A Humanist Exploration of Suffering

I’m a humanist because, to me, the philosophy of humanism has always been about positivity of the self, of others, and of the cosmos. It is both optimistic and trusting that human existence, science and caring for others, are a means and ends in themselves that will promote kindness, healing and understanding in our current time and place.

Humanism demands we pay attention to and mitigate human and other suffering. That is, to not see suffering as ‘honorable,’ as those with faith may believe.  But humanism offers objective reason to deal with suffering, along with the emotional force of our human empathy, as well as the rational physical action of our and deeds and policies.

Case in point:

• If your religious beliefs are based on human suffering as a form of purification, then you are in a terrible and destructive cult. One that will always find you impure and dirty.
• If your theology emphatically states that you are born into sin and must be ritualistically cleansed, then you are being brainwashed into self-loathing.
• If a spiritual practice asks you to believe that human suffering is noble, or deity-like, or leads to a greater transcendence, then you are being lied to, simply because there is no god or next place, nor is there any value to live in pain or fear.

Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Jainism, Shintoism, and Buddhism each deal, in sum or in part, with human suffering as a form of righteous or virtuous pursuit. But these ideas should be shunned instead of lauded. While I am a non-believer, it would be foolish for me to avoid noting that some religious ideas and spiritual practices can lead to a just and caring life. But when they do, they are more often linked to secular humanism than any particular theological doctrine.

So, my question is: Why be dependent on religious faith at all if it requires you to irrationally accept suffering as an inevitable part of life? And why partake in some rite or ritual that only validates the hold the faith has on your imagination and action? Is it, in many cases, only to be amongst others who will publicly acknowledge your suffering as a form of holiness? We all may suffer alone in some circumstances, but when that suffering is done publicly through religious ritual, we create a community that validates despair as a form of virtue.

Surely social validation is important to our human experience, but why embrace suffering as a form of liminality when we have the values and technology, but perhaps not the emotional or political will, to avoid suffering in the first place?

A great example of this is Hitchen’s exploration of the actions of Mother Teresa, the nun who would be anointed a Saint by the Catholic Church, and who turned her ministry into a suffering and purification cult.

While most of the world saw her as helping Calcutta’s poor, a more rational review would in fact show that she was addicted to suffering. She macro-dosed on the suffering of others, not liberating anyone from their lot in life, but re-enforcing the idea that reward will come “in the next life.” She confused, and got many people to believe, that stagnancy is equal to holiness and suffering on par with nobility.

After all, and in a more general context, how can an all-knowing and all-loving divine being allow for childhood cancer? The Holocaust? Ethnic cleansings? Or a host of historical and current violent and destructive man-made and natural disasters that only multiply human suffering? Perhaps the philosopher Epicurus got it right in the third century BCE, that if God cannot stop evil and suffering then “he” is either unable, malevolent or not worthy of the title. Or just does not exist, is my conclusion.

The idea that suffering is a force for good, that accepting your lot in life will make you feel better, only deepens one’s pain and deadens one’s ability to understand and make change. It is a form of cognitive dissonance that separates us from one another, perpetuates servitude and allows others to dominate and control your future.

Perhaps too, the three-legged stool of religiosity, poverty and lack of education leads many into a two-fold system of despair, while also simultaneously blaming those less fortunate for one’s place in society.

In these cases, it’s not illogical to assume that those who hold their faith as a cornerstone of their identity will at times be the least empathetic amongst us. When you accept suffering as a form of nobility, religious ideas like welcoming the stranger, turning the other cheek, being less judgmental, loving thy neighbor and being wary of the rich and those who will manipulate you, lose all their meaning.

In the United States, this misidentification of immigrants and people on welfare as the cause of other people’s suffering is not only factually wrong but it is also deeply anti-humanistic. At least seventy-eight million Americans can’t recognize the difference between journalism and manipulation. Case in point, the same news channels that are owned and managed by oligarchs and the billionaire class are telling their viewers to blame the poorest with the least political power for your own lot in life. And when swallowed like pablum, such ignorance only deadens our human connections.

Additionally, when you have a self-dealing political class and influencers who see their personal economic fortunes invested in keeping your suffering tied to those who can be bullied, you are left with little sense of national identity nor trust of your neighbor.

Perhaps this is why humanism, at least for me, is so liberating when it comes to the idea of suffering. Humanism allows for the most open perspective regarding how we can be more humane to ourselves, each other and our planet. I’ve always said that my humanism has offered me the clarity to see beyond the noise of life. Like when at the end of the film “The Matrix,” when Neo stops bullets coming towards him in mid-air and sees all the green coding – that realization is liberating – as it is both powerful and comforting.

So, with a humanistic perspective, it’s easier to see the fallacy of suffering as not a noble pursuit as most faith traditions and philosophies would lead you to accept. These ideas and agencies have all been invented to comfort and control those in pain while maintaining the status quo as well as their institutional dominance.

Equal to is the idea that many modern politicians and oligarchal media exist only to serve their individual and corporate interests while keeping people within the bounds of their suffering. All to maintain social control over communities and society. Otherwise, why billions for the military-industrial complex and tax breaks for the wealthiest, and not enough money for food, shelter and healthcare for the poorest amongst us?

I conclude that it is within these contexts that we as humanists must lead and advocate for everyone – friend and foe alike. The only way to break these cycles of suffering is to educate, care for and show humanism as a philosophy and way of life that is the most humane and open way to promote social cohesion and justice at home and around the globe.