Speaking very generally (and based on slightly faded memory), one reason they liked old things in the Renaissance was because there was a point of view that the prior ~1,000 years, since the fall of Rome, was a waste intellectually, and that the way forward was to revive the Roman and Greek knowledge. I don't think the same conditions apply today, and IMHO perhaps Humanism's goals should be accomplished by other means than focusing on preserving or reviving the past.
(Disclaimer: The following mostly is based on memory; details may be off a bit. Sorry.)
Hegel said in the 19th century (paraphrased), "he would 'put on seven-league boots' in order to skip over the thousand years between the 6th and 17th centuries and, having at last arrived at René Descartes, said that now he could 'cry land like the sailor.'"[0]
Even the name of that prior, wasted period, the "Middle Ages", was given to it by people in the Enlightenment: From their point of view it was the middle between two great periods: Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, and the Enlightenment.
The Middle Ages ended, in a sense, with the reintroduction of most of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's works to Europe, where they had been lost for centuries. Aristotle was highly respected and presented a worldview that challenged Scholasticism, the philosophy of the Church. Thomas Aquinas, a name many recognize, made it a mission to reconcile Aristotle with the Church.
It's a good reminder that civilization is a fragile thing, and we are stewards of it. We don't want the next 1,000 years to be lost, too.
> one reason they liked old things in the Renaissance was because there was a point of view that the prior ~1,000 years, since the fall of Rome, was a waste intellectually, and that the way forward was to revive the Roman and Greek knowledge
Just to be clear, they were fond of old things not just merely because those were "old" and then back in fashion (like, oh those old things are hip, yay!), but because those old folks tried to reason about Nature (in the largest sense, including cosmos, mankind, metaphysics and politics) from first principles instead of sacred tomes brought upon us from heaven (and proceeding with silencing anyone who didn't agree with said tomes).
Aristotle's works were never lost to Europe, they were doing fine in Spain the entire time. This entire thing is a long propagated mythology that things were at their best when Europe dominated the Mediterranean. The Middle ages were Islamic and Chinese golden ages, and the Han dynasties equalled or surpassed anything in the Greco-Roman sphere.
I don't quite understand. The scholars of Europe did not have access to Aristotle's works. Are you saying that isn't true? Was Spain isolated from the rest of Europe during the Middle Ages?
> This entire thing is a long propagated mythology that things were at their best when Europe dominated the Mediterranean
I don't understand how saying that they lost access to their greatest scholar, Aristotle, and had to rely on people from another part of the Mediterranean to preserve and return his works to them, supports a claim that "things were at their best when Europe dominated the Mediterranean".
Also, do you have some source for what you are saying? If you look at the cite in my post, you can read much of what I said, including about Aristotle.
>I don't quite understand. The scholars of Europe did not have access to Aristotle's works. Are you saying that isn't true? Was Spain isolated from the rest of Europe during the Middle Ages?
Uh yes? Spain was part of the Umayyad Caliphate and then various other Caliphates until the Reconquista ended Islamic Spain in 1491. Islam never lost Aristotle.
Saying that Europe largely lost Aristotle isn't propagating the myth, repeating Hegel and Descartes Eurocentric views is, as is saying civilization is fragile when it survived fine.
A lot of the reason the European's liked old things is that they could then claim it was European knowledge rather than Islamic. Examples include Aquinas commissioning a translation of Aristotle from Greek sources, as the existing copies were translated from Arabic.
As for sources, yours only shows that Aquinas rationalised Aristotle and Catholicism, which is true. On what I've said, if you didn't know about Al-Andalus I don't know where to begin. Anything about the Umayyad Caliphate would be a start, or almost any modern history of the age.
I'm also completely ignoring that the "Fall of Rome" happened in 1453, largely considered the end of the Middle Ages.
The only controversial part of what I said is that they liked old things to avoid the tie to Islam. Al-Andalus was Spain, Islamic philosophy was heavily influenced by Aristotle, everyone called the Byzantine Empire Roman, and we are taught a very Eurocentric history.
Sorry to continue on, wanted to establish that these things are certain. Don't want to fall into a new blend of scholasticism.
On a similar note, if you're interested in the sort of things the Renaissance Humanists were preserving the Ritman Library[0] has quite a collection that it's in the process of making available online.
THANK YOU Humanism NEVER meant Atheist anything till just a few decades ago. Stop destroying the meaning of a word that goes back centuries just because you don't want to use the word Atheist. Thank you
I went to Graduate School for a Masters in Theological Studies. My focus is the Historical Theology (To know what people groups believed in specific times and locations). So this is a high travesty of centuries of thought both Christian and non-Christian.
Just look at the founders of Humanism, one being Martin Luther. The whole Reformation was built on Humanism. Martin Luther's whole world change from being a Priest to being the first Reformer to actually die of natural causes was that he was going to the bathroom and realized that Jesus also poops. Popular thought is he was scared by lightening, but that's weak academic research. That really is Luther's turning point, Jesus pooped. History of the Western and now the whole world has changed because of that one Humanist thought.
The whole birth of Humanism was "emphasizes the humanity of Jesus." Now we changed the term completely 180 just so people won't use the term Atheism to define themselves but they will fight to hold on to the equality of humanism and atheism.
I actually have had days of discussions with various modern Humanism thinkers and leaders. They don't deny that fact, but they also choice to defend that Humanism equals Atheism. It is like a Intellectual Hijacking of Centuries of Thought and Philosophy. It's because the preference of semantics but it is the actual opposite of the word, thought and historical meaning of that word.
