What's an "Ahumanist?"

[Ken]

All I know so far is that it is a person who does not believe in (the existence) of people. I tried googling the term but didn't find a definition, outside some silly nursery rhyme on Yahoo AnswersTM.

[Meerkat]

I would suspect that it might instead be someone who does not believe in the egocentricity of this particular species as the end-all, be-all of the universe. Sign me up!

[StephanieFox]

I googled this and the very first listing was this very question on this very website. Oh, you are more powerful that you could ever imagine!


I thinks the deal is that god is an ahuminist, not people. god doesn't believe that we exist or care if we do. Oh, well. Religion did create some very fine art and music.

I belong to the dog religion, where you worship and give offerings to the dog. By dog belongs to the same religion.

[Ruv Draba]

Humanism is sometimes described as an ethical standpoint in which we have a right and obligation to discover the meaning of our own humanity - this being considered the highest form of thought we can achieve. In a more extreme form, humanists may consider human values to be the highest moral values in existence.

Ahumanism would oppose that standpoint. It might include the ideas that our humanity is imponderable, or meaningless, and perhaps inherently ignoble and amoral, or dwarfed by greater values or equally good values found outside human thought.

In this latter respect, many theistic religions may describe themselves - or else be describable - as ahumanistic, depending on the degree to which they hold that humans can be godlike.

But similarly, many secular thinkers consider humans to be far too self-absorbed - even dangerously malign to the natural order. They might hold human existence to be simply an accident in an evolutionary series of accidents. They might consider nature or evolution itself as being greater and more noble than just its human part. Those thoughts too might be considered ahumanistic.

[mscelina]

*psssssssst!*

It was still a typo. Put a space between 'a' and 'humanist'...

[Ruv Draba]

It was still a typo. Put a space between 'a' and 'humanist'...:D

Maybe, but I've also seen the term used elsewhere - e.g. to describe some of the thoughts of Heidegger, or someone's despair at human insignificance. I couldn't find an authoritarian definition, but there is usage and I think, some common intent.

[mscelina]

Trust me--in this instance it was a typo; I corrected the OP two weeks ago on it. When the term originally came up in another thread, it was a typo and was corrected after this thread was started. As far as I know, the term 'ahumanist' doesn't exist; the definitions of 'humanism' encompass enough of the negatives to render such a word useless.

[Ken]

thanks Ruv. From my limited understanding of the term I didn't realize that the practice of it could arise from other systems of belief like those you mention. Looked at from this standpoint I suppose most of us are ahumanists in some shape or form.

God being something of an ahumanist is quite possible, Stephanie, when considering all of the suffering and misery that takes place on Earth. // Your canine religion is neat. Perhaps I'll join the fold, if I can get to play fetch with yer pooch :)

Mscelina did correct the apparent typo 2 weeks ago, as she says, but I've sort of become attached to the term, now, and am unwilling to part with it, even if the word doesn't technically exist.

[veinglory]

I doubt it is a word. If it was I would interpret it to mean an indifference to the notion of humanism, not being constrained by humanist concerns.

[Smiling Ted]

The Ahumanist Credo:

Mankind? Not so much.