An old argument came up the other day with another Humanist. It was related to some of my earlier posts here. It was the debate between religious and secular humanists. The debate was about Humanism and religion.

I’m not religious. I have no use for religion of any form, but I don’t have anything against religious people or religious humanists - unless they disparage atheists.

It got me thinking. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe there is something religious about Humanism that I hadn’t considered before, so I decided to review my thoughts on the issue and what has been told to me by people I have debated.

I am familiar with “religion” in a humanist sense. Religious Humanists participate in the functional aspects of religion while not using the supernatural aspects - like the Bible and God. As Fred Edwords, current director of communications for the American Humanist Association, put it:

The definition of religion used by Religious Humanists is a functional one. Religion is that which serves the personal and social needs of a group of people sharing the same philosophical world view.

To serve personal needs, Religious Humanism offers a basis for moral values, an inspiring set of ideals, methods for dealing with life’s harsher realities, a rationale for living life joyously, and an overall sense of purpose.

To serve social needs, Humanist religious communities (such as Ethical Culture societies and many Unitarian-Universalist churches) offer a sense of belonging, an institutional setting for the moral education of children, special holidays shared with like-minded people, a unique ceremonial life, the performance of ideologically consistent rites of passage (weddings, child welcomings, coming-of-age celebrations, funerals, and so forth), an opportunity for affirmation of one’s philosophy of life, and a historical context for one’s ideas.

What Is Humanism?

It doesn’t seem to be much different than a mainstream theistic church and most religious humanists attend a church although usually it is Unitarian - which is considered non-theistic.

Sometimes they include traditional religious symbolism or dialog in their services like singing hymns, readings, sermons and the like. When I point out how close that is to traditional theistic churches I’m told that some people find comfort in the words or actions and some even think it is a form of art or poetry.

There are some Humanists who say they are spiritual and believe everyone needs to be spiritual to be a whole person. The word “spirit” sets off alarm bells in my head.

Spirituality exists wherever we struggle with the issue of how our lives fit into the greater cosmic scheme of things. This is true even when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is “spiritual” when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life.

Spiritual, But Not Religious

The most popular church for Religious Humanists is Unitarian Universalism (UU). They have sayings like “all stories are sacred” and some even have Spiritual Directors.

To be spiritual, at its root meaning, is to be vital — to possess and express life. The origins of the word, spirit, are intimately connected to breath, wind, energy, creativity and movement. In that regard, we can call spirituality a non-mechanical and unconfined energy; a freely expressive, compassionate way of living; an active orientation toward the deep self and the gracious affirmation of the connections to the deepest parts of all humanity and the all of Creation.

Spirituality, then is the motive power behind and within our lives that moves us toward a deeper consideration for who and what we are, and toward an affirmation of our place in the Cosmos. World spirituality teaches that our rightful place is not in differences and contradictions based in ego or culture. Our place side by side equal with all other humans, as a caretaker and preserver of eco-justice, personal dignity, freedom, and acting as if we committed to a Universalist point of view: we are all saved- or nothing will be saved; all life is holy or sacred; or none is; that all life is sacramental- worthy of our compassion, and care.

A Metaphysical Musing: What Is Spirituality?

Basically I get the sense that Religious Humanists use religious words and rituals and claim to be spiritual in order to make themselves feel good or to deal with life. I could be spiritual if “spirituality” is simply a positive emotional reaction to the universe - but it can’t be divorced from the common usage to mean something supernatural.

As I said before I’m not religious. I have no need for it. I don’t need to know why am I here and I don’t need a sense of purpose. I don’t feel the need or want to know if there is “something” out there beyond myself. I’m a just a bag of goo moving from one day to the next in the best way I think I can. I am here now and it’s far more important to live a meaningful life in the present and that meaning comes from within me.

I enjoy people and especially people who share my philosophy and when I go to meetings of my local Humanist group I wish we could be together all the time, but I don’t need them to feel good. I find the good in the things I do, things I think about, the causes I support, and my family. I don’t need a sermon to remind me of that or to teach me that.

The issue with “religious” in Humanism are the words. Religious words are used and given special definitions that try to remove their theistic history and usage.

This is not meant as a crack on Religious Humanism or UUs, but in the Theocentric world in which we live, those words can cause confusion unless you explain the context as I have done above. I see no difference in reading some UU religious materials and reading similar materials of a Methodist or other mainstream Christian sect. It can be seen to be dishonest or at least an effort to “blend in” - or to hide - by using those specific religious words. One can’t just co-opt a word and define it differently. Just ask the creators of the label “Brights” as an alternative to atheist or freethinker.

