How religion hijacked rational humanism

Back in the 1950s in the UK we were taught that the rational ethics upon which our civilisation was built could be traced back to the philosophy of Socrates. We were encouraged to think, ask questions and reason as individuals. Later in life, discovering the teachings of the Buddha, it became clear that the ideas of the two great philosophers had much in common. Although the Buddha lived 150 years before Socrates, their teachings shared a focus on the individual person knowing himself via self-assessment and rational thinking.

Socrates was vilified because he did not display allegiance to the gods of the day. While his legacy lives on in Western civilisation, no “church” of his rational humanist philosophy was established. However, when Jesus claimed to be the son of God, the idea was hijacked to found a church and religion based on God the Creator. Christian theology was born and Western thinking became dominated by mythology rather than rationality. The loss of rationality to blind belief has produced an unreasoning society submissive to the gods of plurality and political correctness.

Much the same has occurred with Buddhist philosophy, which has degenerated into a pseudo-religion in no way resembling the original teachings and in some ways totally opposed to them.

The human race is clearly not worthy of the legacy left by these two towering thinkers so long ago.

JC Wilcox