In this interview, the President of the Humanist Association talks about the relevance of humanist criticism of religion today and his views on the priorities for working on current political and social challenges.
Ten years ago, the most successful book critical of religion in recent decades, “The God Delusion” by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, was published. The critical examination of religions is one of the traditional lines of our understanding of humanism, although it is not the most important of the many others. Nevertheless, such an anniversary provides an opportunity to discuss a number of related questions: What is the current social, cultural or political relevance of religious criticism from a humanist perspective? How topical is criticism of religion à la Dawkins’ “God Delusion”? Does secularization always lead directly to humanization?
Frieder Otto Wolf: For a reflective humanism that is aware of its own history, which is by no means free of contradictions, the critical examination of other world views – including those that are “religious” in different ways – remains a core task. For only by engaging with the questions and theories of others can we succeed in becoming clear ourselves about what we really regard as meaningful and sustainable in the orientation of our life practice. In addition, criticism of the respective established religions, which in various ways attempt to regulate people’s thinking and exclude and persecute those who think differently, is still of central importance. Here in Germany, this must of course still include criticism of the privileges enjoyed by the Christian churches, for example in the area of labor law, preferential integration by politicians and the media, and church taxes. Dawkins’ criticism of the basic idea of monotheism is, however, only of limited help here: on the one hand, he is knocking down open doors – what educated European seriously claims that there is a scientific basis for the theological concept of monotheism? On the other hand, it largely ignores the phenomenon of religions: for all their diversity – serious religious scholars now consider it impossible to formulate a general concept of religion – there is probably no religion for which the “world view” it conveys, namely as a scientifically valid description of the world in which we live, is really of central importance.
But what?
Much more important is the sensory effect that is produced by a narrative as a staging – although there is no need for a claim to truth that competes with the findings of science: it is about a “higher” or “deeper” truth and not about everyday facts. Religions are always about rituals and myths in the most diverse forms – whereby the positivist idea that myths as meaningful narratives would take care of themselves, as it were, through the findings of science has now been refuted by historical experience. And in the critique of religion, it must therefore always be a matter of making it clear that these very rites and myths are often based on an established traditional view that restricts the possibilities of a meaningful life and which must be overcome. In my opinion, modern, practical humanism is characterized by the fact that it is able to develop and offer viable and sustainable alternatives for a meaningful way of life and, for example, a culture of celebration in the discourse of humanists. I therefore think that Dawkins made more of a contribution to shaking the still rather archaic claims to validity of some religious discourses as such, which in large parts of the world – apparently also in the USA – have still not given way to modern scientific education.
What relevance does religious criticism have in this country today?
In Europe, criticism of religion in the broader sense I have outlined is also still a central task. However, it should neither remain caught up in the illusion that religion is primarily about archaic and obsolete world views that do not require any major intellectual effort to be pushed back – nor that pushing back established religions (and religion in general) is already synonymous with a humanization of thought. On the contrary, it became clear in the 20th century that a repression of the influence of established religions by no means goes hand in hand with a humanization of conditions, and that explicitly secular regimes are certainly capable of the worst crimes against humanity.
What conclusion do you think should follow from this?
Modern practical humanism has also come to terms with these historical experiences – on the one hand, by taking the preceding humane practice and humanist commitment seriously as prerequisites for its own thinking and , on the other, by taking on the task of positively articulating the principles and orientations that can form the basis of a meaningful way of life and humanist commitment. And I also think that we are right to claim that our ideological convictions are capable of serving as a common basis, as a comprehensive framework for all worldviews and religions that can claim to operate on the basis of modern democratic societies and states. This does not deprive us of the task of continuing to work critically on this articulation again and again. But it should prevent us from wanting to elaborate our humanism as an “all too complete worldview” (Brecht), which would then constitute our own traditional or associational particularity. In this sense, modern practical humanism cannot be a “denomination” – even if it is itself based on a positive ideological conviction and will always be prepared to respect all other denominations that move within the framework of humanity’s self-understanding, which it itself is working to articulate.
What important developments do you see when you look back on the past year?
