“Unless the 80 million evangelical Christians in our nation wake up to whom the enemy really is, humanists will soon accomplish their goal of work domination” – p. 35

Mind Siege is a book by Tim LaHaye and David Noebel which was published in 2000. It claims to be an update of LaHaye’s Battle for the Mind(1980) that sparked, according to him, the rise of the Evangelical Christian movement we all had to deal with in the 1980′s and today.

LaHaye is a leader of the Evangelicals and is the author of the Left Behind fiction series about the “end times” of Bible prophesies. He also helped found the Institute of Creation Research. He has never been a friend of Humanism.

David Noebel is the founder and head of Summit Ministries and has written many books about the conflict between Christianity and Atheism/Humanism/Marxism/New Age.

I had the chance to read the book when I found out a co-worker had bought it and was reading it at work. He thought I was interested in the topic so he let me borrow it. I read the book so you don’t have to.

I wanted to find out what LaHaye and Noebel had to say about Humanism. I wanted to see if they got their facts correct. They get some of the names and dates correct, but like all critiques like this, they reach the wrong conclusions. It is at most a political book full of propaganda.

They describe the history of Humanism and the leaders of the Humanist movement including naming many of them like Corliss Lamont, Paul Kurtz, and even Ted Turner.

What they then do is attempt to connect Humanism with Communism, the fall of morals, globalism, and control of all the media, the government, and the schools. It is kind of like a huge logic fallacy. ex. Red equals blue and one plus one equals four.

The call to action is for evangelicals to rise up and stop Humanism from taking over the world. Through most of the book, they offer scripture as proof of their argument.

The book is set up into 5 parts starting with the conflict and ending with a call to arms.

Part One: The Conflict

LaHaye and Noebel (shortened in this article to “L & N”) describe the parts of the mind as the intellect, emotion, and the will. They explain that what you absorb into your mind affects your actions. They make the claim that “How you think will determine the way you live.” and that it is a myth that feelings are spontaneous. They conclude that if one “surrenders control of his life (the will) to God, he will enjoy a life of fulfillment and oneness with both God and his fellow man”.

L & N say that man can never know good and evil without God. For proof they offer Acts 17:16-34 where Paul showed the Greeks that man’s wisdom was inherently wrong. This bit foreshadows one of their arguments against Humanism.

They then list what they call Secular Humanist Buzzwords. What they seem to be saying is that when Humanists say these words we don’t mean what they think the words mean. Among the list is “living Constitution”, “participatory democracy”, “power to the people”, and “tolerance”. Those words are what makes are country the free space that it is, and here are Christians complaining about those words. It sent a chill down my spine.

Next is a list of life’s questions that I admit people do ask. These questions include “Why are we here?” and “What is the solution?”. L & N state that there are no answers among men, then they go into the usual argument that since God is the cause of everything, that only God can provide the answers.. blah blah blah….

Next comes the usual complaints about “moral relativism” which L & N claims Secular Humanism follows. They define relativism as the belief that there are no moral absolutes. There follows a list of actions that L & N claims Humanists can’t do because of their relativism. The list includes such statements that Relativists can’t accuse others of wrong doing or can’t place blame or accept praise. They offer no proof that their list is true or even that Humanists are relativists as they define it.

L & N then explain that morals come from God, that Biblical morals come from 6 of the 10 commandments and then they make their first claim about Government. “Government should be responsible to maintain a legal climate conducive to this kind [Biblical] of moral behavior.”

They attempt to explain that as “servants of God” Christians have always been the great humanitarians of the world and they have a two fold compassionate world view which includes the Temporal, as ambassadors of Christ, and the Eternal, the eternal life in Heaven.

In Chapter 3, L & N talk about the Wisdom of Man as supported by Secular Humanists. They call Humanism the world’s oldest religion that started with the serpent in the Garden of Eden tempting Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. I would like to point out that in the story of Adam and Eve, the forbidden fruit is Knowledge. Of course such a statement is the standard for religious conservatives. They are constantly anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-reason.

