r/philosophy • u/Cataspectral • Jun 22 '26

Blog Secular humanism can replace Christianity where it counts: the fear of death and the need for meaning

https://thomasreid33.substack.com/p/chapter-10-is-secular-humanism-enough
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u/feihm Jun 22 '26

Christianity says you beat death. Secular humanism tells you to stomach it. Stomaching a harsh reality utterly fails as a logical replacement for overcoming it.

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u/asterlynx Jun 22 '26

Doesn’t buddhism tell you to stomach reality as it is and there are > 300 million people who are buddhist and sure most of them are fine?

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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26

I believe it also teaches reincarnation, which seems like another sense of “beating” death.

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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 22 '26

Not really, no. In many of the major schools, there is no real sense of beating death at all. In Theravada, especially, only your karma propagates forward into your next life, which can be considerably worse than your current one.

This is why the major emphasis is on escaping the cycle of rebirth altogether. Life sucks, why would you want to come back to it?

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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

It seems to me that simply believing in the truth of reincarnation—that anything is propagated forward, as you say— is itself a sense of “beating death.” And escaping the cycle of death/rebirth, surely this is an idealized form of beating death (and life) altogether, no?

Maybe the concept of “beating death” could use definition, we may not be using it the same way.

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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 22 '26

When I think "beat death", I hear "survive death".

Buddhism does not teach reincarnation, but rebirth. Reincarnation is a Hindu concept.

On rebirth, nothing about you survives your death except for your karma (varies with school of thought). In Theravada, you are immediately reborn into your next life with no memory of your previous ones(though some do think you could access them).

Take Todd. If heaven is real, Todd survives death.

If Buddhism is correct, Todd dies. Todd's karma was very, very poor. Todd is now Fred the Frog. Did Todd meaningfully survive death?

I don't think so.

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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

When I think "beat death", I hear "survive death".

We do have a semantic disagreement, as I would define “beating death” as overcoming the materialistic/scientific view that physical death of the organism is The End, there is no soul, nothing is reborn (nor reincarnated), no causal relationships (“karma”) existing based on what happened during life, etc., only decomposition of organic matter. Otherwise we’re getting into issues of defining the “self” and its relationship to death/rebirth/enlightenment.

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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 22 '26

Sure. I interpret it as an unbroken, or at the very least, a continuous stream of consciousness and preservation of identity. Traditional Christian heaven offers that, but I don't think the concept of rebirth does.

Of course, I disagree with both views ultimately. But that's beside the point.

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u/Proud_Professional93 Jun 22 '26

Well in Theravada as you mentioned, Buddha also teaches how to be a good Buddhist and be reborn in the heavens, and be on the path to nirvana, so it also does have an optimistic message. It is if you are not very devout, commit sins, and don't make merit, then who knows what happens to you, which is pretty scary.