Secular
From Philosopedia
SECULAR
SECULAR ALTERNATIVE
The Atheist League of Washington (POB 1785, Seattle, Washington 98111), at one time published Secular Alternative.
{FD}
SECULAR EDUCATION LEAGUE
The Secular Education League was formed in 1907 for the purpose of removing all teaching of religion from all state-funded schools in England. “After nearly a century,” laments Nicolas Walter, “its work still needs to be done.”
(See New Humanist, February 1996; and Frances Swiney)
SECULAR FAMILY NETWORK
Family Matters began with a winter 1997 issue and provided secular humanist resources and viewpoints for parents, children, and families.
SECULAR HUMANISM, A SURVEY OF
Variously called scientific, naturalistic, ethical, or even religious, the movement of secular humanism has succeeded in making an impact upon philosophic as well as religious thought. Although secular humanism draws its supporters from a variety of viewpoints, most secular humanists in order to attain the good life discard all dependence upon anything outside man himself.
They are content with life’s exciting uncertainties. Some like John Dewey have emphasized instrumentalism; some like Curtis W. Reese have incorporated Unitarianism; some like Corliss Lamont stress philosophic naturalism; some like Nobel Laureates Francis Crick, Murray Gell-Mann, Herbert Hauptman, André Lwoff, and Steven Weinberg emphasize the scientific method; some like Carl Sagan join astronomy with humanism; Paul Kurtz has coined eupraxophy, or “good practice and wisdom,” to describe the movement’s being ethical, philosophical, and scientific - few have found this of interest and many have derided his coinage.
In 1899, Charles Watts founded the Rationalist Press Association (RPA) in Great Britain, a group of agnostics whose goal was to “circulate Rationalist publications.” They defined rationalism as “the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a system of philosophy and ethics verifiable by experience and independent of all arbitrary assumption of authority.” The RPA has no doctrinal or philosophical tests, but its members usually reject a belief in God and immortality, are both secular and humanistic in their outlooks, and prefer the rationalist label.
In 1928 Jai Prithvi Bahadur Singh of Nepal founded a Humanistic Club, and in the following year traveled throughout Europe in order to encourage the setting up of other such club which, following the aftermath of World War I, he felt were needed to inspire intellectuals. Europe at the time had sunk into bankruptcy, and the resultant internal chaos had, he felt, plunged the intellectuals of the world into a state of shock. To resolve this “state of nightmare,” he proposed turning to humanistic principles and values that could improve the governance of the relationship between men and nations. He included among his humanistic tenets the following:
- • Instead of entering into unhealthy competition and dogmatic contradictions, humans should direct their behavior toward a path of reconciliation so that security, privileges, and prosperity can be insured through mutual understanding.
- • The general public needs an organization through which it can interact, exchange ideas, and solve common problems.
- • If the doctrine of self-security is based on humanitarian grounds, the path leading to a peaceful society will automatically open.
- • Whatever is done to destroy human civilization is, lamentably, a symbol of animalistic instinct.
- • Humanism is a philosophic outlook which human beings, creatures who are distinct from other animals, choose to observe as a duty and not as a religion.
Singh’s lecturing led to conferences in Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, Russia, France, Iceland, Italy, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and England, following which several humanistic clubs were founded. In the United States, the secular movement of humanism commenced just before the 1920s and greatly expanded in the 1930s when the philosophy of naturalistic humanism was nurtured in Unitarian societies in the Midwest, West, and East. Edwin H. Wilson in 1930 wrote in The New Humanist that adult education in England and the United States was evidence that what is now called secular humanism was beyond authoritarian church control.
Most Ethical Culture and some Universalist societies also helped publicize the beliefs. By 1933 the movement had become sufficiently popular and had gained enough adherents that a group of thirty-four philosophers and scholars formulated a “clarion call” for its wholehearted support. The document they agreed upon is known as A Humanist Manifesto, and it was signed, along with others, by Reese and Dewey. Over half the signers were or have been ministers of Unitarian, Universalist, and Ethical Culture societies. The manifesto appeared in the May-June, 1933, issue of New Humanist with a note by Raymond B. Bragg, editor, stating that it was a product of many minds, was designed to represent a developing point of view, and was not in any sense a new creed. Had the signatories written individual statements of belief, he added, they undoubtedly would have stated the propositions differently. He continued, “The importance of the document is that more than thirty men have come to general agreement on matters of final concern and that these men are undoubtedly representative of a larger number who are forging a new philosophy out of the materials of the modern world.”