L & N claim about Humanism being the serpent is telling and also foreshadows another one of their arguments against Humanism, that Humanism is a religion.

L & N claim that Humanism has 5 basic tenets: Atheism, Evolution, Amorality, Autonomous Man and Globalism. They also name some of the leaders of the Humanist “religion” based on the positions of a baseball team.

“Pitching is John Dewey, catching is Isaac Asimov, first base is Paul Kurtz, second base is Corliss Lamont, third base is Bertrand Russell, shortstop is Julian Huxley, left fielder is Richard Dawkins, center fielder is Margaret Sanger, right fielder is Carl Rogers, the manager is ‘Christianity is for Losers’ Ted Turner, and the designated hitter is Mary Calderone…” - p. 70

They then list just about every liberal and other organizations that conflict with Evangelical ideals like the American Humanist Association, US Department of State, and the United Nations and several elite colleges such as Harvard and Yale, University of Minnesota, and UC Berkeley.

Next comes some basic arguments of the 5 tenets. None of the arguments are new so I won’t go into details. What they do differently is quote extensively from current and past Humanists like Lamont, Kurtz, and Russell to prove Humanism follows the 5 tenets they listed and they offer some basic rebuttals. The more detailed “proof” is held for later chapters.

Toward the end of Chapter 3, L & N makes the charge that Humanists are unamerican because they claim we are for a one world government, that Humanists should be kept from government jobs, and that high taxes will fund our take over:

“No humanist is qualified to hold any governmental office in America – United States senator, congressman, cabinet member, State Department employee, Department of Defense employee, or any other position that requires him to think in the best interest of America. He is a socialist one-worlder first, an American second. . . We forget so soon that every tax increase is a move toward bigger government and more humanist trained bureaucrats dedicated to dragging us, kicking and screaming, into a New World Order.” - p. 86

L & N then make their next big argument, that Humanists have taken over everything and as Christians they need to rise up and take back America.

Part Two: The Situation

Chapter 4 starts another line of the old Evangelical argument, that the US is a Christian nation founded on the principles of the Bible and that it should be ruled by Biblical law.

L & N claim that Christianity and Liberty are intertwined and offer as proof that of the 250 founding fathers (p. 95) 95% were Christians. The Founding Fathers were also graduates of the elite colleges like Harvard and Yale which were founded and run by Christians. L & N claims that the schools purposes were to spread Christianity by instilling it into its graduates.

They then make the usual legal opinion argument by mentioning 1892 Supreme Court decision calling America a Christian nation, comments from a Justice in a 1931 case that we are a Christian people, and a comment from William O. Douglas in 1952 that said ‘we are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.’ They don’t give any legal citations so one could look them up.

L & N even reach by claiming our checks and balances form of government comes from the Bible as noted in Isaiah 33:22. They also make the claim that:

“Today’s secularists ridicule the Puritan’s God, Bible, work ethic, free enterprise, private ownership of land, and capitalism – even though these concepts, which emanated from Biblical teaching, have produced the greatest good for the largest number of people in history.” - p.100

Worshiping in private and keeping the money changers out of the church is also in the Bible and that doesn’t stop religious conservatives like L & N from their nice homes and trying to force their religion on everyone.

I think that L & N’s interpretation is colored by the tradition we now enjoy and it makes their argument pretty weak. I am also sure that other Biblical scholars would disagree with their conclusion.

The last part of Chapter 4 explains that our educational system was Bible based and was never intended to be godless without offering any evidence. They just make statements about it.

Chapter 5, Secularizing America, lays out the charges against Humanists although now L & N change to the term to secularist in an effort to paint everyone who doesn’t agree with the Evangelical position with a broad brush. This change is deliberate in order to mislead the reader and seriously collapses their entire argument.

A secularist is not necessarily a secular humanist and vise versa. A believer can be a secularist especially when it comes to the relationship between church and state.

L & N complain about the media and how almost every major magazine, newspaper, television network, secular book publisher, and movie producer surround themselves with editors or newscasters who seldom permit anything to be presented that contradicts their viewpoint (p. 105).

