9. HUMANISM: DON'T CALL IT A RELIGION?

When I was about 14, I ran with a bunch of boys some of whom were older than I, and we committed a lot of actions which I am not proud to recall. Vandalism was usual when we were bored.

In particular, there was one occasion on which the gang sent a barrage of rocks through the stained glass window of a Methodist Church.

Since we were all victims of repressive Protestant religion, I think the choice of target may well have been intentional -- at least on a subconscious level. We felt hostile to religion and so we got it out of our system by destroying a church window.

Now I'm an adult, and I have long since left behind all those feelings of hostility to religious institutions. And when I see adults over-reacting to the word, "religion," I'm inclined to say to myself: It's too bad they didn't throw a few rocks when they were in their teen years, to get it out of their system.

"Religion" is a word with so many meanings that you can pretty much choose it to mean what you wish. Professor James Leuba, one of the builders of the American Humanist movement in the early years of this century, assembled a list of fifty distinct definitions of religion, every one of them valid according to the criteria of scholarship in his field, the study of religion.

To get back to basics, then, let us look at the root meaning of the word, "religion." It derives from Latin ligare, which means "to bind." Religion is that which binds.

Supernaturalists believe that the binding connects them to a God beyond the realm of nature. In America, most religion is supernatural.

On a worldwide scale, however, most people probably adhere to religions which do not imply the existence of a supernatural god. Yet they are still religions.

They are religions because the people are bound together. The essential point of "religion" is not the "god." It's the "binding."

A certain set of functions is performed by a religion. It supplies a cosmology, a framework of ethics and a criterion of evaluation of behavior, and it explains the existence of evil in the face of justice.

Humanism's cosmology is that of natural science. Its ethical framework is also clear and well-defined: with Protagoras, Humanists avow that "Human beings are the measure," and with John Dewey that good and evil are known by experience -- breaking with the traditional Judeo-Christian view of deriving ethics, deduced from supposed supernatural revelation.

In the realm of "theodicy," Humanism is less well developed. Why do bad things happen to good people? In 1755, Voltaire and other freethinkers wrestled with the tragedy of earthquake deaths in Lisbon. Today, Humanists and others must ask: why do evils of war, famine, overpopulation and AIDS exist? Humanists are unsatisfied with the trite fundamentalist response: "the devil does it."

In a response to Art Jackson in HC,AHA NEWS, Tom Ferrick says, "Religion implies something beyond reason and the empirical order, a mysterium tremendum, or at least the vague transcendence of Unitarian Universalists. It calls for faith, for belief, for a leap beyond reason. Humanism makes no such recommendation."

But he misses the point. Humanism does indeed go beyond reason. If it did not, we would be rationalists rather than Humanists. We could join the American Rationalists and would no longer need the American Humanist Association.

As Humanists, we do go beyond reason. We make allegations which are statements of faith. Examples are:

"Human beings matter."
"No deity will save us."
"We shall save ourselves."
"The world can be better than it is."
"Human beings are perfectible, with no perceptible limits, by their own efforts." (Charles Francis Potter)
"Human survival is desirable."

Regrettably, the word, "religion," carries an emotional burden of pollution which repels people more than it attracts. Therefore, even if Humanism is "a religion" in that it satisfies most of the criteria of a religion as described above, it is best to abandon the term.

Let us be clear, however, that Humanism does indeed function as a religion. It is very appropriate that Humanists be acknowledged by the state as equivalent to priests and rabbis in their ability to witness weddings and to conduct memorial services.

Addressing Tom Ferrick, Art Jackson refers slightingly to Islam, Judaism and Christianity as "irrational." This is unfair. Each of them incorporates rational and irrational elements as does Humanism. If rationality were the test of a "good" religion, then the Jesuits would take priority over most of Humanism.

Humanism differs from those religions mostly because of two essential points: one in epistemology, the other in ethics. Note that the existence or nonexistence of the gods is not involved.

The epistemological point is this: Humanists give priority to the empirical method -- relying on sense-evidence -- when in search of new knowledge. Methods of faith, reason and intuition are all relegated to roles subsidiary to reliance on sense evidence.