Signers of Humanist Manifesto I included literary people such as Llewellyn Jones and Robert Morss Lovett. There were educators such as W. Frank Swift and V. T. Thayer. Journalists included Harry Elmer Barnes, William Floyd, and Albert C. Dieffenbach. An imposing group of philosophers was represented: John Dewey, Edwin A. Burtt, John Herman Randall Jr., Oliver L. Reiser, and Roy Wood Sellars. There were economists such as F. H. Hankins and scientists such as A. J. Carlson, Maynard Shipley, and Bernard Fantus. There was Rabbi Jacob J. Weinstein and such Unitarian and Universalist ministers as J.A.C. Fagginger Auer, E. Burdette Backus, Ernest Caldecott, A. Eustace Haydon, Harold P. Marley, R. Lester Mondale, Charles Francis Potter, and Edwin H. Wilson. Wilson, who was the guiding force behind the formulation of the manifesto and who became a particularly effective organizer for the American Humanist Association, edited its journal, The Humanist, and as a Unitarian minister was helpful in bringing together the religious as well as the naturalistic humanists.
Four years prior to the manifesto, Charles Francis Potter had founded a Humanist Society in New York City, the first “church” of its kind in the nation. It served as a precedent for the formation of other such organizations, which now are found nationwide. Potter replaced sermons by lectures. His society had no paid clergy, no creed, no prayers, and no baptisms. Wedding ceremonies were unique in that the bride and groom, rather than repeating a vow devised by someone else, composed their own. As to God and immortality, Potter and his group were agnostic. The purpose of the society was to provide a place where mature minds could meet and discuss an adult American religion, one “devoid of fairy-tales” about angels, demons, devils, or gods; one based upon a faith in man and a belief in man’s capabilities for improving individuals and society as a whole by the slow, steady improvement of human personality. Potter’s ultimate hope was that his church with its philosophy of humanism and its utilization of common sense and the scientific method would serve as a model for others, and that eventually all or at least the majority of churches would merge into a humanistic, not a supernaturalistic, union which could be imitated in other nations. John Dewey has been considered the unofficial dean of the movement, although he preferred the phrase “humanistic naturalism” to “naturalistic humanism.” His Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920) indicted metaphysics as “the product of an aristocratic and leisure class, the expression of a desire to escape into another world instead of facing the responsibilities of the here and now.”
Other early leaders whose books supported and outlined the meaning and purpose of this secular movement of humanism included James H. Leuba, a psychologist; Max C. Otto, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin; Julian S. Huxley; Bertrand Russell; and H. G. Wells.
George Santayana’s Genteel Tradition at Bay (1931) served as a powerful attack on the neo-humanism of Babbitt and Moore—his book strongly supported naturalism. He wrote that “the principle of morality is naturalistic. Call it humanism or not, only a morality frankly relative to man’s nature is worthy of man, being at once vital and rational, martial and generous; whereas absolutism smells of fustiness and faggots [burned sticks].” His The Life of Reason (1905–1906) explained that religion is not something to be taken as being literally true; it is merely symbolic and thoroughly human, it aims at the “life of reason,” but it largely fails in attaining it. As for the gods, fear created them; but this fear and the mythology that it produces only half deceives the thinker. What is needed, he insisted, is a paganizing of Christianity.
Walter Lippmann provided further support. In his A Preface to Morals (1931), he described how the “acids of modernity” have eaten away traditional theology with its beliefs in a personal God, Original Sin, and the resurrection of Jesus. Stating that there is nothing absolute in the morals as laid down by traditional theology, he asserted that the new naturalism which based its faith on reason considered morals as being common sense observations, that they are arrived at objectively rather than subjectively, and that they naturally conclude that love is good and hate is bad, that beauty is a quality above ugliness, and that pleasure is above pain.
Irwin Edman in his Four Ways of Philosophy (1937) wrote that the naturalist admits some religious impulse in man but “the supernaturalist insists that this impulse which nature generates cannot be satisfied by nature save as seen in a supernatural context. To which the naturalist retorts that nature generates some impulses, possibly, which cannot be satisfied, as a man may be hungry without proving thereby that food is in his neighborhood or his reach.”