They fail to note that every analysis of the news media has shown that conservative viewpoints get more print and air time than opposite view points. Talk radio is dominated by conservative hosts complaining about all things liberal and those topics also include religion and the views expressed on those shows are overwhelming pro-religion.

They then list the usual ‘Bad Cultural Indicators’ like the abortion rate and crime and they attempt to link it to Humanism and secularists. They claim that when prayer was in the schools and Christians controlled the media back in the “good old days”, those bad cultural indicators didn’t exist. Many sociologists and historians dispute those kind of claims.

Next they talk about the roots of humanism which they said came from the dead philosophy of the Greeks. They claim the dead Greek philosophy had been replaced by the Christian philosophy insinuating that the Christian philosophy is better.

Then they mention the influence of the French skeptics like Voltaire and Rousseau and how Humanism permeated the European educational system.

“The colleges and universities of Europe, supported by taxes seized from the working man, became the ideal source of transmission for ‘enlightened’ humanism. Universal education was unknown and thus only bright young people, the sons of politicians or the rich, could gain a higher education.” - p. 111

L & N fail to note that Harvard and Yale, schools they lauded earlier in the book were also only open to the elite of America like children of the politicians and the rich.

L & N then mention the major thorn of current Evangelical complaints – our education system. They point the finger at state supported schools, professors who went to Europe and brought back Humanism, and removing religion from the schools. They also claim that the US Department of Education is full of Humanists. Of course they offer no proof of those claims.

Part Three: The Truth

L & N open Chapter 6, The Humanist Bible, by talking about the Humanist Manifestoes. They claim that the Manifestoes represent the official position of Humanism. One of the biggest debates in current Humanist circles is signing onto any of the Manifestoes. They are not an official position on anything. L & N make the mistake of claiming that Humanism follows the standard model of religion with a hierarchy and official texts that we must follow. There is no such thing in the Humanist movement although some have tried. Trying to get Humanists to agree on more than core principles is like herding cats. Humanism is a self selected philosophy.

L & N note that Paul Kurtz was more careful in Humanist Manifesto 2000 then his predecessors in using term ‘scientific naturalism’ instead of the word Atheism but that Christians shouldn’t be fooled because the word means the same thing as Atheism. L & N make an obvious goof because Kurtz also co-wrote Manifesto II in 1973.

Chapter 7 is devoted to offering “proofs” that Humanism is unscientific.

“Ironically, humanism is completely unscientific. As we shall see, not one humanist doctrine stands up to scientific investigation. It is all a zealously defended fraud, funded by US Taxpayers.” - p.135

I’m glad they set us all straight on that. Humanism supports science as a rational way to explain our world. Humanism is a philosophy. Philosophy generally isn’t scientifically investigated like we do to find new medicines or predicting hurricanes. Basically their statement means nothing.

Besides Christianity is completely unscientific too.

L & N then attempt to disprove the 5 tenets of Humanism they made up earlier in one huge strawman argument.

For Atheism they bring up the Designer argument, for evolution they mention that evolution is based on faith not hard scientific evidence, for amorality L & N say that Humans are not animals and that sex is bad, for autonomous man they claim we believe that man is basically good and link that to Communism of the old USSR, and they mention the USSR again to refute Globalism.

None of their “proofs” are proofs at all but political statements. Their arguments are the ones that are not scientific and based on a definition of Humanism they themselves made up.

Chapter 8 lays out the “Humanism is a Religion” argument. L & N use our words against us as they offer quote after quote from Religious Humanists claiming Humanism is a religion and they use quotes from Humanist Manifesto I from 1933.

Next they mention the footnote in the 1961 Torasco v. Watkins US Supreme Court decision that mentioned Humanism as being religious. Of course they don’t mention that it is in fact a footnote and holds no legal weight.

L & N then include this quote from the Texas Tech Law Review:

“The Seeger decision defined religion as all sincere beliefs based upon which all else is ultimately dependent.”

And they offered a definition of religion, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, that included “all believers or unbelievers of the Bible.”

L & N define religion so broadly that any deeply held belief is a religion but that fits into the next chapter.

