GPHumanismPresJReed.htm

I should start by acknowledging that some of you may be uncomfortable, or even offended by some of what I will be saying. Secular Humanism is about Free Thought and Doubt in the Supernatural, after all. To those who are uncomfortable I apologize for your discomfort, but not for speaking my honest beliefs, which is what I hope you would want me to do, letting the chips fall where they may.

One day, as I mentioned to Wanda, my wife, that I might want to make a presentation at a Sunday morning UU meeting sometime, just to lay out the humanist position, offering a kind of counterpoint to some of the other sermons we have had. Her calm response was, "Why on earth would you want to do that? I thought you retired to relax and enjoy life with good company."

You have to know how consistently supportive and softspoken she is to appreciate how amusing I found her reaction. It was as if she was trying to get my attention with a 2 X 4.

Undeterred, the moment Darlene suggested to me at one of our potluck lunches that maybe I should consider speaking some Sunday morning about the biologist/ author Richard Dawkins, I seized the opportunity. Dawkins is a brilliant, fascinating writer, a free-thinker, and a secular humanist; and, he is included among the prominent humanist advocates on the handout I will be sharing with you here. However, the topic of Humanism and its relevance to Unitarian - Universalism is much larger and predates him by centuries, as I hope to show.

A good basic orientation to humanism is provided by 10 key points stated by Corliss Lamont, one of the prominent modern leaders of the humanist movement (it has roots that go back hundreds of years).

Corliss Lamont, who lived from 1902 to 1995, is a 20th century American hero whose independent thinking challenged prevailing ideas in philosophy, economics, religion, patriotism, world peace and the exercise of our cherished civil liberties.

He was born to Wall Street wealth, yet he championed the cause of the working class, and for that he was derided as a "Socialist" and a "traitor to his class".

His Humanist belief that earthlings have evolved without supernatural intervention and are responsible for their own survival on this planet caused some to label him a "godless atheist", and Senator Joseph McCarthy to label him "un-American."

On the handout is my slightly abridged, briefer version of the 10 points of his definition. I think it is worth taking a few minutes to read these 10 points aloud:

1. Humanism views the universe as entirely governed by natural forces, a "constantly changing system of matter and energy . . . independent of any mind or consciousness." It views "all forms of the supernatural as myth."

2. Humanism views the human species as an entirely natural product of the evolutionary process. And, our minds are indivisible from our functioning brains and have no conscious survival in any form beyond death.

3. Humanism places its ultimate 'faith' in humankind, per se, and its ability to solve problems, relying on reason and the scientific method applied with courage and vision. (Note this and the next couple items are good examples of why it is termed "Humanism." The name is not intended to diminish the importance of other natural species, only imagined supernatural beings.)

5. Humanism grounds its ethics and morals in the human values of this earth, and holds as its highest goal the happiness, freedom and progress - economic, cultural, and ethical - of all humankind of all nations, races, religions, etc. (Note: not just for Americans. Incidentally, when I see a "God Bless America" bumpersticker I want a bumpersticker that says "Brahma Bless the Whole World".)

6. Humanism believes we individually attain the good life by harmoniously combining pursuit of our own satisfactions and self development with work and contributions to the welfare of the community.

7. Humanism believes in the widest possible development and awareness of art and beauty, manmade and natural, so that aesthetic experience is a pervasive reality for people.

8. Humanism pursues a far-reaching social program to promote democracy, peace, and a flourishing economic order to enable a world-wide high standard of living. (Note how items 6, 7, 8 and others imply morality, ethics, and aesthetics, a pervasive focus of interest in all the humanist literature, contrary to charges that are frequently, and incorrectly, made about secular humanists.)

9. Humanism believes in the use of reason and the scientific method, combined with democratic procedures, freedom, and civil liberties, throughout all areas of economic, political and cultural life.

10. Humanism adopts the scientific method, keeping open all assumptions and beliefs, including its own, to experimental testing, new findings and rigorous reasoning. It rejects dogma.

Humanism says that "people have just one life to lead and we should make the most of it in terms of creative work and happiness. And, that human happiness is its own justification and requires no sanction or support from supernatural source; (which) does not exist anyway."

Paul Kurtz is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York, founder and chairman of organizations which publish Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and Free Inquiry Magazine and he serves as editor-in-chief of the latter. He also founded a publishing firm, Prometheus Books to facilitate publication of more books by humanists, skeptics and others. And, he helped to establish Centers for Inquiry in several cities in the US and in other countries.

One good way to provide a taste of his contributions to the development of Humanism is to read a few items from "The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles" usually printed on an inside cover page of each issue of Free Inquiry. I'd like to read just a few examples from the list of affirmations - -

* We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.

* We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. .

Bertrand Russell was a well-known British Philosopher and mathematician. He was a prolific author, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. His views were often controversial: his pacifism earned him prison sentences in 1918 and 1961 and his views on sexuality were used to prevent him from becoming a Professor of Philosophy at City College of New York in the early 1940's.