Austin Cline had some excellent notes about this kind of issue in a recent entry of his blog. The article was titled “Are Atheist Necessarily Spiritual or Religious? Try Neither…”. As he put it:

Using idiosyncratic definitions to re-categorize all of humanity according to one’s own personal ideology is a popular tactic, though. Rather than going through the work of defining what one believes and making a positive case for it in order to convince others to agree, it’s easier to just redefine everyone and declare victory — but only after attacking everyone else for being too blind and biased to immediately accept their new categorization.

Are Atheist Necessarily Spiritual or Religious? Try Neither…

A perfect example is some of the complaints that came out about Richard Dawkins book “The God Delusion”. These complaints came from Religious Humanists who were upset about supposed intolerance of the “New” atheists - which was their definition of uppity atheists.

Another similar complaint, and that sparked the creation of this essay, came from someone who doesn’t seem to be a Humanist but uses their special definition of “religion” and accused Dawkins of painting with too wide of brush in his book.

For reasons I’ve ranted about in the past I am as offended as Stanley Fish by the Dawkin-Hitchens school of broad-gauge shotgun, “demonize ‘em all” criticism of religion.

…Dawkins’s arguments are based on a grotesque misunderstanding of what “faith” and “belief” are in a religious context. This is something I touched on indirectly in the Wisdom of Doubt series, but I have found a couple of essays recently that speak to this directly. See John Cromwell, “The Importance of Doubt” (perhaps he read the series) and Madeleine Bunting, “The smallest signs of retreat.”

Believe me, Dawkins’s approach isn’t helping anyone’s cause. What he says is gratifying to many, I’m certain, but he’s not winning any converts.

Religion and Liberalism

But it seems the author of those remarks didn’t read the book because Dawkins is quite clear what he means by religion:

“Much unfortunate confusion is caused by failure to distinguish what can be called Einsteinian religion from supernatural religion.” (p. 13)

“My title, The God Delusion, does not refer to the God of Einstein and the other enlightened scientists of the previous section. That is why I needed to get Einsteinian religion out of the way to begin with: it has a proven capacity to confuse.” (p. 20)

The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins isn’t attacking “religion” as described by Religious Humanists or even the author of the comments I quoted above.

I want my philosophy to be judged on its own merits and the only way, I think, we can have an honest discussion or review of it is to use words as they are used generally. If we are going to compare apples to apples, it doesn’t help if one person uses apples as a metaphor for the trouble people have in life. Special definitions almost never work for understanding and can cause people to seem foolish.

I would like to leave the religious talk to the believers. It would cause much less confusion and misunderstanding and might actually show Humanism as the alternative to religion we say it is.

Humanist Network News published my letter to the editor based on reaction to the essay published last week titled “Humanists and the Trap of Atheism”

Here is my letter. Which is the text of my post on this issue.

At the end of the letters responding to that essay was this editor’s note:

Editor’s Note: Acclaimed skeptic Michael Shermer tackled the topic of “aggressive atheism” in “An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens” just published in the September edition of Scientific American.

Setting aside the unnecessary fighting word “aggressive atheism” the editor used lets look at what Shermer says:

Unlike Narain’s essay Shermer at least tries to express something positive and makes a few points that could apply to anyone. He just doesn’t say “atheism bad humanism good”.

Although I will point out I disagree with his first point as it applies it to atheism.

1. Anti-something movements by themselves will fail. Atheists cannot simply define themselves by what they do not believe. As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises warned his anti-Communist colleagues in the 1950s: “An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.”

Rational Atheism: An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens

Atheism isn’t “anti” anything and giving rational reasoned arguments opposed to some conventional thinking - like theism or religious belief - is not being “anti” anything either. Just because I can express some arguments against a flat earth doesn’t make me “anti-flat earth”. If it did then that would give validity to a wrong view of the earth that it didn’t deserve.

Atheists are fighting for something that we want to achieve - a rational non-theistic world. We might fail but not because we are “anti” anything but because we have to try and undo 2000 years of indoctrination and religious brainwashing.

Shermer ends his essay with:

As King, in addition, noted: “The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”

Rational atheism values the truths of science and the power of reason, but the principle of freedom stands above both science and religion.

Of course no atheist that I know is advocating taking any person’s freedom away nor do we distrust all religious people. Unlike most believers and the general public, atheists are able to separate the beliefs from the people who hold them and oppose the beliefs and actions that result.

By Jennifer Hancock

I am a Humanist. I am proud of that fact and I do not hesitate to label myself as a Humanist. Over the past few years I have met a lot of people who share my values as a Humanist, but who had just never encountered anyone who is willing to talk to them about Humanist values before.

