Bo Bennett on Faith & Doubt

HOST: Welcome to Faith & Doubt. I'm Rev. Sarah Kim, and today we're exploring whether a life without God can be sacred. My guest is philosopher and social psychologist, Bo Bennett, author of *Positive Humanism*. Bo, thank you for being here. You've been careful to distinguish Positive Humanism from what some people call 'angry atheism.' For listeners who come from faith traditions, what does that distinction look like in practice for you? GUEST: Well, it depends what people think about atheism, because atheism is seen by many as, like I'm like you mentioned, angry, where people have felt that they've been deceived their entire lives. They eventually have been exposed to the truth, and now they're angry. They're angry at their parents for bringing them up with this belief. They're angry at their church, their pastors, the people in their lives who have been um kind of playing this game of of these gods and ghosts and demons and devils and so forth. And that that tends to make people angry when they first uh abandon religious belief and abandon faith and and become an atheist. Uh so that's what I mean by angry atheism, whereas positive humanism takes a different approach. Yes, it's a secular philosophy uh that does not need any kind of superstitious beliefs. Um but it unlike atheism, it focuses on just the positive aspects. It doesn't take down any kind of religious beliefs. It doesn't criticize religion um in any way. It just focuses on the positive aspects of uh humanism. And it leaves the the rest to those who want to be aggressive and debate the topic. HOST: So you're focusing on what positive humanism offers in place of religious beliefs, rather than trying to dismantle them. Yet, religion does have this long history of providing community, rituals, ways to face grief. Are there things that organized religion does for flourishing that humanism hasn't figured out how to replicate yet? GUEST: If there was anything that religion offers that humanism doesn't, it's the sense of community. I mean, there are small humanist groups and there are humanist churches or or, I wouldn't call them churches, but maybe gatherings. But they're very few and far in between. Where religion plays an important part, and I I say this as a social psychologist, is within the social cohesion and the bonds that are formed in a church community, where people get together religiously, uh, pun intended, like once a week, and there's some socializing and events afterwards, and there are groups that, um, events that the church puts on, and so there's this sense of community and support. Um, because humanism is more individualistic, it lacks that kind of social cohesion. Uh, but there are also many people who, who have their own social lives and social networks outside of any kind of religious community, and don't need that. So, that's the part that it could be lacking, but only if you lack it already. HOST: That's interesting. You place that lack of community in contrast with humanism being more individualistic, but kind of suggesting that's intentional. Your work also emphasizes 'prosocial acts and distributed kindness.' That language is philosophically very close to what many traditions call neighbor-love. Do you find that you and religious practitioners are often describing the same thing from different directions, or is there something genuinely distinct about the humanist account? GUEST: Well, it it is very often there's a lot of overlap. Um, however, there's some major differences like, uh, you you might find from a religious person that if they say, well, why bother being good if there's no God? Uh, this is kind of a common argument and they say, well, if there's no God, you could do anything you want. You could go around, um, hurting people and abusing people and stealing and robbing, uh, and nobody's going to, you're you're not going to be held ultimately accountable for that. Um, and I guess there's some truth to that because as a humanist, we don't believe in the supernatural or any kind of, uh, afterlife that is known. So, we don't think there's going to be judgment in that sense. So, so yes in that sense, but um, in the sense that we are good for goodness sake. That's the only reason for the sense of being good. Uh, I I could speak as a psychologist and and talk about the evolutionary history of of why people tend to be good because it's it's better for, uh, communities and it's it's better for, for personal growth, um, if you, you play within the rules. So, it's not just about being good, uh, to please somebody, but it's about being good so you could prosper in society, and as society grows, then, then you grow along with it. It's a sense of cooperation that works extremely well. And also, there's a biological, um, empathy element to this as well. There are many people that are very high on the empathy scale. And they couldn't hurt somebody if they wanted to. I mean, it's just against their nature literally to do something like that. Uh, whereas there's always going to be a small segment of the population who lack the empathy, and they may be considered sociopaths or psychopaths. And they don't mind hurting people or stealing or cheating or robbing. Um, and maybe for some of those people, they're, uh, they're kept in line by some religious beliefs, but, but that's a really small segment of the population. HOST: So you see human goodness as rooted in our biology and social cooperation, rather than divine command or cosmic judgment. At the same time, you mentioned that some people need religious beliefs to be good. Your motto is about keeping people rational for a lifetime. I'm curious about the edges… have you ever encountered a human experience – grief, moral horror, moments of grace where the rational framework felt genuinely insufficient? Not wrong, just… not enough? GUEST: No. Um no in the sense of I never felt like, ooh, there's something missing and the supernatural would fill that void. Uh that's a major logical fallacy. It's called the God of the Gaps. And it tends to be just kind of lazy thinking. So, for example, if you feel something that you can't fully explain, then you say, okay, it's it's God. Uh or God did it or whatever. Um it it you're filling a gap with the unknown just because you don't know it. The logical and the correct thing to do is say something like, I can't fully explain this. And that's okay. There's tons of things about the universe that we can't fully explain and about life in general. And as a humanist, we have to be okay with that. Uh it it's better from our perspective just to admit that you don't know rather than make something up or or just kind of uh go to a story that you were told and and take the elements from that story to try to explain it. I mean, that's what humans do since the beginning of time, since the beginning of of um talking and communication. We make up stories to explain things we don't understand. And you could look back in history and and see the stories of the gods that have existed uh throughout the ages, all the different thousands of different gods and and they were created to explain things and to make humans feel better. And at some point, you have to say, okay, enough of this. The truth is, we don't know and I'm okay with that. HOST: So for you, accepting uncertainty is a point of intellectual discipline, resisting the urge to plug mystery with a story. You've built a whole philosophy that says human beings can coexist with that lack of knowing and flourish fully. Before we go – for listeners who want to follow up on what we covered, where can they find you and the work you're doing? GUEST: Find more about me at my website, bo bennett.com, and that's where all my books are. Uh you could also go to uh archieboy.com, and that's my business website with all the different websites that I run. HOST: Thanks so much for coming on, Bo – the bit about goodness being a biological imperative is going to stick with me. If you're enjoying Faith & Doubt, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts – Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or whatever app you use – so the next episode lands in your feed automatically. And thank YOU for spending part of your day with us. It means a lot. Until next week – AIHosts.fm signing off.