Chapter 9, “Humanists Control America”, details all the areas and groups controlled by Humanists.

L & N claim that Humanists founded the NAACP and we founded the UN to exclude God and support our agenda of Globalism.

They detail that the ACLU was founded by Humanists and that it is:

“The most effective humanist organization for destroying the laws, morals, and traditional rights of Americans . . .” - p. 187

And they claim the ACLU is a socialist front.

Humanists did help in the founding of the NAACP and the ACLU, however it was in concert with other people, including Jews and Christians, who had the same concerns that are addressed by those groups.

The United Nations was formed by the major nations in 1945 in the hopes that diplomacy would replace war as a way of settling differences. L & N’s statement about the UN excluding God is a cheap shot against those who see religion as divisive and not important for diplomacy. While God isn’t a priority in the UN, many member countries have state established religions and the Vatican has official observer status – much to the dislike of Humanists like me since they have worked to subvert any effort at population control or efforts to support the rights of women.

L & N’s statement about the UN is just false.

Next they mention the AHA and The Council for Secular Humanism (CSH). L & N attribute the founding of the Friends of Religious Humanism (FRH) to CSH when in fact it is a division of the AHA. They also claim that FRH is an outreach to Protestant ministers and that the National Council of Churches (NCC) is a communist front organization. The NCC is not even affiliated with the AHA or CSH.

L & N then say:

“These organizations and scores like them . . . exert a profound influence on education, government, and the media.” - p. 191

Don’t I wish. Any check of Humanist sources would prove we don’t have as much influence as a group as the Evangelicals would like for their bogeyman argument. 90% of the US say they believe in God. To believe L & N’s argument one would have to believe that 10% of the people control everything. That is just false logic.

Chapter 10, “The Big Lie”, details the old arguments against the separation of church and state, how the 1st Amendment was never intended to keep religion out of the government but to keep the government from establishing a national church.

“Our forefathers never intended government to be isolated from God or the recognition of His existence. Yet with a false interpretation or separation, the humanists have rendered our government almost as secular as Communist China and the former Soviet Union.” - p. 201

There is a simple answer to this charge. If what L & N said was true, then God would be written in the Constitution. Instead we get no mention of God and a couple of rules prohibiting the government from becoming entangled with religion. The Founders knew that for religion to flourish in a democracy, it needed to be separate from the government and the government separate from religion. L & N are doing the false interpretation of the Founder’s intent.

Part Four: The Challenge

The last five chapters detail the call to action that L & N believe will save us from the Humanist menace.

Besides the obvious action of praying and spreading the Christian message, L & N also offer some chilling actions they would like to see: the outlaw of abortion, censorship of the media and the arts, school vouchers, removing women and gays from the military, return of religion to the schools, creationism should be taught in science class, adding an amendment to the constitution recognizing we are one nation under God, abolishing the Department of Education, choosing judges that uphold the law and who don’t impose Secular Humanism, a Supreme Court that would interpret the law as the founding fathers intended, that Christians and other morally upright citizens would be represented in our government in proportion to their actual numbers in the general population, returning more power to the states, stopping the rewriting of history and instead let the “facts” speak for themselves, an end to the drug culture, and teaching children the role and importance of Christians in the founding of this country. (p. 242 – 243)

I had to take a shower after slogging through their ideal world.

My Conclusion:

Mind Siege is at the root a political book. It creates a bogey man (Humanism) and tries to scare the reader. The timing of the book (in 2000, an election year) and some nasty words about the just past administration of former President Clinton, make the intention clear.

It got some of the players and history of Humanism correct but came to some wild conclusions about what Humanists believe, how Humanists believe, and the amount of influence Humanists in fact have.

The Humanism detailed in the book is not the Humanism I know. L & N paint any and all liberal ideas and groups as Secular Humanism and makes some tired arguments that have been refuted each time.

I will say that Tim LaHaye is good at fiction and Mind Siege is good fiction.

Originally written in April 12, 2001 and revised on September 9, 2005 to fix some old spelling and grammar issues and to add some comments to the text that were missing when published the first time.

