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Humanism (belief system)

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Part of the Politics series on
Humanism

Humanism (belief system)
Secular humanism
Religious humanism
Christian humanism
Humanistic Judaism
Posthumanism
Neo-humanism
Transhumanism
List of humanists
History of humanism
Renaissance humanism
Humanism in Germany
Humanism in France
Humanist Manifesto
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This article discusses Humanism as a non-theistic belief system (the term preferred by most Humanists is "life stance"). For other uses of the term "humanism", please see Humanism.
Humanism is a comprehensive lifestance that upholds human reason, ethics, and justice, and rejects supernaturalism, pseudo science and superstition. This article uses the words Humanism and Humanist (with a capital 'H' and no adjective such as "secular"[link]) to refer the lifestance and its adherents, and humanism (with a small 'h') to refer to other related movements or philosophies. While this convention is not universal among all Humanists, it is used by a significant number of them, and for purposes of this article, helps distinguish between Humanism as a lifestance and other forms of humanism.

Humanism has appeal to atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, empiricists, rationalists, and sceptics. Humanism is non-theistic and secular [link], and shares many beliefs with secular humanism.

In the UK [link] and Australia [link] [link], around 15% of the population specifies "No Religion" in the national census. The figure in the USA is roughly 13% [link].

"No religion", as well as Humanists, typically includes atheists, agnostics, rationalists and those that just state no religion with no further definition. Some that are non-religious may use the latter category, or simply not respond to the census question at all. This is generally in line with non-theistic and secular beliefs worldwide - see world religion article.

Those that call themselves Humanists are a relative minority -- numbering between three and five million people worldwide in 31 countries [link] [link], the majority of whom are in the Third World.

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is the world-wide umbrella organization for those adhering to the Humanist life stance. It represents the views of over three million Humanists organized in over 100 national organizations in 30 countries. [link] [link] There are also some more regional groups not belonging to the IHEU, such as the [European Humanist Federation] and the [humanist subgroup] of the Unitarian Universalist Association which adhere to variants of the Humanist life stance.

The Happy Human is the official symbol of IHEU as well as being regarded a universally recognised symbol for those that call themselves Humanists (as opposed to "humanists")

Contents

IHEU's Minimum Statement on Humanism

All member organisations of the IHEU are required by IHEU bylaw 5.1 to accept [link] the IHEU Minimum Statement on Humanism:

"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 stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.''

Amsterdam Declaration 2002

In 2002 the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) General Assembly unanimously adopted the Amsterdam Declaration 2002 which represents the official defining statement of World Humanism for Humanists.

This declaration makes exclusive use of capitalized Humanist and Humanism, which is consistent with IHEU's general practice and recommendations for promoting a unified Humanist identity. [#endnote_Webbs] To further promote Humanist identity, these words are also free of any adjectives, as recommended by prominent members of IHEU. [#endnote_Blackham] Such usage is not universal among IHEU member organizations, though most of them do observe these conventions.

Apart from the need to ensure that member organisations are bona fide Humanist (or like-minded) organisations, Humanism rejects dogma, and imposes no creed upon its adherents [link].

Humanist identity

To promote and unify Humanist identity, prominent members of the IHEU have endorsed the following statements on Humanist identity[#endnote_Blackham]:

Capitalization of Humanist is the normal usage within IHEU, and is recommended usage for member organisations, though some member organisations do not follow the IHEU recommendation. For example, the Council for Secular Humanism continues to use a lowercase h, and the adjective secular.

Other widely recognised documents

Two other widely accepted general doctrines of Humanism are set forth in the Humanist Manifesto [link] and A Secular Humanist Declaration [link].

Official days of celebration

Humanists do not celebrate official religiously-based public holidays such as Christmas, Ramadan or Easter.

Instead, the IHEU endorses World Humanist Day (June 21), Darwin Day (February 12), Human Rights Day (December 10) and HumanLight (December 23) as official days of Humanist celebration, though none are yet a public holiday.

Many Humanists also celebrate the winter solstice and the summer solstice.

Humanism today

While Humanist organizations are found in all parts of the world, one of the largest Humanist organisation in the world (relative to population) is Norway's Human-Etisk Forbund [link], which had over 69,000 members out of a population of around 4.6 million in 2004 [link]. This popularity is partly attributable to a unique set of Church-State relations.

In certain areas of the world, Humanism finds itself in conflict with religious fundamentalism, especially over the issue of the separation of church and state. Many Humanists tend to see religions as superstitious, repressive and closed minded, while religious fundamentalists may see Humanism as a threat to the values they say are set out in religious texts, such as the Bible and the Qur'an.

Atheists, rationalists and agnostics are generally seen as supporters of Humanism, though they may not always be - either through ignorance of it, apathy or even disagreement with some of its tenets.

Modern and historical references

The endorsement of the capilization of the word "Humanism" (and the dropping of any adjective such a "secular") is quite recent. The American Humanist Association began to adopt this view in 1973, and the IHEU formally endorsed this view in 1989.

Census information

Regarding the category of religion, many national censuses contentiously define Humanism as a further sub-category of the sub-category "No Religion", which typcially includes atheist, rationalist and agnostic beliefs.

Strictly speaking, these are non-theistic beliefs. As such they could be sub-categories of religion only if - in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on freedom of religion and beliefs - the main category of "Religion" means "Religion and (any) belief system".

International law

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights endorses international human rights for Freedom of Religion and Belief.

In international law the freedom of religion and belief is also protected by Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This protection extends to those professing belief in no religion which includes Humanist, Atheist, Rationalist and Agnostic beliefs.

Also relevant are the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC), the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (aka Religion Declaration) and the International Labour Organisation Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention 1958.

Thus the question of whether or not Humanism is a religion is no longer so relevant, as it is clearly a belief system (or "life stance", the term preferred by the IHEU) and is now protected by the same international laws that protect freedom of religion, or other non-theistic beliefs (including the right to have no beliefs).

Notable Humanists

(See List of humanists for more)

Notable Humanists include:

Humanist manifestos and declarations

References

See also

Humanist and related organizations

Related philosophies

Other

Footnote

  1. ↑  in Harvard Magazine December 2005 p 33.

External links

Wikibooks

 

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