Following are a few excerpts from a well known lecture he presented in 1927, entitled "Why I Am Not A Christian" (excerpted from an article in Free Inquiry, Wtr '97-'98):

"I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religions make men virtuous. So I am told: I have not noticed it. . . ."

. . . (But) "That is the idea - that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion."

He went on to say, "Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly on fear. . . . Fear is the basis of the whole thing - fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things."

And, then Russell pointed, as humanists do, to a promising alternative view. He said, "In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for some many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it. . . ."

And, there are many other very bright, freethinking, rational secular humanists, too many to go further with in this brief discussion. But, I hope these citations will provide definition and understanding of the secular humanist message. My handout provides some of the names of humanist authors, publications, websites, etc.

Both oppose dogma: UUs adhere to no creed; each member is expected to "finds his own path." We reject rigidly imposing any specific belief system on anyone. Similarly, Humanists embrace the Scientific method. So, they are open to considering any hypothesis, so long as it's understood that each rises or falls based on the strength of objective evidence alone, not on anyone's mere wishes or what "feels good".

Both Humanists and UUs ardently support democracy, and faith in humankind, but humanists (and humanistic UUs) add no faith in the unsubstantiated and supernatural.

Both have similar morals and ethics, such as acceptance and tolerance of others, and support to help them achieve their full potential, rather than heavy use of blame and guilt. I personally don't see any Humanist conflict with the seven UU principles so long as the term "spiritual growth" is interpreted fairly broadly.

Despite how it may seesults of many surveys done over the past fifty years were reported. It showed that the percentage of persons reporting "None" when asked what religion they affiliate with has gradually risen from about 3% to about 14% now. That would be about 40 million Americans now, a lot of folks.

In the second part of the article he went on to show that the net influx of converts (or backsliders, depending on your bias) to the "None" population is occurring from every religious subgroup (such as Catholic, Jewish, Fundamentalist Protestant, Moderate Protestant, etc.). On average the ratio is about three to one (3:1) converts to "Nones" vs converts back to a religious group. But the highest ratios are with Catholics (8:1) and Liberal Protestants (6:1). So, six times as many Liberal Protestants are converting to the None view as Nones converting back to Liberal Protestants.

Now, here's a question: Are UUs (A) getting and retaining their share of converts from other religious subgroups, or (B) are they part of the large source of converts leaving to join the Nones? Improving acceptance and support within UUism to Rational Humanists might be a good strategy to achieve A rather than B. The current number of UU members in the US is about 220,000 and growing at a rate of only about 1% per year, which is lower than the annual rate of growth of the US population. If UUs could attract just 1% of the Nones they would add 400,000 which would triple UU membership.

"The last time I was in Europe, I was told by two different sets of friends that we would be "going out to the church" for the evening. In both cases (one in Oban, Scotland, and the other in Cologne, Germany) the churches turned out to be religious institutions in façade only; both were former churches that had been gutted and turned into popular pubs and night clubs. Indeed, throughout much of Western Europe - with the unique exception of Ireland - churches are being turned into bars, discos, warehouses, and Laundromats. Not only is church attendance way down, but so is religious belief. Consider the following. . . "

* (In 1998) only 34 percent of West Germans, 31 percent of Belgians, 17% of French, 11 percent of Finns, and 6 percent of Danes attend church at least monthly.

* The percent of the population in the United Kingdom in 1900 which had attended Sunday School as children was 55 percent; in 2000 it was down to (just) 4 percent

The list goes on, but you get the picture. Secularization of society has already happened in Europe and is just beginning in the US. (The picture in Canada is kind of in between the US and Europe.)

So, I want to restate the question I raised above, but in a more forceful way, through the words of James Haught, the editor of the Charleston Gazette and a UU for 40 years, from an article reprinted in Free Inquiry (Fall, 2002). Here are some excerpts from his preface to the article:

"The largest identifiable body of agnostics in America is within the Unitarian Universalist Church, a traditional stronghold of freethinking. A 1987 survey found that only 3% of 'UUs' believed in the standard supernatural God of conventional religion. 28% called the word God "an irrelevant concept". More recently, in a 1997 survey of the denomination's 220,000

members, about half of respondents described themselves as hHe notes that despite these large numbers UU doubters end up sitting politely stifled while all imaginable religious views are expressed and tacitly supported. So, he says

"Doubters among Unitarians tend to gravitate to the church's adult discussion circles, (but many of them) . . . don't attend the main "worship" services, which replicate hymn - singing Protestant rituals. Or, if they attend, it's done partly like a family obligation, to avoid ruffling feathers among fellow members. . . . So you see, perhaps 100,000 . . . (members) . . . now feel marginalized within their own organization. They can't question the surrounding mysticism without seeming rude. I recently described this dilemma in an article for the official UU magazine, but it was rejected. . . . Knowing that many agnostic Unitarians also read Free Inquiry I want to share the essay that UUWorld wouldn't print. . . ."