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My friend Derrick sent along the following:

Rev. Mark Belletini from First UU [in Columbus Ohio] wrote an editorial for this week’s Outlook newspaper. Here’s a link:

http://www.outlookweekly.net/

The thrust of the article comes in Belletini’s statement that “I was moved by Senator Obama’s leadership in asking [Rick Warren] to accept this honor” of “leading the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration” (Outlook Weekly, Feb 11, 2009, p. 15).

Nowhere does the article question whether it is appropriate to have prayers at an inauguration. Nowhere does the article question whether it’s appropriate to have someone like Rick Warren to represent our best hopes for change. Instead, the article is a collection of warm imagery, relativism, strawmen, red herrings, and excuse making on Warren’s behalf aimed at shaming anyone who might oppose Warren’s presence. (It’s difficult to politely convey how revolting I find Belletini’s comments to be.)

In contrast, Freethought Today announced on the cover of its Jan/Feb 2009 issue that FFRF has a “Challenge to Inaugural Religion Filed.” We are fortunate to have organizations like FFRF that are willing to reasonably face facts and stand in favor of our basic rights.

Derrick is right. There shouldn’t be prayers at a purely civic ceremony and in the article Belletini glosses over the bigorty espoused by Warren during the Prop 8 campaign. He says:

The Senator knew that this country is made up of people all kinds, including people, like Warren, with distorted and disastrous understanding of people like me. But this guy isn’t going to wake up one morning and suddenly be a pro-GLBT secularist. Picketing his church, writing him excoriating letters, chiding him for his prejudicial biblical interpretations may make me feel good, but its hardly appealing to this man’s humanity.

Rick Warren at the Inaugration? Milk Would Have Approved (Outlook Weekly, Feb 11, 2009, p. 15)

Sometimes people say or think something so vile they need to be called on it and shown their view has no place in a civil society. Inviting the guy to speak at such a prestigious event just ignores that fact.

We aren’t talking about a simple dispute on public policy but plain old fashioned BIGOTRY by people like Rick Warren. You don’t reward it or try to understand it. You freeze it out of the civic arena. You call those people out, shine a light on their hate speech, and make them feel bad for even considering it.

People who gloss those vile ideas over or ignore them give them strength and they will never go away.

There was another troubling thing involving Unitarian Universalists that I read about this past week.

In a liberal blog I read called Crooks and Liars they had an article about the murderer who shot two people at a UU church in Knoxville and how he admitted to the killings in order to rid this country of liberals. He was acting in response to the various hate books put out by Bernard Goldberg, Sean Hannity, and other right wing nut jobs.

In the beginning of the entry was this:

“Progressives around the country can breathe a little easier today: James Adkisson has been sentenced to life behind bars for the deaths of Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, the Unitarian Universalist martyrs who died during his assault on their church in Knoxville, TN last July.”

Then this:

“Three: The right wing has, as usual, grossly underestimated our courage and our commitment. The members of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist quickly and effectively disarmed and captured this man within seconds after he opened fire. Adkisson expected fear; what we got was determined resistance. It’s why he’s still alive today, and why more UUs aren’t dead by his hand. The TVUUA congregation should be our enduring example of liberal grace under fire.”

Knoxville church shooter’s manifesto leaves no doubt: murders were political terror against liberals

UU martyrs?

That is a bit of a stretch in my view. The victims were UUs and they were killed in a UU church but not because they were UU’s specifically but because they were associated with liberals and liberal causes.

Wikipedia has listed a few actual UU martyrs:

1529: Ludwig Haetzer – beheaded in Konstanz, Germany; believed Jesus was a leader and teacher, not a God due worship

1553: Michael Servetus – burned at the stake after a prison term because of writing a book criticizing biblical evidence for a Trinity.

1942: Norbert Capek – preached religious freedom (including Unitarianism). Was sent to the Dachau concentration camp, and later gassed to death at Hartheim Castle.

The difference is clear. The victims in Knoxville weren’t killed because they refused to renounce their beliefs, they were murdered for gallantly trying to disarm a deranged person.

