putting the human back in humanism

8/6/2019 Putting the Human Back in Humanism

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Putting the Human Back in Humanism

Since 2008, I've been a dues paying member of and a contributor to the American HumanistAssociation (AHA). From then until now I've been struggling to understand the Humanistphilosophy and how that philosophy drives its mission and programs. That is to say, as aHumanist, what exactly am I, and what does it mean to be one?

In a recent issue of AHAs flagship publication, The Humanist, I found that 39 of the magazine's52 pages had at least one reference to religion; most often of the monotheistic variety, andsometimes in disparaging terms. For a publication that is self-described as, "a magazine ofcritical inquiry and social concern," the content seems to be heavily biased toward the negativeaspects of religiosity. Previous issues of the magazine that I reviewed produced similar results.

Even as a member of the Humanist Association of Tulsa (yes, I'm a "HAT'), I have noticed thatsome aspect of religious belief is more often than not the topic de jour at our monthly meetingsand discussion groups. To be fair though, most HAT members are also members of the localAtheists group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Secular Humanists (of which Iam also a member.) Those folks tend to bring their anti-theistic, vituperative views of religioninto the HAT meetings. In our discussion groups, which are often inspired by a Center for

Inquirypodcast or some NPR or PBS program, we often seem overly zealous to dispatch thosebelief systems that rely in any way on the supernatural. Someone listening in might even say wewere proselytizing for atheism and wondering where the Humanists are.

Against this background, I tried to reflect a bit on what I wanted to get out of the HumanistMovement and whether its focus is consistent with its promise. My conclusions, thoughunfinished (as if any critical analysis is ever finished,) are presented herein.

Non-Theists Vs. Anti-Theists. If I could divide the world of non-believers into two parts, theywould consist of the Non-Theists and the Anti-Theists. I understand Non-Theists as beingcharacterized by the absence or rejection of theism or any belief in the supernatural, includingany god or gods, personal or otherwise. They have the almost Nietzscheian worldview that the

question of God's existence is irrelevant in the same way as questioning the existence of SantaClaus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is irrelevant. For them, life goes onquite well without the need for myth or magic. In my view, Non-Theists are skeptical but notcynical, tolerant but not gullible, pragmatic but not dogmatic, altruistic but not without limits.

Anti-theists, on the other hand, are active opponents of religious institutions and are critical ofthose who believe in the supernatural and who claim the existence of any god or gods. The anti-theists, of course, are the atheists, which have come the be called the New Atheists, and arelead by the four horsemen of atheism Dennett, Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens. The NewAtheists vilify religion, especially the Abrahamic faiths, and blame the religionists for most of theills of civilization. They are vehement in this cause, sometimes confrontational, oftencondescending, and seem to take some pleasure from their ridicule and mockery of religion.

Ironically, it seems to me that such zealotry has produced the very fundamentalist mind-set thatthey seek to rout from the religious community!

If it is true that the New Atheists have become intolerant, cynical, judgmental, and have takenon, dare I say it, a holier-than-thou attitude, then, in my view, these should not be the attributesof Humanism, nor acceptable by those of us who call ourselves Humanists. In spite of thishowever, the New Atheists are becoming increasingly influential in the Humanist movement.Indeed, as these nattering nabobs of negativism become more involved, the term "Humanism"may ultimately be perceived as a euphemism for "Atheism. In fact, based on recent newsmedia reports, that is the case already. Clearly, it will be a challenge for the Humanists topromote the distinction.


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Separation of Church and State Vs. Separation of Church and Society. At the bottom ofthe inside cover ofThe Humanist, is the following statement:

"Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivatedby compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports liberty andopportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. Free of theism and othersupernatural beliefs, Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and

interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts thathumanity must take responsibility for its own destiny.

The emphasis here seems to be on egalitarianism, humanistic naturalism, and social, cultural,and political responsibility. Concerns with religion and the supernatural are minimal. In fact, thisphilosophy is what attracted me to the Humanist Movement in the first place.

Even though I am a Non-Theist, I do not consider myself an atheist, much less a New Atheist,nor do I have any interest in ridding the culture of mainstream and mostly passive religiousinstitutions; I don't feel threatened by the Methodists, or the Mormons, or the Mennonites. (Well,OK, maybe the Mormons.) I believe Humanists should acknowledge that many religions,especially the Christians, render humanitarian aid around the world, provide health care

services for the poor, have established and operate world-class hospitals, and are involved ineducation at all levels, thus improving literacy. Humanists should understand too that the faithfulhave an emotional investment in their beliefs and that the vast majority use their religion in apassive, non-threatening way to obtain comfort, peace, and joy in these troubled times.

I have found a number of references in Humanist literature praising individuals with strong tiesto religion, including such notables as civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Indianpacifist Mahatma Gandhi, humanitarian and biblical scholar Albert Schweitzer, the Dalai Lama,and many others. Indeed, based on the "aspirations" in Humanist Manifesto III, a strong casecan be made that Jesus, absent the magic tricks and deification, was truly a Humanist at heart.