"A great truth about our denomination rarely is mentioned . . . . (It) is that most UUs doubt the supernatural. We question the mystical, magical, miracle claims central to all other faiths: the pantheon of gods, devils, hells, saviors, angels, and the rest. In fact, disbelief is the foremost feature setting UU apart from conventional religions. UU is the only church that welcomes complete atheists as members.

". . . (Doubt) has been crucial (and central to Unitarianism) right from the start. The very word, Unitarian, conveys disbelief. While Christianity proclaims three invisible deities in the Trinity (and additional spirits such as Satan, the Virgin Mary, demons, saints, etc.), early Unitarians doubted that Jesus was a god, and said so. They were called anti-Trinitarians - doubters of the Trinity. Some pioneers, such as physician Michael Servetus, were put to death for it. . . ."

In America, renowned Unitarians were skeptics. Thomas Jefferson, (a supporter of Unitarians precisely because of their openness to disbelief, made numerous skeptical comments, including) "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." . . .

Haught continues with item after item exhibiting our lengthy Unitarian heritage of doubt, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson's comment, "Other world? There is no other world! Here or nowhere is the whole fact" and Haught concludes:

"Why does our denomination, rooted in doubt, never mention doubt - and even make standard-sounding appeals to God? Maybe it's because UU is so diversified. Questioning the supernatural might seem rude to members with New Age, Buddhist, Earth-centered, Christian, and other spiritual inclinations. . ."

"Well, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I think we agnostics should be allowed to express our honest views within our church. I'd like to penetrate the silence, but do it without injury.

"Every denomination provides fellowship, the nurturing "extended family" in which members share the joys and problems of their lives. In this regard, UU is no different from the rest.

"Every denomination advocates humanitarian social action to help the poor, the sick, the impaired, the old and others in need. In this regard, UU is no different from the rest.

So, to attract, hold, and expand UU membership the main opportunity (not open to other denominations) is to renew open discussion of free thought and doubt, in general, and Humanism in particular. How?

* Expand resources for sermons and religious education beyond the Bible and other religious texts. Adopt more scientific discipline in evaluating arguments.

* Anticipate the future: 40 million "Nones" now in the US, and the future is likely to be what is happening now in Europe (Bush won't be President forever).

Despite early rearing as a fundamentalist protestant, I came to the conclusion by the time I turned 20 years old that it makes no sense to believe a lot of what I was taught. For example, that a perfect, all - knowing, all - powerful, all - loving God would create us defectively and feel a need to punish us for eternity for turning out to be defective. There were many other glaring inconsistencies, and I found no help at all from the answer that God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

But it was not the insane incongruities that solely changed my views. It was that plus the realization, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, that much of the end result of self - righteous religiosity is feeling okay about brutalizing people with other views, plus the consistent opposition of the self - righteous to following through on the promise of scientific developments plus my personal finding that it's just not really all that scary to face life and the future without the religious mythology. Indeed, I find it a relief that when I die I will not be punished forever, and all my aches and pains and worries and concerns will also completely disappear. And, in the process, in the me

In fact, humanists, indeed atheists, turn out to be very focused on morals and morality, as you'll find when you start reading some of the references I've cited. So, I "lost my faith." -- -- And, found my brain.

("Losing one's faith" has always struck me as a peculiar expression, since it seems to mean losing one's ability to believe in things that are not supported by factual evidence. That doesn't seem like such a bad thing to lose; rather, I think that's a gain, i.e. gaining the ability to believe what is supported and not believe what is not supported and having the ability, and intellectual integrity, to know the difference.)

* I have great Disaffection for all things supernatural - (if it is supernatural, it's outside our realm of experience and we can believe anything we want about it)

* Remaining free of a Creed in UUism and of dogma in general (As I said at a meeting of the Humanist group in Ashland, 'the one thing I would be dogmatic about is that we should never adhere rigidly to any dogma')

* Potential for dramatic growth by doing more to attract some of the "Nones" (this is the only denomination that can offer to serve and include them without needing to 'convert' them.)

Humanists have demonstrated the utility of their approach in ethically addressing various contemporary issues, and they continue to do so in every issue of the publications I've listed, for example:

An excellent second example is the behavior therapy approach developed by Albert Ellis, called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) covering a wide spectrum of behavior change needs. Just one spin off of this approach is the SMART group therapy approach that has been developed as an extremely effective alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous, and differs in several interesting ways, including helping people to manage themselves rather than relying on an imaginary higher power. (This is a major topic of interest that would make an excellent presentation at a UU meeting in the future.)

Humanists realize that we, as individuals alone, cannot solve all our problems, but instead of turning to the supernatural we can help each other. We believe that problems are solved by people working together, relying on understanding and creativity.

So, in that spirit, instead of singing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" let's see how good we can do singing "Lean on me". After that, as time allows we'll have Q and A.