Perhaps the main reason people have never come across the term “Humanist” before is because most Humanists don’t like to call themselves Humanists, preferring any number of other terms instead. And this isn’t just a problem we have in public, it is the basis of an ongoing debate in our movement regarding how best to conduct our outreach and of course, what we should call ourselves.

Personally, I think this internal debate is a waste of time. People are going to call themselves whatever they want regardless. Despite personally finding this debate rather silly, I recognize that it has negatively impacted our ability to share our philosophy with others. If we aren’t proud enough of our philosophy to call ourselves Humanists, we shouldn’t be surprised that the public’s knowledge about our philosophy is utterly lacking.

There are various reasons why Humanists shy away from using the word “Humanist” to describe themselves. First, we often treat words such as “atheist,” freethinker,” and Humanist” as interchangeable even though they aren’t. This co-mingling of meanings only causes confusion and leaves us, as individuals, to wonder which word will have a positive impact on our listeners? In my experience, one of the main reasons Humanists might choose to use another word, like “freethinker” instead of Humanist, is because they incorrectly think that “Humanist” carries negative connotations. And finally, there is the problem of confusing adjectives. Many Humanists are simply unaware that you can just be a Humanist, without the adjectives.

I think Humanism is a truly wonderful philosophy and I am hoping I can help others find peace with the word “Humanist.” After all, if we can’t convince our fellow Humanists to call themselves Humanists, then how can we hope to entice others to join our movement?

Our perception that the public at large regards Humanism negatively is simply untrue. Very few people I have met have heard the term before. And when people do hear the word “Humanist” for the first time, they will do what most people do when encountering an unfamiliar word, they guess at its meaning. You may be surprised to know that when people guess at the meaning of the word “Humanist” they almost always give it a positive connotation. After all, they are humans, so how bad could “Humanism” be.

Telling people I am Humanist has led to many wonderful conversations with complete strangers about all the positive attributes of our philosophy. I have had these conversations in supermarkets, fast food restaurants, bars, and children’s play groups. I have never experienced a negative response to the word Humanist; although mentioning Humanism does then obligate me to answer many follow up questions about the philosophy and what we value. Since most people have never heard the term before they normally just want to know more. For the few people who have heard the term, they are usually just confused about what exactly the philosophy is.

My personal experience with “Humanist” has been so positive that I would definitely recommend to other Humanists that they make it their word of choice when describing their personal views.

When it comes to adding an adjective I advise against it. The various adjectives people use to describe their humanism take the focus off of Humanist values and onto the connotations of the adjective itself. As far as I am concerned, if what is important is Humanism then we should simple talk about Humanism.

The other reason not to add an adjective in front of the word “Humanist” is because they are often confusing and in some cases, scary. “Secular Humanist” is a case in point. I personally think that “secular” is a wonderful word. Unfortunately, while “Secular Humanist” is one of the most popular adjective pairings, it is in reality, one of the worst words you can pair with “Humanist” in terms of its affect on your listener.

I once did some field testing of some phrases for an outreach piece I was working on and I was surprised to find out that not only do most people not know what the word “secular” means, their guesses at its meaning would frighten any Humanist. The people I talked to thought that “secular” is related to “sect.” And when paired with an “ist’ or “ism,” they assume it has to do with some sort of cult. Obviously, cults are not something any rational person wants to be involved with. This mass misinterpretation of the term, “secular Humanism” also explains how the religious right has so easily turned “secular Humanists” into their all purpose bogeyman.

Since most people think “secular” means sect, it is best to avoid it entirely. We certainly don’t want our Humanist movement paired in people’s mind with some sort of cult. For this reason I advocate against using the terms “secular humanism” or “secular humanist” to describe our philosophy or ourselves. Not only will the simpler “Humanist” suffice; it has the added benefits of eliciting very positive connotations for our audience.

We have enough hurdles to overcome without putting self-imposed obstacles in our way. If we really want to talk to others about Humanism we must start talking about Humanist values and not just about “Freethought, or “Atheism” or “secularism.” Humanism is worth talking about in its own. Further, if we are to grow our movement, we need to start talking about what really matters, and that is our ethics and our values as Humanists.

If we are to succeed, we must conduct our outreach in a way that gets people interested in what we are talking about while trying not to scare them or confuse them. Only labeling us as Humanists, plain and simple can accomplish this. Everything else is distracting and potential harmful to our cause. I am a Humanist. How about you?

————————————————————-
Jennifer Hancock is a writer and Humanist activist. Her website, http://www.sumogirl.com/ contains the thoughts, opinions and creative pursuits of Jennifer Hancock, Gentlewoman. Included on the site are her Humanist counter to the advice given by televangelist Billy Graham and a weekly podcast “Humanist thought of the Week.”