It should be noted too that many of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates were deeply religious, yet

were honored for their contribution not only to peace, but to several of Humanism's coreprinciples as well -- human rights, civil liberties, and service to humane ideals. In fact, none ofthese winners was honored for his or her contribution to or defense of religion. Surely suchindividuals would be recognized for their good deeds and welcomed by the Humanistcommunity, notwithstanding their belief in the supernatural. At the end of the day, religion andHumanism share many of the same goals; not the least of which is to advocate for the GoldenRule. There should be no religious test for membership in the Humanist Movement.Humanists need to remember too that the religionists have a Constitutional right to the freeexercise of their beliefs. The religious fundamentalists, zealots and martyrs are another matter,of course, but they are in the margins, and in any case those battles are better fought by otherorganizations that were established specifically to deal with them, including the U.S. military.

Nonetheless, the New Atheists seem to hold that all things religious should be extricated fromsociety and expunged from the public domain.

Disagreement is one thing, but disparagement, disdain, and intolerance, unless based on aninhumane act or acts directed by a religious organization, should be discouraged by Humanists.Playing Got Ya may satisfy the ego, but it only exacerbates divisiveness. Its one thing toargue for the separation of church and State, but quite another to fight for the separation ofchurch and society. The former is defendable, the latter, to me anyway. Is a foolss errand.

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Humanists therefore need to be more compassionate, especially in regard to the religiouscommunity. Consider, for example, this quote from the curmudgeonly and usually acerbic H.L.Mencken (from "Martyrs" by H.L. Mencken, published in the Smart Set, April, 1922, pp. 45-46.):

The loss of faith, to many minds, involves a stupendous upset -- indeed, that upsetgoes so far in some cases that it results in something hard to distinguish from temporaryinsanity. It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to theidea that after all God will not help him. He feels like a child thrown among wolves. For

this reason I have always been chary about attempting to shake religious faith. It seemsto me that the gain to truth that it involves is trivial when set beside the damage to theindividual. To be sure, he is also improved, but he is almost wrecked in the process.

Taking the High Road. By my count there are 34 different secular organizations in the U.S.alone. They range from the American Atheists to the Unitarian Universalist Infidels. All of them,it seems, want to sue religion out of existence, or at least out of government. One gets thefeeling that the New Atheists will not be satisfied until all the religious references aresandblasted off all government buildings, and all the Crosses and Stars of David and CrescentMoons are removed from the graves in all the cemeteries owned and operated by thegovernment, and In God We Trust is taken off all of our money, and all the Chaplains whowork for Congress and State legislatures, plus all the Chaplains in the military, are fired, and a

court order is issued to enjoin the President from ending all of his speeches with God Bless theUnited States.

Humanists should defer to the New Atheist groups, such as the Freedom From ReligionFoundation, to pursue legal challenges to what they believe are violations of the establishmentand free exercise clauses in the First Amendment. I would also suggest that the AmericanHumanist Association lawyers approach the separation of church and state issues in the contextof the original intent of the Constitution and only pursue material breaches. Filing lawsuits toremove under God from the Presidential oath of office are petty, frivolous and a waste ofresources, not to mention embarrassing to many non-theists, including yours truly. The negativepublicity for such legal actions is also a major obstacle to obtaining new members. (And, lest weforget, the courts have ruled that Humanism is actually a religion itself pursuant to the Free

Exercise clause of the First Amendment, and is thereby entitled to the same benefits aschurches or any other religious organization. Beware, the pot and the kettle.)

Then there are the sideshows, which, if not sponsored directly by the Humanists, are certainlysupported and encouraged by them. These include Blasphemy Days, sloganeering, billboardand bus signage, un-baptisms, cartoon contests, etc. You can actually buy t-shirts that saythings like, O Come Let Us Ignore him, In God We Doubt, Religion All Nonsense All theTime, and Imagine No Religion written across a picture of the pre-9/11 World Trade Center.These are flat-out insults to 85% of the U.S. population who say they believe in a higher power.I would say that these slogans are at about the maturity level of eighth-graders, but that wouldbe an insult to eighth-graders.

How many religious organizations offer t-shirts that say things like, Satan Loves Atheists, or,Atheists Cant Prove a Negative, or, April 1st is International Atheist Day, or, God LovesAtheists, Too or A dyslectic atheist has to prove that there is no dog.

As if that isnt bad enough, the slogans, many of them anyway, contain a number of fallacies inreasoning. They include straw man, post hoc ergo propter hoc, sweeping generalization,false dilemma, appeal to ignorance, and begging the question, among others. (Interestingly,these are the very same fallacies that trap religious doctrine.) Such fallacies should be more

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than a little embarrassing to an organization that promotes reason.

