Been a long time since my last post. I’m still a Secular Humanist and very concerned about the efforts of the religious right to impose their beliefs on all of us.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shermer ends his essay with:

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

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

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

By Jennifer Hancock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vir Narain, chairman of the Indian Humanist Union and editor of its quarterly journal, The Humanist Outlook, had a column published this week in the e-mail newsletter HumanistNetworkNews.org which is published by the Institute for Humanist Studies. The title made me whince. It was called Humanists and the Trap of Atheism. I knew from the start that I would not be happy with the article and I was right.

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.

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Now playing: Basia - More Fire than Flame
via FoxyTunes

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.

I have been an official Humanist for more than 10 years. To clarify I am a proud Secular Humanist. Secular because I am an Atheist and have no need for any religious type of traditions like going to “church”, singing hymns, or believing that God Talk can be a poetic metaphor. I’m past all of that.

Since the founding in 1999, iHumanism has been a source for those lone wolf Humanists who either can’t find others locally to meet up with or who refuse to join any kind of group. For that reason articles that have been posted here tended to be neutral or positive toward Humanism. I have tried to avoid any kind of inter-group politics.

Today that is going to change.

I have decided to add to the fabric of iHumanism and post my thoughts and ideas on what we call Modern Humanism. I will include the “dirty laundry” of the movement. For example I will write and comment on the political correction gone amuck within the national movement, the efforts of religious Humanists to silence the atheist side of Humanism, the conflicts between the various national groups, attempts to redefine or rename Humanism in an effort to dilute our message, and even the lack of knowledge of Humanism even by so-called Humanists..

I am a proud Secular Humanist, but I get distressed with the office politics involved within the movement of Humanism. I think it is important to stop the infighting and to sell our message in a united effort. There is room for many flavors of Humanism and each bring good ideas to the table.

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I am working now on a new version of the iHumanism website moving from a static website to more a blog based site. The focus will remain on Humanism.

by Doug Berger

In my last essay I described some of the basic assumptions of Humanism. In this edition I want to talk about one of the prime precepts of Humanism, and all of Freethought.

Critical thinking is THE most important tool we can use to evaluate truth and to work out human solutions to human problems. You would be surprised at the number of people who think they know what critical thinking means and either have it all wrong, or use it incorrectly. Critical thinking is not just having two or more sides to an issue or story. Critical thinking helps us construct and understand a reasoned argument. It also helps us discover false arguments. The question of if we like the conclusion of the argument we reach isn’t that important, only that the conclusion follows from the premise or starting point and whether that premise is true.

Carl Sagan, astronomer and astrobiologist, in his book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark” (1996), gives some tools to use in our critical thinking. He says these tools are a ‘baloney detection kit’. Although Sagan focuses on science arguments, we can use these tools, with slight adjustments, for other areas of our lives. The tools include:

• Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
• Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
• Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
• Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
• Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
• If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
• Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
• Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

Sagan also describes thinks we shouldn’t do when trying to use critical thinking. Your argument or reasoning will fail if you use these:

• ad hominem — Latin for “to the man,” attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously);
• Argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia — but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out);
• Argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn’t, society would be much more lawless and dangerous — perhaps even ungovernable.* Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives);
• Appeal to ignorance — the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist — and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we’re still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
• Special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don’t understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don’t understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion — to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long? Special plead: You don’t understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.)
• Begging the question, also called assuming the answer (e.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed? Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors — but is there any independent evidence for the causal role of “adjustment” and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?);
• Observational selection, also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses (e.g., A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers);
• Statistics of small numbers — a close relative of observational selection (e.g., “They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese. Yours truly.” Or: “I’ve thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can’t lose.”);
• Misunderstanding of the nature of statistics (e.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence);
• Inconsistency (e.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftily ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they’re not “proved.” Or: Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism. Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past);
• Non sequitur — Latin for “It doesn’t follow” (e.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was “Gott mit uns”). Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities;
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc — Latin for “It happened after, so it was caused by” (e.g., Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila: “I know of … a 26-year-old who looks 60 because she takes [contraceptive] pills.” Or: Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons);
• Excluded middle, or false dichotomy — considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities (e.g., “Sure, take his side; my husband’s perfect; I’m always wrong.” Or: “Either you love your country or you hate it.” Or: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”);
• Short-term vs. long-term — a subset of the excluded middle, but so important I’ve pulled it out for special attention (e.g., We can’t afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets. Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?);
• Slippery slope, related to excluded middle (e.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant. Or, conversely: If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, it will soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception);
• Confusion of correlation and causation (e.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay. Or: Andean earthquakes are correlated with closest approaches of the planet Uranus; therefore — despite the absence of any such correlation for the nearer, more massive planet Jupiter — the latter causes the former);

The boloney detection kit isn’t 100% perfect but when used correctly it can help us make reasoned decisions about many areas of our lives.

Part of this essay originally appeared in the July/August 2006 Central Ohio Humanist. Doug is the founder and editor of iHumanism, editor of the Central Ohio Humanist, and founder and editor of the Secular Left blog. ©2006 Doug Berger, used with permission. Please give proper attribution if using parts of this essay in other works.