You won't appease bigots by changing your terminology. "Secular humanist" has been just as much a curse as "atheist" for many years now, in some circles. There's more power in reclaiming slurs than retreating from them.
I think the association of atheism with anti-theism does a lot more harm than good, and I'm an atheist. If you take a look at reddit's atheism sub you'll see that this is an ongoing problem.
Throw agnosticism in and most people just get hopelessly confused. Atheism though is sort of ambiguous as it's sometimes used synonymously to anti-theism, of which it is a superset.
well, atheism is "I don't believe in a God". Then you get 2 strains of anti-theism on top of that: "I am against organised religion" and "I don't want anyone to be religious" (and it's related form, "I think anyone who is religious is stupid"). The problem is that people who claim to represent atheism are often of one of the latter two camps.
You're jumping from atheism to anti-theism far too quickly: atheism is the absence of belief in deities, not the belief of non-existence, which is a subset referred to as explicit atheism, from which anti-theism is rooted as an even smaller subset. This is the distinction between "I don't believe in a deity" (which includes agnosticism) and "I believe no deity exists" (which includes "I consider it true that no deity exists", referred as strong atheism). Wow, now that was some serious nitpicking on my part :)
yeah, I see your point - in my experience people who proclaim "atheism" tend to lean towards believing there is no God rather than not personally being faithful, and that the latter tends to be reserved for agnosticism. I see your point though, and I guess agnosticism does belong under atheism if treated as an umbrella term.
You just defined Agnostic vs Atheist. It's in the very word's semantics and history. I love talking about this in academic circles and I always find it frustrating if the talk is over semantics.
Occam's razor, "Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected" So if it's impossible to prove a negative let's move on to the side where you can prove. The disregard of if or if there isn't a deity as opposed to there isn't.
Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens certainly fall/fell into the "against organised religion" camp. Dawkins strays into the "no-one should be religious" camp occasionally. Publicly atheist figures like Penn Jillette and Derren Brown (don't know if he's known outside the UK?) go the skeptic route which is mostly fair but occasionally delves into the "religion is stupid" territory.
Communities around atheism (e.g. the subreddit) are usually pretty unkind towards Christians, and I've known many left-leaning atheists who have pretty unpleasant stereotypes about Christians and openly treat them with hostility or assume they're stupid.
My brother was gay, had a great partner, and died a horrible death due to AIDS back in 1994.
His partner was a wonderful man whose last six months are a mystery to us, because his parents were devout Christians who saw their wonderful son as literally being possessed by the devil, saw us as evil for not casting our family out, refused to allow us to see him, and then had all his belongings (including many cherished ones from my brother that we very much wanted back) incinerated upon his death.
We never learned what happened to his ashes, either.
So no, I am not particularly fond of any group that would condone this kind of behavior. They were able to do what they did because they had the wide support of their entire congregation.
This does not mean I'm going to be a dick to a religious person at all. They didn't do anything to me, and I judge people on their own actions. And besides, I know not all Christian denominations would be so godawful.
But a hell of a lot of them are, too, and as far as organisations go, let's just say I am not impressed. So if you ever wonder why some atheists might be a bit prickly about organized religion, think of my example. People don't get mad without pain. Unfortunately there are plenty more of these types of example to chose from.
Most times religion is a crutch to hold to "common sense" and with little regard to others or primary sources AKA scriptures.
As a intrinsically religious person I say, I am sorry and as a former Pastor that sucks.
To quote a wise saying that helps me wrestle with these stories like yours is from the very non-religious movie Armageddon, "A person may be smart, but people are stupid."
> Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens certainly fall/fell into the "against organised religion" camp.
I took your "the latter two camps" (which I what I was asking about) to be the last two you mentioned
'"I don't want anyone to be religious" (and it's related form, "I think anyone who is religious is stupid")',
not "against organised religion".
> Dawkins strays into the "no-one should be religious" camp
I dispute this. Do you have any examples?
> Communities around atheism (e.g. the subreddit) are usually pretty unkind towards Christians
Sure, but I was responding to your statement "people who claim to represent atheism". There's a big difference to people who are atheists and people who claim to represent atheism.
I technically never met one single athiest. Not in academia. Not in even Punk or Hardcore culture. They have all been agnostic.
Atheism is the total certainty and belief that their is no God.
Agnosticism is the disregard to the importance of if there is a God or not absolutely. There may be or may not be a God.
Everyone when it is said and done places themselves in Agnostic thought. You really can't prove a negative and so this is the place of philosophy and thought. Historically they were Diest like Ben Franklin.
(Disclaimer: The following mostly is based on memory; details may be off a bit. Sorry.)
Hegel said in the 19th century (paraphrased), "he would 'put on seven-league boots' in order to skip over the thousand years between the 6th and 17th centuries and, having at last arrived at René Descartes, said that now he could 'cry land like the sailor.'"[0]
Even the name of that prior, wasted period, the "Middle Ages", was given to it by people in the Enlightenment: From their point of view it was the middle between two great periods: Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, and the Enlightenment.
The Middle Ages ended, in a sense, with the reintroduction of most of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's works to Europe, where they had been lost for centuries. Aristotle was highly respected and presented a worldview that challenged Scholasticism, the philosophy of the Church. Thomas Aquinas, a name many recognize, made it a mission to reconcile Aristotle with the Church.
It's a good reminder that civilization is a fragile thing, and we are stewards of it. We don't want the next 1,000 years to be lost, too.
[0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Scholasticism