The ethical point is this: We, Humanists, don't know of anything in the universe higher in value to us than the human good. Therefore we measure all actions by their consequences for human beings.

Both of these points are sharp departures from the Judaic and Christian traditions. The founders of organized American Humanism knew this, and recognized that Humanism is not merely a reform of religion -- it is radical, a clean break with old religion, just as the Baha'i faith, a genuinely new religion, was a clean break from Islam.

Whether we choose to use the word "religion" or not, let us be clear that we are the builders of something revolutionary and utterly new: the "religion" -- or "successor to religion" -- of the next century.

Frank, you have written a very important article and make a significant contribution to the question, "Is Humanism a religion?" Unfortunately, you make an incorrect assumption and are led to the wrong conclusion; i.e., "...the word 'religion' carries an emotional burden of pollution which repels people more than it attracts ... therefore ... it is best to abandon the term."

The reality is that religion attracts far more people than it repels. More significant, if we try to build a movement on those who are repelled by the word religion we will find ourselves to be (and remain) a struggling group of 3,000 - 10,000 members who help fuel fundamentalist repression such as practiced by the "Moral Majority" and are helpless to change the world for the better.

On the other hand, if we think because Humanism is a religion, we must pattern our structures after non-humanist religions, we might spawn a movement of 5,000 - 150,000 members who build their own little ruts that make more joyful the life of a few more people, but has no greater impact on society and the world in general.

Either of these approaches are inadequate and do not utilize the humanist potential. The real need is to generate a modern religion that serves the social need of binding society together while at the same time radically impacting society so as to improve the life of every human being and to instill them with hope in their own lives and the future of the human species.

Only when this happens will current non-humanist religions disappear from social relevance.

However, Humanism will not rise to its potential until we (as an organization) see clearly why we are relevant, and what we have to offer the world. But, even if we all were in total agreement on the goal of developing AHA into a structure that would provide binding force in society which is now provided by non-humanist religions, it would still not be clear how we should proceed. This is the issue which needs the attention of our most creative and best thinkers.

Thanks for adding to this important debate. May others be stimulated to participate.

In Frank Mortyn's article, HUMANISM: DON'T CALL IT A RELIGION? printed in the January HUMANIST COMMUNITY NEWS he expressed several points that deserve a response. Frank raised the issue, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Probably the best Humanist response is, "Why not?" Being good has very little to do with how persons are treated by the Universe.

However, there is a little more to the story for a Humanist. The answer is tied in very closely to Socrates' statement, "There is only one good, knowledge. One evil, ignorance.

If bad things happen to us it is because of our lack of knowledge. If we starve, being good or bad has little to do with it (except that bad people probably starve less frequently than good people.) If we suffer heinous diseases it is because of society's failure to research and find cures, or, perhaps, our ignorance in not knowing the difference between Christian Science and medicine. It has nothing to do with whether or not we have been good or bad.

If we hurt each other because of the way we behave, it is because of our ignorance. Either we were too ignorant to want to avoid hurting someone else, or because we lacked the knowledge as to how to avoid it.

One of the first tenets of Humanist dogma is, "Spend your life gathering and assimilating information in order to achieve knowledge." And, the goal of having knowledge is to improve the quality of our own life and the lives of every other human being.

Frank, also, expresses the position that the religion of the Jesuits is more rational than the religion of Humanists.

ISSUE: Is Humanism just as irrational as non-humanist religions? Specifically, are Jesuits more rational than Humanists? I must say, "No!" to both of these questions.

Why? Although it is important to admit that not all Humanists are equally rational, still when main-line Humanists are asking questions and exploring issues, it is to get at truth. When they are functioning as Humanists, they do not have an unchangeable, a priori position on the matter they are exploring. Their basic assumptions are open to question and are based on the best thinking currently available. They examine all areas of human knowledge. They check to see if they are being swayed by emotion.

