Secular Humanism
From Philosopedia
- The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, in its entry for American Philosophy, states,
- • No characteristically American school or style of philosophizing has developed, excepting one, namely pragmatism as originated by C. S. Peirce and popularized by Willliam James.
Secular Humanism:
- (1) Is it a philosophic movement; and
- (2) Do philosophy departments have courses about it?
- (1) No, it is not a movement.
- (2) Philosophy departments do teach the various philosophical movements, and mention is made by some that secular humanism is an outlook that advocates human rather than religious values.
However, two major dues-paying organizations espouse what they call secular humanism:
- It is a nation-wide group that favors Humanism as defined by the world body for Humanism, the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
- Its founder and chairman, Paul Kurtz, coined eupraxsophy, a term that refers to lifestances such as secular humanism and Confucianism that do not rely on belief in the transcendent or supernatural.
- The term never caught on in philosophic circles and, in fact, is a subject of derision both by many of its dues-paying members and also by many professional philosophers who are aware of it.
Critics of secular humanism claim it is an outlook that offers no eternal truths nor a relationship with the divine, that it is atheistic, that it leads to cynicism, that it has led to a break-down in America's moral structure. Religionists are quoted in the media as seeing secular humanism as a dangerous threat to the absolute values set out in texts such as the Bible and the Qur'an.
(See entry for Humanist.