I must point out in advance that last year, the complex crisis that we have been talking about since 2008 reached politics and everyday life on a massive scale – and not just in Germany. And among the many topics that would be useful to address, I would like to mention just three here: Firstly, and because this is usually forgotten, I would first like to address the impoverishment and precarization of a considerable part of the population, as I am convinced is produced by the neoliberal orientation of politics, which has not been shaken even by the crisis. In this respect, I believe it is right and difficult to doubt that the introduction of a minimum wage in Germany has been able to initiate a small trend reversal that needs to be defended and driven forward. I am aware that we, as organized humanists, have not yet developed the debate in the social and economic sphere sufficiently to become really active in this respect. Nevertheless, we are now participating in relevant alliances. Secondly, on refugee policy: the humane scandal that Europe, with German participation, reacted to the influx of refugees from areas of the world where they could no longer live – also because European and German policies had at least contributed to making the conditions unbearable through impoverishment and war – with deadly rejection in the manner of Frontex has come to an end. With Angela Merkel’s “We can do it!”, a process has been set in motion far beyond Germany to welcome refugees humanely – as is a fundamental human right. And our Berlin regional association has begun to help tackle this huge and far from completed task by taking over a refugee home. Organized humanism in Germany has thus arrived in the political present: It is taking a stand on one of the great issues of our time and at the same time providing very practical help – this is precisely how our association becomes visible as a worldview community and not just as a “social enterprise”, as has been formulated with apparently disrespectful intent. Thirdly, anyone who talks about the current situation must not remain silent about the war. Here we must note that war has come closer again. Instead of only taking place in exotic “failed states” such as Somalia, it has reached and destroyed countries bordering the Mediterranean such as Libya or large Middle Eastern states such as Syria. IS, which emerged in the Middle East, is taking its war to Europe with attacks. At the same time, Ukraine has become the scene of a war that is as much about democratic self-determination as it is about global political zones of influence.
What can we do here?
Unfortunately, our ability to insist that lasting solutions can only be peaceful solutions is extremely limited. Nevertheless, they are important – if only to give the difficult attempts to find diplomatic negotiated solutions the necessary political staying power. As humanists, we are naturally faced with the question of what we can do in all these areas and what concerns us at all. I think it must concern us because it concerns people as people and humanity as humanity. And we can always do what the Western European peace movement demanded in the 1980s – namely start with ourselves. In our practical commitment and in our criticism of a way of thinking that ignores or exacerbates these crises.
There were also political setbacks in Germany last year, for example in the context of the ban on assisted suicide passed by a majority in the Bundestag in November. Why were the humanist positions, i.e. those clearly oriented towards people’s right to self-determination, unable to prevail in this dispute?
I tend to think that our political system is reacting with a delay here: An above-average number of politicians still tend to believe that without religious foundations, social morality must crumble. This is a wrong reaction to the night of the 20th century, in which, as we know, religious and non-religious people, fanatical Catholics and Protestants as well as atheists were actively involved, but it is nevertheless widespread. The critics of the planned ban have presumably not only made the tactical mistake of not agreeing on a minimum position capable of winning a majority in good time, but they have also made the strategic mistake of not clearly distancing themselves from a heroization of suicide, as a certain philosophical tradition has propagated since Seneca at the latest and which then became part of the tradition of freethinkers. However, the individual’s right to self-determination must not be misunderstood to mean that intolerable life situations are somehow made acceptable by granting the freedom to escape them by taking one’s own life. Instead, care must be taken to ensure that such situations, in which desperate people see no other way out, are fundamentally avoided. I think this also includes the need for appropriate psychotherapeutic services. Of course, there is also an area in which people who are truly “capable of free will” come to the well-considered conclusion that it no longer makes sense for them to continue living. And in this area, we must indeed continue to fight for suicide to be possible again with the appropriate competent help. In this respect, the debate on self-determination at the end of life should not be considered over with the passing of the law.
What will be the Humanist Association’s priorities in the coming months?
In cooperation with our major regional associations and the Humanist Academy, we will work to assert our clear humanist positions in ongoing social debates on the various dimensions of the current crises. We will also work on deepening our new humanist self-image in internal discussions. Last but not least, we will also make greater efforts to be perceived and recognized as a federal association in the political spectrum of the Bundestag parties as an ideological point of contact not only from a professional point of view – for example with regard to the ethical and ideological questions that arise at the end and beginning of human life, or in terms of education policy – but also from a general political point of view with regard to the equal treatment of religious and non-religious citizens required by the Basic Law. We have certainly been able to make good progress in this area in recent years. We want to build on this.
Your predecessor Horst Groschopp, who resigned in 2010, recently published a commentary in which he claimed that the Humanist Association was on the verge of a new turning point and, referring to a Brecht play, predicted in the magazine “diesseits”, which is published by the association, that “a total turnaround” could soon be expected. What are we to make of these statements?
I find this truly tragic, but I see no factual basis for his fantasies. Horst Groschopp has rendered great services to organized humanism in Germany. And now he goes and talks about the horse. Surely he had already made a bit of a gallop with his thesis of the “third denomination”. But now he simply seems to have lost touch with real developments. Apart from the fact that he has nothing to say about what he finds problematic in terms of the development of the Humanist Association’s content, apart from vague criticisms of “practical humanism”, he has apparently completely forgotten that it is virtually constitutive of modern humanism that it cultivates a certain theory-practice relationship. And the fact that he simply subsumes the commitment in the work for the reception of refugees, in which I see an urgently needed political culmination of a truly contemporary humanism, under “social enterprise” makes me politically shocked!