When Jesuit's ask questions the purpose is to build barriers around their basic assumptions, since these cannot be changed. Their prime basic assumption is that there is a God. This assumption is totally irrational. There is no way a rational person, using rational processes could start with this assumption, today. The most that a rational person might say is, "I feel the need for such a concept so will take a leap of faith and act as though it is correct." Or, "I can define God as love, or human aspiration, or the ground of all being, or the sum total of all of nature, or some such way. Then surely the word has meaning."

But, for a Jesuit it is not enough to assume that God exists, they must also assume that God has something to do with Jesus of Nazareth. That is a tall order since Jesus of Nazareth probably also never existed!

Then they must assume that Jesus of Nazareth had something to do with the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. This piling of one incorrect, irrational assumption on top of another incorrect, irrational assumption which characterizes Jesuits, must lead us to reject the position that their religion is more rational than Humanism.

We can in no way say that they have a religion based on reason though they may be very reasonable persons as long as you do not raise any issue more fundamental than the infallibility of the Pope, whether there can be an un-moved mover, or whether a thing must be either white or the opposite. If you want to discuss abortions, sexism in society (and the Church), the role of sex in a healthy society, etc. you would not find the "rational religion of the Jesuits " of much value.

Therefore, it is my conclusion that Humanism is not just as irrational as non-humanist religions, nor are Jesuits more rational than Humanists.

Frank Mortyn wrote an interesting piece. But, it is flawed with error, though it has some sound reasoning.

First, his etymological definition of religion is mistaken. He correctly states it derives from the Latin, and from ligare, and that ligare means "bind" -- more precisely, "tie together, bind together." ... He wholly overlooks "re," the first element of "religion." "Re" is also from the Latin, and means "backward," "again," "back," "behind" ....

Second, he does something more important philosophically. He overlooks multi-meanings, ambiguities, ranges of application. Humanism has been and is many things in human culture and communication of ideas -- not just one thing. It can be a religion for those holding it as such. It can be any one of a family of philosophical viewpoints, from Roman Catholic Christian to Marxist Communist.

Organizationally the humanism of the AHA was explicitly stated to be religious in the important edifice founding the movement, "HUMANIST MANIFESTO I." Stated to be such not once but several times.

For this reason, if we are to have any sort of needed clarity of concept we should use some sort of expression as "AHA Humanism," at least, to distinguish us from such others as "Christian Humanism." But even here, we must, if accurate, recognize that AHA Humanism has been made ambiguous as to what it is because of a fundamental feature of human beings, diversification, differentness. Men/women just won't stay in neat pigeon holes. They break out and "do their own thing." Members of the AHA have from the beginning divided into those objecting to and refusing to consider the movement religious, and those feeling religious about it and making it into their religion. They have just as much right to a religion without God/gods and based on human insights as followers of Taoism, Zen Buddhism, or Comte's Religion of Humanity.

Mortyn stumbles again over theodicy, saying Humanism fails to account for "bad things happening to good people" ... Humanism, if you mean by that, as I do, "scientific, naturalistic, rationalist humanism," has THE answer: Since nature has no human values in its indifferent eternal processes, it knows no bad/good. Events simply occur. Good things happen to good people (things they evaluated as good) bad things likewise. There is no cosmic reason for either one. The answer is straightforward and complete. All the good we really can count on is the good we show one another. Hence the crucial importance of human caring/compassion and love. There is no cosmic "why."

Mortyn's list of what he calls "statements of faith" is misguided, though helpful for its suggestiveness. "People matter" is not a statement of faith; it is a kind of inference from implied meanings of "to matter," and of the ascertainable relative relational values of human beings compared with all other things -- from the point of view of human beings. Indeed, it

is a decision statement rather than a faith statement. Humans have decided that humans "matter." They (we) would like to suppose that we "matter" to the cosmos. But we don't. Since we think the most complexly of all living earth beings, and since "mattering" is a thought, it follows tautologically that we "matter," to ourselves. Truth is, though, we do matter, in the sense that what we do affects not only our own lives, but the lives of humans all around us, and of animals and other life forms we destroy -- or, sometimes, work to preserve.