To the growing number who wrote or spoke about naturalistic humanism, or joined the American Humanist Association, more and more new names appeared. Sherman D. Wakefield, husband of Robert Ingersoll’s granddaughter (Eva Ingersoll Wakefield), edited a monthly Progressive World, which was a more “folksy” journal than the American Humanist Association’s The Humanist
Other journals began, and at the end of the 20th century they included the following: Free Inquiry represented the secular humanism of the Council for Secular Humanism (formerly CODESH, the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism). At least thirteen humanist journals are published in The Netherlands, where an estimated 25% of the population are secular humanists. There is the Australian Humanist; the French Espace de Libertés; the English Ethical Record; the English Family of Humanists which publishes Sunrise Journal for youth up to 9 years and Starwalker for youth 9 to 15 years of age; the English Freethinker; the English Gay and Lesbian Humanist, a quarterly; the Swedish bi-monthly Human-Etiska Förbundet; the Belgian Het Vrije Woord; the Norwegian Humanist; the German Der Humanist; The Humanist in Canada; the English Humanist News; the Indian Humanist Outlook; the Israeli Humanist Review; the American Journal of Humanism and Ethical Religion; the English New Humanist; the New Zealand Humanist; The Scottish Humanist; the Israeli Secular Humanistic Judaism; the Indian Radical Humanist; the Indian Secularist; the Finnish Vapaa Ajattelija (Free Thinker); Bengali Monthly; the Telugu humanist monthly for Women’s Liberation Stree Swetcha; and Misimi, a Telugu monthly of humanist ideas; to name but a few.
In the 1980s, humanist groups were formed not only in Central America but also in South America. The apparent success of secular humanism, however, by the end of the 20th century had not been matched by its membership rolls. Although an estimated 25% in The Netherlands are humanists, fewer than 150,000 Americans subscribe to the various humanist publications. Philosophy professors as a group are not active members, choosing to avoid being “labeled.” But the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) and its journal, International Humanist News (47 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8SP, England) continued making valiant efforts to publicize the movement, believing that it represents the world’s “hope” in the 21st century. Entirely in disagreement are religious fundamentalists. In 1993, Merriam-Webster’s Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary finally included the following:
- secular humanism n (1933) : HUMANISM 3; esp : humanistic philosophy viewed as a nontheistic religion antagonistic to traditional religion secular humanist n or adj
In 1992, Houghton Mifflin’s American Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, had the following:
- secular humanism n. 1. An outlook or a philosophy that advocates human rather than religious values. 2. Secularism.
At the end of the 20th century, no major reference book cited humanistic naturalism, the term used by Kenneth L. Patton, John Dewey, James Gutmann, and Warren Allen Smith.
In 1996, Presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan was quoted at a rally of supporters in Des Moines, Iowa: “We see a cultural war going on for the soul of America. We see the God of the Bible expelled from our public schools and replaced by all the false gods of secular humanism. Easter is out, but we can celebrate Earth Day. We can now worship dirt.” (The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that secular humanism is not a religion. See the entries for Hugo L. Black and for teratology.)
SECULAR HUMANIST BULLETIN
The Secular Humanist Bulletin is an associate members’ quarterly newsletter of the Council for Secular Humanism.
SECULAR HUMANIST SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
The Secular Humanist Society of New York (SHSNY) was founded by Warren Allen Smith, who in 1990 entitled its newsletter Pique. The foundational meeting was held in Variety Recording Studio, 130 West 42nd Street, its first members being the studio’s co-owners Fernando Vargas and Smith. Honorary members secured by Smith were Isaac Asimov, Paul Cadmus, Arthur C. Clarke, Paul Edwards, Albert Ellis, Sidney Hook, Ring Lardner Jr., and Allen Walker Read. Pique he chose as its newsletter’s title in order to signal that as editor he wished to be an activist and stir up interest about the group’s objectives. Dennis Middlebrooks succeeded him as presiding officer. Although Smith and Middlebrooks left the group, the newsletter continues.
SECULAR HUMANISTIC JUDAISM
Secular Humanistic Judaism, a journal written in English, is a part of the International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews.
SECULAR HUMANISTIC MUSIC
See entry for Andrew Charles.