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While others are lighting Hanukkah candles or decorating Christmas trees, atheists and humanists are holding their own December celebrations.

The secular holiday known as HumanLight began eight years ago. And while there are no set traditions, many of these gatherings use familiar rituals such as singing and candle lighting to highlight reason and human achievement.

HumanLight can be celebrated anytime on or around Dec. 23. The date was chosen because it is between the winter solstice and Christmas. This past weekend, groups gathered across the country to celebrate.

Because humanists don’t have a bible or religious doctrine, there’s no right or wrong way to celebrate HumanLight. Gary Brill, who co-founded the holiday, says the parties are usually family occasions. However, some humanists ignore the holiday, saying it feels too much like religion.

HumanLight: December’s Secular Holiday (includes audio)

I am not one to totally ignore the holiday season since that would be impossible, but I still don’t celebrate it religiously or secularly. However, if the

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What prompted this post is to let you know about a change in the web host of this blog and and something new I found on the internet humanists might be interested in – well not real new but newish.

Change of Hosts

Humanists.net the long time host of iHumanism.org announced it was getting out of the web hosting business. Over 200 groups like iHumanism would need to find a new host by 12/31/2008.

It is sad that Humanists are losing a good service. As I wrote in my response e-mail:

The internet is a great leveling of the playing field against all the non-humanist clap trap we have and I can’t understand why Humanist groups can’t be more willing to provide services like all the other theistic centered groups out there.

Update of WordPress

WordPress – the software I use to present this blog had a major update since my last post so for awhile the basic theme that comes with it will be shown. I plan on making tweaks and other improvements as I go along.

Continued posting

I plan on writing more posts more often than previously. I took some time off from being vocal about my Humanism but with an election coming up I have renewed my interest in speaking out.

Humanist Podcast

Institute for Humanist Studies and American Humanist Association have teamed up to produce and sponsor a podcast for Humanists. It is a monthly production and includes news and interviews.

Recent podcasts have included interviews with Richard Dawkins and

Humanist Network News Audio Podcast

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Dogma is set of beliefs or doctrine especially of a religious nature that is accepted as truth without proof. For example – the Holy Bible says the earth was created in 6 days. That is accepted dogma by Christians and other religious people who use the Bible.

Dogma can appear in non-religious situations such as believing that all people on welfare are lazy or that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 US invasion. These are ideas that are accepted or advanced with little if any proof and if actual evidence contrary to that belief is found, it is simply ignored or dismissed.

Dogmatic from the root word dogma, involves holding fast to dogma, or set values or beliefs, without considering or respecting other values or beliefs.

What is “dogmatic” is actually open to debate. It is based on the subjective evaluation of the person listening to the discussion and their subjective idea as to what is meant by “respect” and “consideration.” Some people feel that all ideas are equally valid and if someone doesn’t agree then they are being dogmatic. They feel that “respect” must equal agreement or that “consideration” makes the ideas equal.

In a rational discussion, one can reject the conclusions or not agree with the premises and not be dogmatic. Listening and exploring other ideas is showing “respect”. Being disrespectful is preventing or encouraging censorship of ideas opposed to ones own or asking people to ignore logic or ignore false premises and conclusions for the sake of being nice. One way to do that is to accuse someone of being dogmatic.

Focusing on the people making the argument instead of the argument itself makes one dogmatic because you aren’t respecting or considering what the other person is saying. Personalities are different in each person and some can be seen to be passionate about their ideas and they can become an ass about it.

Being passionate about your ideas to the point of being a nasty person still doesn’t make one dogmatic. It isn’t how the person presents their argument that is important. What is important is the content of their conclusions and how they arrived at them.

The Humanist philosophy builds on the foundation that all ideas are open to question, even our own. That doesn’t mean we must accept every new idea and not accepting every new idea or view doesn’t make us dogmatic.

A new idea or change to a current belief is accepted if there is concrete evidence for it and it is based on rational logical thought.