"No deity will save us," is not a faith statement. It is a conclusion of millennia of human experience, coupled with careful reasoning. Earthquakes come; no god stops them; etc, and no God/god will reach out a saving hand to grasp nuclear bombs and stop them falling to burn up all civilization. This is simply, as pointed out already, an extrapolation from experiential knowledge. It is not a matter of faith.

"We shall save ourselves," is not a statement of faith -- except to the gullible. It is pious hope, a piece of irrational nonsense. Whether or not we actually shall save ourselves is unknown. That humans might save themselves, that they have to save themselves if they are to be saved, are rational statements. As such they are simply inferences from analysis of the existential situation of humankind.

The other so called "faith statements" can be similarly analyzed.

Mortyn stumbles again, not this time from error, but from incompleteness, when he declares Humanism relies epistemologically on sense-evidence, in search for new knowledge. Sense-evidence without the "non-sense activity" of mental action interpreting the evidence is a chaos of the meaningless. A borderline mental defective with IQ ranging from 4 to 7 years of normal, can have all the sense acuity of an Einstein; how much meaning can he/she have from what enters sight, hearing, touch etc.? Einstein's work was largely based on rational mathematical analyses of implicatory theoretical consequences of certain hypotheses about aspects/elements of the universe. He did practically no laboratory/experimental work. Was he not a humanist? of highest rank? I could go on and on with examples and reasons to show that the epistemology of Humanism is not just crude sense-experiencing, but thoughtful readers would be able to think up their own.

Mortyn's last point, about Humanistic ethics being grounded in consequentialist considerations as respects human beings, is sound. It is almost tautological. Even consideration from the lower animals, and for earth life as a whole, circles round to two ultimately human considerations: Benefits/harm (in the long run) to human beings; and spiritual appreciative valuations by humans of some things seen as having worth in themselves -- relative to human conceptions of value/worth within the context of life on the planet earth, for some uncertain billions of years.

Some Humanists say that the discussion about whether or not Humanism is a religion is a semantic one. They point out that there are many meanings for the word religion. By some definitions Humanism is a religion, but by the definitions understood by the general public Humanism would not be a religion. Therefore, to call it a religion confuses the issue so we should not do so.

This line of reasoning has a fetching simplicity. Unfortunately, it misses the point. Religion has far deeper and more relevant meanings than those considered by the general public. The essential part of this debate has nothing to do with semantics.

First and foremost religion has a legal meaning which is practical in impact and cannot be discarded by the serious Humanist. Of course this legal meaning is based on the fact that religion has a psychological, sociological, and anthropological meaning.

Before elaborating on the psychological, sociological and anthropological aspects of religion, I want to address the issue of organization because this is what confuses many people when they think about the meaning of the word religion. They think of the style of architecture of churches, the Sunday morning sermon, the "Bible," the minister and the other authoritarian structures of Christianity, and think that if Humanism is a religion then it would be structured like this. It is critical that we realize that a Humanist religion must have Humanist organization.

A Humanist religion must be based on the goals and assumptions of Humanist philosophy. It must be structured to achieve Humanist goals. One of the most basic assumptions of Humanism is the idea that each person is of prime value. Their full growth and maturity is what we should strive for. Each person deserves maximum opportunity to be creative, productive, to live joyfully, enthusiastically, fully alive!

A Humanist religion should, first and foremost encourage its members to function at the highest possible level. It should strive to help members fully integrate their intellectual and emotional sides, to develop their knowledge and skills so as to benefit themselves and society to the fullest degree. It should work to focus growth and development so as to utilize and promote all the positive/constructive talents and interest of which human beings are capable.

Admittedly, to build such structures will be difficult. Many will say it is impossible. Others will say even if it were possible it is undesirable. However, my position is that such structures are necessary and if they are to be built, it will only be done with supreme effort. It will not be done by those whose only focus is on weaknesses and flaws and who have no interest in helping make corrections/improvements.

Let us now consider the psychological, sociological, anthropological aspects of religion. Psychologically religion answers the question, "What is the meaning of life?" When it works it helps the person live an integrated, positive, useful life. Humanism answers this question. It says that the meaning of life comes out of personal fulfillment, out of loving, caring connections with other people, with being a constructive, useful part of society.

