In the course of a discussion about ideas, philosophy, politics, or the mundane, one description that gets thrown about is saying that someone is being dogmatic or advancing dogma.

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.

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.

Ten years ago, when I finally settled on Humanism as my world outlook (that I finally found a label for the view I had) and I joined my local Humanist group, The Humanist Community of Central Ohio, and I got really involved by joining the Board of Trustees of the group and editing the member’s newsletter. It was at that time I was exposed to the internal politics of the Humanist movement.

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.