SECULAR JEWS
A number of Jews say they are agnostic or atheistic but are “secular Jews,” by which they identify with the Jewish religion of their ancestors but disbelieve in any supernatural deity. Journalist Nat Henthoff and biologist Sheldon F. Gottlieb both call themselves atheistic Jews. “I define myself,” Henthoff has explained when informed that it appears to be illogical to call oneself an atheistic Jew or an atheistic Catholic, “and it ain’t nobody’s business but my own.”
Meanwhile, others call themselves non-Jewish Jews, which appears to many to be analogous to calling oneself a non-Christian Christian, a non-Spanish Spaniard, or a non-African African. However, if one’s mother is Jewish, one is automatically Jewish according to strict Jewish theologians. Meanwhile, if one’s mother is a Congregationalist or an atheist, one is not automatically a Congregationalist or an atheist.
A 1969 reward of $19.69 offered by Jun Sczesnoczkawasm to any baby who, within two weeks of birth, verified that he or she was born a member of any religious group had - as of the end of 1999 - gone uncollected.
SECULAR JOURNAL
The stated purpose of Secular Journal, an online newsletter, is
- to provide a journal in conjunction with a communications network on a bilingual English/German basis (to be expanded into multilingual services as more cooperators offer their support and expertise). American English is being used since most continental European countries use it as a second language. The German language parts are accepted in the styles currently common in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Articles and essays reproduced here originate from various atheist, secular, and secular humanist publications. Original individual submissions are welcome, as long as they concern themselves with those, or closely associated subjects. No hate mail or pornography (including pictures) will be accepted or distributed, but sarcasm is welcome, within the limits of common decency.
SECULAR NATION
Secular Nation, the International Atheist Alliance Magazine was once edited by Howard Kreisner. Marie A. Castle and Anna Voss had been counselors. In 1996, however, it merged with The Freethought Observer at the same address and in 1997 Castle became its editor. Its current website and staff are found online.
SECULAR ORGANIZATIONS FOR SOBRIETY
Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), which was founded by James Christopher, is also known as Save Our Selves.
SECULAR WEB
The Secular Web is a product of Internet Infidels, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to providing information over the Internet about the existence of a god, church/state separation, the possibility of life after death, mysticism and the paranormal, and the interface between science and religion. Included are thousands of historical and contemporary articles. For example, one can find Joseph Mc Cabe’s Biographical Dictionary of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Freethinkers, can search for individual names or listings, and then can print the material. It is the largest site on the Web that is dedicated to the promotion of secular viewpoints, including agnosticism, atheism, freethought, humanism, and rationalism.
SECULARISM
As formulated in 1841 by G. J. Holyoake (1817–1906), secularism is a variety of utilitarian social ethic which seeks human improvement without reference to religion. It does so without reference to religion and turns exclusively to human reason, science, and social organization to solve problems.
It appeals partly as a protest against the dominance and control of human life by ecclesiastical bodies, or by religious faith and dogma which had its new birth at the Renaissance, according to Robert Worth Frank, who taught religion and ethics in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. According to Frank, the word is used derogatively by religionists because it leads to a “pursuit of specialized interests without any sense of the unity of life and which has initiated a crisis in the religious and cultural life of modern man.”
Holyoake, however, felt that “Secularist” had a positive meaning, one which indicated that the rejection of religion was accompanied by humanitarian feeling and endeavor. Thus, it was thought to be preferable to the words in current use: Atheist, Freethinker, Skeptic, Infidel.
In 1852, a conference of twenty-two secular societies convened in Manchester, and many of the groups built Halls of Science or schools. In 1858 Charles Bradlaugh succeeded Holyoake as president of the London Secular Society, and in 1866 he and Austin Holyoake founded the National Secular Society. Holyoake described his aims in the Origin and Nature of Secularism (1896). Other writers about the subject include Horace Kallen, author of Secularism is the Will of God (1954); and Edward Royle, author of Radicals, Secularists, and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (1980) and Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866 (1974).
One of the most outspoken contemporary critics of “secularism” was Pope John Paul II (1920 - 2005), who often uttered condemnations of secularist stands that differ from his own. “Resist secularism, free love, and the culture of death,” he warns, the last a term he uses instead of abortion.
SECULARIST, Indian Secular Society
Secularist is a bi-monthly in English of the Indian Secular Society.
