Black is White, Up is Down.

One of the most amazing and frustrating things for me is the use of words as the opposite of their meaning. Now, I understand that words are simply tools, and that an arrangement of letters or sounds is not required to have a particular meaning and that the meanings of words can change over time. I'm not so much concerned with the morphing of criticism, in which the merits or faults of something are considered, into the modern criticism, which simply means being negative about something. What I am concerned with is when the meaning of a word is used to mean the exact opposite of what it had originally meant.

I have mentioned this ridiculous activity with regard to politics in which liberalism is used by some as a quasi-fascist, totalitarian movement designed to put the largest amount of power into a government that then controls every aspect of our lives. Or when conservatism is used about those who wish to entirely change the present system of government.

The example I was floored by today was the assertion that it was easy to argue that humanism is a religion.

From those dictionary definitions let us look at the first and therefore most common meaning for the two words, humanism and then religion.

1. A system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth.

1.

a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

So, we have an assertion that a system of thought that rejects religion and its use, is a religion. By logic this would mean that humanism rejects itself, and that's too clove-smoking french philosophy student even for me to take seriously.

What actually is going on is that people look at humanism and see people that look like they are behaving much as they see people in religions behaving. That is that they get together and talk about how things are, have strong opinions about things, and are rude to people with different opinions. It is perhaps illuminating to know that the person making the comment is a Quaker, and that is their opinion on what is the fundamental aspects of religion.

People talk past each other and mistake the appearance of things for what they actually are. People are so good at this that they can in all honesty claim that something is the exact opposite of what it is.