair your visionary mind. Thank you, Helen. I am sharing this with the people I love.
Thank you Helen. I want to read and re read. You’ve articulated so much of what I grapple with. Many blessings to you and yours x
Lovely post Helen, thank you.
Goodness, you have put into words, and so clearly and beautifully written, exactly what I feel, but have never been able to articulate. You have shown why stepping away from conventional religion doesn't have to be a denial, a rejection but an affirmation of life. I, too, will share with my family. Thank you, Helen. Keep well.
This humanist “creed” is superb at any time of the year and anywhere. But it’s especially great at this festive time when many of the other (I’m now going to say) more limited creeds are ringing their bells. As a lifelong grump about Xcessive Xmas, I now have a carol worth singing. 🎵 Many thanks. I’m sharing it too. Catch phrase changed from “Bah Hum Bug” to “Aah Hug Hug”. 🤗
I'd like to share a song I found that expresses a similar sentiment.
https://youtu.be/dzNvk80XY9s
What a beautiful essay. Happy … whatever.
Dear Helen. I am overwhelmed by your thoughts Thank you for helping me appreciate humanity. You have given me much food for thought and I am still trying to digest it The piece about what makes anything valuable or precious is that it ends. For me peace of mind and deep joy are precious and yet there are days when they are not as intense but they do not end. I guess what you mean is basically our lives come to an end as do the lives of those with whom we are deeply connected so what is precious is the connection and the meaning the connections have. We humans basically need one another ❤️
This is a lovely piece of writing. It expresses my sentiments exactly. I have endured much suffering in my life. Lost two children. Beaten cancer. During these dark times, I would wonder at the magnitude of creation. The futility of our finite human existence. I realised these experiences could be turned toward good. Now, I study and teach. My mentor asks me to tell my story to prospective students. Not for pity, but for inspiration. This piece echoes my message. Material things are meaningless chattels; the relationships we hold with those we love, family or otherwise, are what really matter.
Hear, hear! The word “religion” itself comes from the latin “relegare”, to bind. I am an atheist myself but quite militantly anti-anti-religious. The two things that annoy me the most with militant atheists are that often they treat all religious people as if they were total cretins, merely proving they only understand the cretinous, and the urge many have to belittle people, which is a bit ironical for self-declared “humanists”. Obviously at some level they understand that wonder and connection are at the core of religion, and stupidly that is what they push back against. The world is obviously not going to become better if we treat people “like animals” and dismiss connection. You post Helen is a welcome pushback against that trope, and your point about how our mortality is what gives our experiences substance is profound. It also raises the question of what the afterlife is supposed to be and whether that concept actually makes sense.
This is magnificent and true.
Yes. Thank you. This will be read aloud at a Sunday Service of the Open Hearts and Mind Fellowship based in Austin TX, with your permission, Ms. Pluckrose. May we?
Ooh! I would be honoured!
Thank you so much. I will let you know when the service will be scheduled. It’s all online and you are most welcome to join in. You are also most welcome to actually present this as a sermon for us, if you like. If so, then there would be payment of $300 for being a guest speaker.
I’m always happy to speak to likeminded people. I am currently unwell but hope to be back in full action in a couple of weeks
A benevolent vision. But, I think there is an additional, scientific fault in how many atheists conceive of the cosmos as "random" and life as a mere footnote on it. I should say at the outfront that this is based on current research (e.g., see the work of Jeremy England) and all very speculative at this point. But I think there is a big opportunity for new insights about the connection between thermodynamics and biology that will make life look much less random.
I don't mean less random in the sense that it will reveal some creator-deity behind the physical world, but in the sense that the laws of physics as we know them today create an inherent tendency for life to emerge from inorganic materials, spontaneously. It's plausible that Darwin's theory is part of a larger, bio-thermodynamic framework that will explain how this worked--and why, just like for the evolutionary path from one existing species to another--this process was very non-random. In the same way it's non-random that all the air in your room doesn't spontaneously condense into a puddle on the floor and suffocate you.
To speculate even further, I can imagine that a bio-thermodynamic theory like this, informed by modern genetics, might be able to better categorize and rank different life-strategies, from amoebas up through consciousness and intelligence. Different strategies will have different inherent potentials for expansion over the planet (and beyond). The idea of life, and especially intelligent life, as just a blip on our cosmic radar may be less an eternal truth than just an accident about when *we* happen to exist in cosmic history. Perhaps that--and not the supposed triviality of life in the cosmos--is the accident that our next Copernican revolution will bring into focus.
There are real reasons to think that physics has destined intelligence to emerge and to grow in magnificent, currently unfathomable ways.
I haven’t met any atheists who believe life is random or assume this about the cosmos. Creationists frequently claim that evolution is a belief in randomness but this is obviously the opposite of true and this is pointed out to them repeatedly. Eyes seem to have evolved many times independently because they are so useful.
Right, I think the generic atheist is happy to acknowledge that for Darwinian evolution. But the view that the initial creation of life itself from chemicals was essentially an accident is common. As with the view that we're just a speck of dust in the cosmos and will likely remain that way. Both of those are based bad assumptions.
I'm not sure what that means? I do assume that we are largely irrelevant to the universe and that it is not conscious of us and that we are not watched over by a loving personal god who seems very much like a human. And that if there is a higher power, it's unlikely to be much like us or invested in us. And that we are consequently mostly only important to each other. I don't claim to know how life emerged but just assume that its a thing that could emerge or inevitably will emerge given the conditions rather than an accident.
As far a we can tell, intelligent life currently controls an infinitesimal fraction of all stuff (say by mass) in the observable universe. A lot of people assume it's always going to be that way. I think people understate the odds that this fraction will grow by vast orders of magnitude, creating a universe teaming with intelligence in the far future. It's a legitimately plausible scenario, and I find that inspiring, along with the points you make in the essay (also inspiring).
Ah, OK! I followed that. I certainly think that's conceivable but have no idea of its probability. Seems very likely intelligent life exists elsewhere, but that might just be my bias because it exists here. I don't actually know how likely that is or whether it is knowable at this point. I enjoy imagining that another species of human exists somewhere on this planet in some little-explored forest and what they might be like and how their brains might differ from ours. I read quite a lot of palaeoanthropology and could see how this interest could also be applied to entirely different forms of intelligent life although that also feels alien and different. My friend is profoundly uninterested in looking backwards in the way I do and instead looks forward to transhumanism and what could be in the way of intelligence and I think some of the things he says overlaps with what you are pointing at here.
I don't know if it is true that most people assume intelligent life is restricted to us now. A lot of people seem to worry much more than I do that there could be intelligent life out there that is alien to us and that we could develop and expand intelligence in ways that essentially eradicates humanity. I am mostly not particularly interested in this. If things along these lines are discovered or created, I will read about it with interest, but I suppose, I am a historian at heart and more interested in where we came from and what we have been.