Humanism v. Monotheism in the Context of Individual Rights

Defining Terms and Values

hu·man·ism noun

an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

The Humanist values what it can see, think and feel. They value the cognitive capacity of human beings to rationally consider all sides of an issue without the aid of religion or what I call “magical thinking.”

mon·o·the·ism noun

the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

The monotheist, and for most Americans this translates Christian, values only what is taught in Holy Scriptures as “the law” or “the word of God.” It sees the world in terms of black-and-white, us-and-them, right-and-wrong, saved-unsaved, heaven-or-hell, righteous-sinner… There is no gray area where life is actually lived. It is filled with “magical thinking.” The fact that you have to conjure up some image of what this deity looks like—in most opinions, male—acts like or thinks like is where imagination comes in, thus “magical thinking.”

Let’s apply these terms and values to the debate on abortion and individual rights.

Liberal-minded Christian with Humanistic Leanings

As a liberal-minded Christian, with Humanist leanings, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro choice” stance is human dignity, liberty and Constitutionally-protected rights. It is not about the life and death struggle, the tug of war between mom and baby. It’s about the inalienable rights of the woman who has already survived the gestation period and several years on planet Earth. How do the rights of an embryonic life form, with nothing more recognizable than a heartbeat, trump the rights of a living, breathing human being? Have you seen what the fetus looks like when there’s a detectable heartbeat? It resembles a blood-red jelly bean.

Conservative-minded Christian View

As a conservative-leaning monotheist, which I once was, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro life” stance is the belief that life is God-ordained and begins at the moment of conception. It’s not even a question about women’s rights or even the health and well-being of the mother. It’s merely the fact that a life has been conceived in a woman’s womb, that sacred space where they believe God miraculously breathes life into the cells of this fertilized egg, a zygote.

I’ve batted for both teams, so to speak. I don’t speak from a limited understanding of the issue, of what’s at stake. I see both sides of the coin. But it does, indeed, boil down to a matter of individual rights, and whether you default immediately to the fetus/baby’s side or to the woman/mother’s, you have to choose who’s rights are more at stake here.

The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken, nearly 50 years ago. But it wasn’t so many years before that, women were fighting for equal rights, and black women for equal rights was only a decade older than Roe v. Wade! 

So let us look at equal rights, shall we?

EQUALITY

The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” which, at face value, seems to be like a wholly monotheistic ideal. But is it really?

At the time this declaration was penned in 1776, chattel slavery was a widely-accepted practice in the American colonies. Brought to the colonies by the Dutch in the early 1600’s, one could argue that the very republic was built on the backs of non-white slaves. That fact alone stands in complete contradiction to the opening assertion of the Declaration. Were not the slaves endowed by their Creator?

Slavery was an institution supported by the Church and justified by Scripture. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is this concept of equality for all found, certainly not equality for slaves or women. Off the top of my head, the Book of Hebrews is the only place I can recall where equality is preached at all! And there, it is equating the Christian to the Jew as “God’s chosen,” “his children,” “joint heirs” in the promise of Abraham. I would argue that even that Scripture is only saying the Christian male and Jewish male adherents are equal in God’s eyes.

Even the Creation Story itself doesn’t promote the myth of equality. God created Adam from the dust of the Earth. Eve was created out of Adam. From Genesis forward, I don’t see a single shred of evidence where women share an equal footing with men. That patriarchal system, established in “the beginning,” was by God’s design. It influenced the very men who wrote the sacred texts, the bishops who canonized The Bible and the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Even the founding fathers of our nation didn’t all share the same views on monotheism v. humanism. This concept of equality that they immortalized in the Declaration was a myth. It wasn’t supported by Scripture, even though it has very religious overtones, and it wasn’t even practiced in the colonies by the men who wrote it. They believed women inferior, slaves inferior (lower than livestock) and any non-white inferior to them. So what was this equality they spoke of? An ideal? An unrealized goal?

I would say, yes.

Women, slaves and non-whites had to struggle for equality and most didn’t achieve it until the last half of the 20^th Century. It wasn’t achieved in 1776 with the Declaration, nor in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation, nor even in 1920 with the success of the suffrage movement and adoption of the 19^th Amendment. The dream of equality, heretofore just a myth, is just now being realized in the 21^st Century, and not just for women but for “all Men,” gay, straight or otherwise.

Is this a God-given right or a human right? I’d argue the latter.

Left to well-meaning monotheists, this right would never have been endowed upon anyone but the white men who codified the rules, enforced them, preached them and interpreted them. We’ve only seen cracks form in the patriarchal system of control handed down to us from Abraham, and later Moses from Mt. Sinai.

Humanists would argue that we haven’t gone far enough. Their view is that monotheism and patriarchy have done enough damage, run their course. Let the idea of inherent human dignity be the sole driving force behind equal treatment under the law—no God required.

That’s at the heart of the abortion debate—human rights.

