Orson Scott Card, an Authoritarian

[matt_arnold]

The SF author Orson Scott Card posted an essay to a Mormon website about why Mormonism is incompatible with being openly homosexual.This may come as a surprise to him, but the argument on which Mr. Card bases his entire essay actually is ethical relativity. Let us take an example. Either raping a woman is wrong because of the suffering of the

Comments

[matt_arnold]

Yes, it's compatible with Humanism, but I'm careful not to create another authority out of it. You can't determine what is Secular Humanism in the same way you determine what is Christianity. With most of the religions of the world, you look up the teachings in a book that defines the official stance. The followers follow that set of teachings, so authority is invested in the original sources and goes from the top downward. Not so with individualistic movements, in which authority transmits from the bottom upward and the teachings of the past are usually considered inferior to the present and future. The "Affirmations of Humanism" or the "Humanist Manifesto" (and its revisions 2 and 3) are not scriptures to be obeyed, they are classification records of what certain individuals managed to broadly agree on. The way they are compiled is to notice that there is a large number of people who already have certain pre-existing beliefs in common, and then write it down and slap the label of "humanism" on that. Instead of serving to inform humanists what to believe, it serves only to inform non-secularists about a demographic category called "humanists." Secular Humanists will believe whatever they individually decide from their personal experience and reason, regardless of what the manifestos and affirmations say. That's why these documents have always changed with which humanists happen to be alive, and always should change, because no one looks to these documents for guidance. The text follows me and not the other way around.