Humanism isn’t based on dogma and if the philosophy is applied as it should be then it also isn’t dogmatic.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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Here is what set me off:

Although it is perhaps true that a large proportion of humanists would describe themselves as atheists, the humanist movement has never considered atheism (construed as a rejection of all concepts of God) as a necessary part of the humanist outlook. According to the Minimum Statement adopted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union, “Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives…. It is not theistic. It does not accept a supernatural view of reality.”

The sentence “It is not theistic” needs elaboration, and it has been suggested that it should be recast, “It is not theistic, in the sense that it ignores the various claims about the existence of God as having no relevance to the practical conduct of human affairs, except that it categorically rejects the idea of a rewarding and punishing God who intervenes in human affairs.”

In other words, the humanist movement rejects the God of the moralists while ignoring the God of the philosophers as having no relevance to the conduct of human affairs.

The so-called “strong atheist” movement proposes, “I do not know, or care, what your concept of God is, I hold it to be false.” This smacks of a dogmatism quite alien to the humanist ethos. It can perhaps best be described as aggressive atheism.

Humanists and the Trap of Atheism

I was extremely disappointed with the essay. For someone who claims to be a member of a Humanist organization, Narain makes several factual errors and broad assumptions.

The whole “New Humanism” vs “New Atheism” tripe is itself a strawman argument and counterproductive. It’s disappointing to continually read articles from Humanists who promote such divisiveness as an advert for “positive” Humanism. It’s absurd to complain about dogmatism and “aggressive atheism” while using negative and provocative language and claiming it is better.

“New Atheism” is a nonexistent boogeyman. The current media focus on atheism shines a light on the same ideas about atheism that has existed for years. The only part that is new is that common people are paying attention for once.

Nontheism has one meaning and it rejects theistic belief in a personal god, and any belief in a personal or impersonal god. Humanism *IS* a nontheistic life stance and has been at least since the first manifesto in 1933. It said in the sixth point: “We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of “new thought”.” All the redefining Narain wants to do with the term doesn’t change what nontheism is really about.

Atheism isn’t a trap for Humanism. The trap is the anti-intellectual, irrational, anti-science, homophobic, neo-con Troglodyte and if we continue to waste our limited time and resources fighting with each other that is the trap we will be caught in and we will all lose.

—————-
Now playing: Basia – More Fire than Flame
via FoxyTunes

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All movements have factions. They all have a common goal but different beliefs and methods to get that goal. These internal conflicts tend to hold back the movement as people make power plays to try and get their agenda to the top. Each side is so involved in the internal fighting that they miss the goal right in front of them.

In Humanism the factions are Religious Humanists and Secular Humanists. Religious Humanists tend to still keep the structure and function of a church while Secular Humanists, in general, throw anything “religious” out.

Religious Humanism was the initial flavor of the Modern Humanist movement and most if not all the signers of the first Humanist Manifesto, in 1933, were religious Humanists. The Manifesto and Modern Humanism were based within the Unitarian-Universialist church tradition.

Unitarian Universalism (UU) is a faith with no creedal requirements imposed on its members. It values religious pluralism and respects diverse traditions within the movement and often within the same congregation. Many see it as a syncretic religion, as personal beliefs and religious services draw from more than one faith tradition. Even when one faith tradition is primary within a particular setting, Unitarian Universalists are unlikely to assert that theirs is the “only” or even the “best” way possible to discern meaning or theological truths. There is even a popular adult UU course called “Building Your Own Theology”.

Many Unitarian Universalists consider themselves humanists, while others hold to Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, natural theist, atheist, agnostic, pantheist, pagan, or other beliefs. Some choose to attach no particular theological label to their own idiosyncratic combination of beliefs. This diversity of views is usually considered a strength by those in the Unitarian Universalist movement, since the emphasis is on the common search for meaning among its members rather than adherence to any particular doctrine.

Unitarian Universalism

In regard to religion, the Humanist Manifesto (1933) states:

The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience. In every field of human activity, the vital movement is now in the direction of a candid and explicit humanism. In order that religious humanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make certain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life demonstrate.