Sociologically, religion is the glue that holds a society together and allows that society to function as a unity without too much destructive, a-social, non-productive behavior. Humanism has this aspect. It provides the vision of a united society, functioning to protect and develop each individual and utilizing their talents and abilities to further the lives of all, "All for one and one for all."

Anthropologically, religion is the common thread of "looking beyond" that occurs in all societies and helps to delineate what it means to be a human being: the striving for eternity, the reaching for infinity, the defining the undefinable, the desire for unity, for a feeling that we "belong" in the universe. Humanism does these things. We are connected with eternity by our actions and achievements, by our very atoms molded in the crucible of the stars. We reach for infinity by sharing in the quest for knowledge and understanding, by our desire to learn, to help others learn, to reach ever deeper into the mysteries of the universe. We define the undefinable through our poetry and music, through our ability to love and be loved, to glory at the sight of a waterfall, the smell of a flower, the gurgles of a new born child.

To me it seems clear that the issue isn't whether or not some choose to define Humanism as a religion. Rather, Humanism is a religion because it is a unified and unifying way of seeing the world. It is congruent with the modern world, congruent with the knowledge of science and the striving of poets, the desire for adventure of the astronauts, the need for love/physical affection of all human beings.

The challenge of all who see the vision is to pick up the baton and carry it to the next generation. To start the difficult process of building, knowing that most of our efforts will be misdirected and unproductive -- except that they will help those who come after avoid some pitfalls and build more successfully and more effectively.

For all these reasons it seems to me that this debate cannot be answered by explaining it to be a semantic issue. The matter is far deeper than that. At its heart it focuses on the issue of whether Humanism's only goal is to combat error and falsehood and be part of a basic set of ideas and values that are generally accepted by society; or, whether Humanism's goal is to develop the means to help ever increasing numbers of people achieve their deepest yearnings, bind together this post-industrial, technological world and lead humanity to the stars! The choice we make is not a trivial one. The future of the species may depend upon it!

Humanism represents the closest approximation to Truth that can be achieved at a given point in time. It changes as our knowledge and understanding change. The Humanism of today may in some elements be the phlogiston theory of tomorrow, totally wrong, but an important stepping stone for moving toward a more accurate understanding of reality.

This means Humanism is always being examined, revised, perfected. No formulation is the final one, though our foundation ideas such as the importance of the individual person and the necessity of questioning, examining, exploration seem unlikely to be altered.

When any issue is discussed by Humanists there are two critical points we must keep in mind:

1. There are no Humanist gurus who have all the answers, no written book we can go to and find everything made clear. The wisest human has only a small part of Truth. In the game of life we are all novices.

2. We are all both students and teachers in determining what Humanism means in its total implication, application and focus. Even the most confused person can be of value in helping us perfect our ideas and in some cases providing insights critical to the advancement of understanding.

Most of us have been indoctrinated into a non-humanist value system. If not explicitly, by family than implicitly by friends, newspapers, movies, etc. Therefore, we come to our Humanism as the bladder fish comes onto the land -- a giant evolutionary step forward has been made, but the journey ahead is still long and filled with many chances for wrong choices.

We have all kinds of wrong ideas, misinformation, poorly thought through positions, lack of self awareness, incongruities between our philosophy and our actions. We may still be using modes of behavior from our earlier conditioning. We may think our ideas are us; that to change them would be a threat to our identity. The Humanist position would be that growing, maturing, advancing in understanding, accepting the best ideas available, giving up old ideas when new ones are better will make us better people who can live a better life.

When examining an idea the goal is not to determine who is right and who is wrong, but use the opportunity to delve ever deeper into our positions and see how we can improve and integrate them.

We may do that by seeing the error in our position and that another one is better. This may happen as we confront some of our assumptions and realize that they are part of a philosophy which we have discarded and should have discarded also along with it. Or, best of all we may help each other see a whole new position that neither of us would have arrived at left on our own.

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