What is the basis for these interpretations, which have now been put into the world by a person who left the direct work of the federal association six years ago?
I consider these to be truly arbitrary interpretations, i.e. stuff thought up in isolation and in a small chamber. The basis for this is probably primarily subjective frustration and prejudices, some of which can be traced back to cultural-scientific assumptions and others to traditional, free-thinking “fixed ideas”, such as the idea that scientific knowledge as such already provides meaningful orientation and thus enlightenment in the full sense of the word. Even if Horst Groschopp at least expands the understanding of the concept of science to include the cultural sciences, humanistic orientation does require scientific knowledge, but it goes beyond this by creating meaning in a shared discourse.
Among other things, the commentary said that the newly developed self-image was an ineffectual attempt to derive our understanding of humanism from the increasing number of non-denominational people and to relate it to practical humanism. Can you understand this massive criticism in any way?
Unfortunately, I cannot understand this at all: The increasing number of non-denominational people in Germany – not to mention the many people who think in a non-denominational way and who still formally belong to religious communities – does not help us to develop the content of our humanist positions, and practical humanism is more than just humanist practice: it articulates – if you like, in a very “theoretically sophisticated” way – what is assumed and put into practice in humanist practice. This in itself is worth the effort and produces valuable results that can then carry real weight in a dialog between religious and non-religious worldviews.
Let’s get back to the serious problems that we now face from our perspective. Among other things, of course, we have the systematic discrimination of non-religious people in Germany, which will probably continue to occupy the association as a political task for a long time to come.
When it comes to the issue of equal rights, I think we are faced with a double problem: in addition to the traditional privileging of the Christian churches – which was then extended to the Jewish communities after the Shoah and is currently to be extended to Islamic contexts following the immigration of many Muslims – there is also the idea that the night of the 20th century, i.e. the Shoah, genocides, two world wars, the atomic bomb and others, somehow had to do with turning away from religion. We should not dismiss this with a shrug of the shoulders, even if it is wrong, but rather carefully argue against the fact that, on the one hand, religion has by no means protected us from actively participating in genocide and wars of aggression and, on the other hand, critical humanism has also been the basis of resistance for many people. For this reason, a distinction must always be made between the positions of an enlightened religion, which we respect as such, and all attempts to take action against enlightenment and liberation in the name of religion. Moreover, it is no secret that religious people have played and continue to play an important role in the resistance against inhumane and anti-human developments, and we can and should ally ourselves with them here. And conversely, we should not suppress the fact that atheist-minded people have seen fit to actively support such tendencies in the past and continue to do so.
Are there any other areas that currently also have or should have high priority?
The comprehensive ecological crisis into which humanity maneuvered itself at the beginning of the Anthropocene has recently been pushed into the background by other crisis phenomena. Nevertheless, we should not forget that this is still a crisis that is progressing in the long term without any thorough solutions. After all, the Paris “climate summit” has at least created a framework for implementing an effective global policy to curb the threat of global warming in further disputes. However, this alone is certainly not enough to preserve our planet as a life-friendly place in the universe where humanity can continue to exist peacefully as a community of self-determined individuals. It should be an important task for us humanists to provide the urgently needed education – and, of course, to do our own thinking – and to raise the awareness of our fellow human beings. But discrimination against women, including sexualized violence, also remains a key issue for us as organized humanists – in our own lives and also at all levels in our activities as an association. This is also always important in the political arena – from the marches of fanatical anti-abortion activists to the right-wing populists’ renewal of the repressive image of “the German woman”. And finally, we must also bear in mind that the right-wing populist and in some cases clearly reactionary jolt in European societies as a result of escalating crises is far from over. We must continue to resolutely resist the tendencies and attempts based on this to erode our free and open society at a legal or media level, as we are currently seeing in our neighboring country Poland.
At the beginning, we talked about the relevance of religious criticism today. Can it play a role in the last two topics you mentioned, and if so, what role?
Absolutely – but not as a critique of religion in general, but as a critique of certain religious ideas and concepts: for example, in the form of the resigned devaluation of our historically given conditions as a “vale of tears”, or of our natural existence as living beings through the doctrine of “original sin”, the one-sided “sanctification” of patriarchal attitudes and structures or the trivialization or even heroization of death. And it is not just about the “big questions” that are currently coming to a head and forcing their way to the forefront of the media – it is also quite simply about questions of everyday life, such as the careful and prudent use of natural and socio-cultural resources, life in emancipated gender relations and the emancipatory treatment of “other people’s” and “one’s own” children. And here, criticism of religion in the sense just outlined is unfortunately still urgently needed.
The questions were asked by Arik Platzek.