I don’t feel that the woman’s right to chose what to do with her pregnancy is anybody else’s business. Like “all Men,” she has bodily autonomy and unless that fetus is grown in a test tube, it certainly depends on the “host,” as some have labeled pregnant women. They are not merely hosts. They are living, breathing life-support systems. They can determine for themselves if a pregnancy is wanted or unwanted. They can make this medical decision for their own bodies and fetuses, just as any human being has a right to bodily autonomy.

Granting women this right, which took from 1776 – 1973 (grasp that span of time for a moment), is a logical step towards this ideal which our forefathers set out in the Declaration. That is nearly 200 years to realize this dream of equality for a woman to be given equal treatment under the law. Are we now to repeal what took 197 years to establish?

Patriarchy, bred of monotheistic ideals, would certainly answer that question with a resounding YES! The establishment would have us believe that the Supreme Court made a mistake. The most outspoken of those on the far right would make a case for a theocracy—a system of shariah-like law practiced in other monotheistic states.

The humanist in me must reject such magical thinking. God did not descend with his scepter in hand and “bippity, boppity, boop!” life was created miraculously in a woman’s womb. It took a man and a woman, and not necessarily in an act of loving, consent. Still, biologically-speaking, two humans of opposite sex had to join forces to conceive. Life, for a humanist, is not a God-ordained miracle. It is biology. Period.

In that sense, the human beings involved in “pro-creation” are ultimately involved in bringing this life to fruition or choosing to end the gestation period. Even in that case, the male co-conspirator doesn’t have more say over the gestating than the women who bears the sole responsibility. Her body equals her choice.

Their religious-sounding, monotheistic rhetoric aside, the 56 men who declared this myth of equality, even while holding women and slaves in submission, couldn’t foresee a time when abortion would strike at the heart of this myth. But now that the myth, the ideal, has been realized it can’t be stuffed back into it’s 1776 packaging. We won’t return to an 18^th, or even a 20^th, Century mentality, no matter how hard the right pushes us in that direction.

Precedent Setters, the Church v the Court

As I blogged last week about Roe v. Wade, the precedent-setting Supreme Court case from 1973, I believed my case for upholding this nearly 50-year-old ruling was airtight. Well, arguing the points on Facebook did little good to convince anyone. The anti-abortionists on the right cling to their argument equating the medical procedure--for whatever reason--as murder. This is the reason states who are now trying to outlaw abortions are not even allowing exceptions for cases of rape, incest and mother's health. Regardless of what stats, logic or legal precedent you throw at them, it always comes back to "life begins at conception."

The basis for Western morality are the Judeo-Christian Scriptures (Torah/Bible) which were written by Middle Eastern Jews and canonized by European Bishops (the Bible anyway) centuries ago. Wikipedia says, "Which books constituted the Christian biblical canons  of both the Old and New Testament was generally established  by the 5th century, despite some scholarly disagreements, for the ancient undivided Church." To be clear, that was 16 centuries ago or SIXTEEN HUNDRED YEARS! There has been a lot of evolution, science, social change and reinterpretation of the text in that vast expanse of time. Laws that govern current Western culture, still largely based on the moral code of these ancient texts, is revisited and reinterpreted all the time. But let's be, again, very clear that we are talking about a law book canonized 1,600 years ago.

Anti-abortionists want everyone else to buy their theory that this ancient law book trumps all other laws and sets precedent for all time over our current system of governance. That is simply insane!

The precedent for current-day America was set by American judges in the last half of the 20th Century. It was nearly 50 years ago, in my lifetime, that the debate was settled and precedent set--for current day, not 5th Century Europe and certainly not 400 BC Judea! The social norms and mores of those times are mostly irrelevant to the world we inhabit, halfway around the globe, 16 - 26 centuries removed.

That law book, which is a religious artifact, does not set precedent. Our democratic republic is quite simply NOT a theocracy. The separations put in place to protect government from becoming such, are spelled out just as clearly in our Constitution as the right to privacy. The 14th Amendment that protects that right, and served as the basis for Roe v. Wade, was instituted in 1868. So the anti-abortionists, want to erode the protections our forefathers laid out over 150 years ago and wipe away the precedent set by a nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling. Why? So we can return to the barbarism of animal sacrifice and demanding virginal blood be apparent on the marital bedsheets?

They don't merely want to roll back the 1973 protections. They want to return America to the pseudo-safety of the 1950's, of shaming women into having babies that were the products of non-consentual sex, of women remaining silent and knowing their place, of back alley abortions and non-sterilized coat hangers, of putting woman at risk and removing their liberties as equal citizens! It is asinine and insane!

We can't let them lord the control of 5th Century Bishops over our country, our mothers, sisters and daughters any longer! The Supreme Court has spoken, our American forefathers have spoken and the precedent has been set for nearly 50 years. Your ancient religious text doesn't trump that. It's precedence was outdated by the time the Bible was canonized. It's relevance for modern Western culture lacks any real viability--as most of it's taboos on sexuality and women's rights have been long shattered. There will be no dragging back of my America to the dark ages! Not for my generation, not for my daughters', or their daughters' either. Period, end of story.