Furthermore, painting all religions with the same brush does not fare well on Main Street;ridicule doesnt win friends or influence enemies. If the Humanist Movement wants credibilityand respectability, then it will have to stop trying to make points by using negative ads and/orsupporting those who do. (It may also help if their signs and slogans were critiqued for errors inreasoning before they are released!)

For example, the Non-Theists, this one anyway, would prefer signs that read Be Good forGoodness Sake as opposed to signs that say Be Good Without God. The former appeals tocommon sense, the latter to intolerance.

Follow the Humanist Philosophy. As stated on the American Humanist Association website:

The mission of the American Humanist Association is to promote the spread ofHumanism, raise public awareness and acceptance of Humanism, and encourage thecontinued refinement of the Humanist philosophy.

I see nothing there to indicate that the Humanist Movement is anti-theistic, or non-theistic forthat matter, except by implication. But, surely the Humanist philosophy includes the belief in a

pluralistic society where harmonious co-existence of peoples of differing backgrounds, andethnicity and races, as well as religions, is desirable. Cooperation between highly social animalslike humans has been a successful survival strategy for as long as weve been around. TheHumanist Movement should embrace and promote this biological mandate.

In his essay, "A New Humanism: Naturalism, Democracy, and the Principle of Humanity"(Volume 17[1] of Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, p. 34,) Barry Seidman offers his viewof "new humanism:"

"A new humanism . . . would not be about atheism or secularism or other tinycomponents on which the greater philosophy is partly based. Humanists ought not tomake it their goal to debase or dismiss religious people or their ideas, even when those

ideas include elements of supernaturalism. Instead, humanists would better servesociety by addressing the elements of religion that can be dangerous by addressing thesociopolitical economic reasons for these elements when they are found in society."

However, as argued herein, the expression of the Humanist goals should not be tilted towardthe negativism of the Anti-theists. In his essay Is Atheist a Humanist Value, R. JosephHoffmann, who serves as an advisor to the American Humanist Association's Kochhar HumanistEducation Center, writes,

Atheism does not make you good, in a practical sense, and by its very nature it doesnot make you wise. It may be a position against a certain kind of wisdom, traditionallyassociated with metaphysics, ontology and theology in favor of a strictly scientific,

falsifiable understanding of human reality as squeezed through the grate of naturalism.That is to say, atheism may be a specific category of skepticism applied to a specificobject (God). But in rejecting a very big idea like God, it must also reject a very bigmetaphysical idea like wisdom.

I believe Messrs. Seidman and Hoffmann offer some enlightenment that the HumanistMovement would do well to adopt. Through its diversity of principles regarding the humancondition as expressed in its Manifestos, but with a disproportional stress on the negative side

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of religion in its literature and its programs, together with a bias favoring the New Atheists, itseems that the Humanist philosophy, like the proverbial baby, may have been tossed out withthe proverbial bathwater.

Given these difficulties, your humble scrivener believes that the Humanist Movement may wantto address the ambiguities and the inherent contradictions in its message so as to distinguishitself from the American Atheists, the Brights, the Freethinkers, the American Ethical Union,even the Secular Humanists, and other related organizations. Plowing the same ground as

those entities that were created for the specific purpose of taking on the religious establishmentputs the Humanist Movement on the wrong path in my opinion, making it, in the long runperhaps, superfluous, or worse, irrelevant. The Humanist Movement should establish its ownunique identity.

The Moral Imperative of the Humanist Movement. By any measure, we humans have come along way since the dawn of civilization. But only in the last few hundred years or so have wecome to better understand our world, and indeed reality itself, through the application of reasonand the discipline of science. Yet, sadly, we have made very little progress in our capacity fortolerance, compassion, and fairness. It seems to me that this deficiency presents an opportunityfor the Humanist Movement.

If Humanism follows its implicit moral imperative of emancipating people from irrational dogmaof all kinds by helping to assuage the existential angst that goes with living in a complex anddiverse society, then it can facilitate an awareness of other, more rational, more ethical, morehumane possibilities. I see this battle for hearts and minds carried out not just in churches,mosques, and synagogues, but in our educational institutions, our economic systems, ourfamilies and communities, our courts, our legislatures, our health care systems, ourcommunication networks, our workplaces, and our liberal democracy.

Therefore, in respect of the foregoing, I believe the focus of the Humanist Movement should beon reason, compassion, ethics, justice, scientific inquiry, and the promise of human fulfillment inthe natural world. It should leave the attacks on religion to those groups created specifically forthat purpose the Anti-Theists and emphasize a need for the Humanist philosophy in all of

our social institutions. Humanists should strive to become unifiers, not dividers. Or, in the wordsof the late, great songwriter, Johnny Mercer: "Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative,latch on to the affirmative, and don't mess with Mister In-Between."

So, my challenge to the Humanist Movement is to put the human back in Humanism and in thedoing become the New Humanists. Then perhaps it can then move on to the more importanttask of helping to put the civil" back in civilization.

Kinder gentler

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putting the human back in humanism

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