Humanist Manifesto (1933)

Secular Humanism, as a label, came into the vernacular of the Humanist Movement during the 1970′s as opposition to Religious Humanism. The term Secular Humanism:

…was embraced by some humanists who, although critical of religion in its various guises, were deliberately non-religious, as opposed to anti-religious, which means that their humanism has nothing to do with spiritual, religious, or ecclesiastical doctrines, beliefs, or power structures. This is how “secular humanism” is most commonly understood by humanists today.

What Is Secular Humanism?

Basically Secular Humanists don’t have a church, don’t sing hymns, and don’t support or use “god” talk.

The internal conflict between Religious and Secular flavors of Humanism came about because of disagreements on “god” talk, rituals, and criticism of religion in general.

Religious Humanists seem to find any criticism of religion to be an attack on religious people and indirectly on them while Secular Humanists find Religious Humanists stuck in the mud – clinging onto the functions of religion.

Also increasing the conflict is a trend in UU churches to move away from Humanism as a foundation to more of what Marilyn Westfall, founder of UU Infidels, calls “vague theism.”

Given that only 20% of the ministers self-identified as humanists, it shouldn’t surprise us to learn that they also had a weak affiliation with the UU source of humanist teachings. There are five sources for the tradition of UUism (these are included on the handout); and in the survey of ministers, humanist sources ranked 5th out of the five sources. The complete wording of the humanist source is as follows: [We covenant to affirm and promote] “Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.” The highest-ranked source, by the way, was the first: “Direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder …”

From Humanism and UUism: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

For many years the Unitarian Universalism Association – the central governing body of the church – has certified many former Christian ministers as pastors of UU churches. That and the move toward “vague theism” has led to an obvious move away from the science and reason basis of knowledge as the following quote from Westfall’s talk points out:

[Recent UU seminary graduate named Matthew Gatheringwater said:] My school used to be notable for innovations in religious humanist theology. We used to be at the forefront of efforts [to] reconcile science and religion [my emphases]; now, visiting scientists reported that seminarians lacked basic scientific education. Humanist was a word often used in a derogatory sense in my UU classes and it was more often than not preceded by adjectives like “old”, “crusty”, “corpse-cold”, “bloodless”, and “unfeeling.” It was creepy to hear people use expressions like, “the congregation is waiting for the old humanists to die off before it changes the order of service.” It was more popular among students to be a Universalist … than a Unitarian, a feeler than a thinker, a prophet than a pastor, a theist than an atheist, and anything but a humanist.

UUs at local church here Columbus also expressed those same kind of negative views of Humanists and also Atheists when they called a friend of mine names such as “bigot” and “arrogant” when he questioned some religious “god” talk at what was suppose to be a free discussion at the church.

When I was President of HCCO and I gave a talk at the same church I had a debate with a member who claimed that because science didn’t have all the answers then its value wasn’t any better than someone who didn’t use science to get to the truth. It was the first time I had experienced the postmodern thinking infecting the UU church.

Recent conflict has been as a reaction to the rise of certain Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University Greg Epstein, in a news report about the 30th Anniversary of the Chaplainacy at Harvard, said:

“At times they’ve [atheists] made statements that sound really problematic, and when Sam Harris says science must destroy religion, to me that sounds dangerously close to fundamentalism,” Epstein said in an interview after the meeting. “What we need now is a voice that says, ‘That is not all there is to atheism.’ ”

Is Atheism Just a Rant Against Religion?

As a Secular Humanist those kinds of negative comments bother me as I am also an Atheist.

The problem is that people like Epstein continue the wrong assumption that Atheism is a world view. All Atheism is, is a lack of a belief in a “god”. I am a Secular Humanist because it provides me a frame work for my world view.

My atheism is my view on “god” and humanism is my philosophy on life.

It is simply sad when Religious Humanists fall for the same trap that god believers fall into when they try to paint Atheism as some kind of satanic negative religion. It also doesn’t seem ethical to complain about intolerance by being intolerant.

I want to work with Religious Humanists but as they move further away from science and reason, I find it harder to work with them on issues we agree on.

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