Ethical Culture Society.

Now I'm a member of a UU Fellowship.

Thanks for this!

that was a member of that org. He was a history prof and studied at the U. of Chicago.

Met him at a UU Fellowship.

Thanks again!

I don’t get it. Religion, almost by definition, subjugates humanity to some deity and, of course, its self-professed oracles.

Humanists/Humanitarians do good deeds for others, for animals, and for the planet out of the goodness of our hearts, not out of a need for public accolades, by command of Zeus, or in trade for entry through the pearly gates.

It isn’t that “we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate,” it’s that we recognize religion for what it is - all the good it has done, and all the evil it has done - and we choose not to turn a blind eye just because there is a New and Improved, Revised Religion 3.0.

The lyrics are periodically updated and revised as needed, but religion is essentially the same song it has always been: “We aren’t the Crusades, the witch burnings, or slavery; and we aren’t the thousands upon thousands of child molestations and rapes by clergy, the cover-ups that followed, or the gaudy wealth we fought to keep from the victims. We are love, loaves, and fishes . . . just like the average humanist.”

No sane humanist would ever be comfortable with such a forced marriage.

History is full of them.
The term religion is used for lots of philosophy. Take many of the Eastern "religions".
Black and white thinking gets in the way of reality. It's all gray.

Nor do atheists pat themselves on the back when a secular society forces them to do the right thing. For ALL humanists, slavery is evil, rape is evil, genocide is evil . . . Yes, black and white. Add religion, and suddenly it's all a gray "way of thinking." The whole point of calling it "religious humanism" is to soft pedal the RELIGION, thereby yet again whitewashing its past with a simple "Yea, that, but look at us now."

Take a look at TFG and his clone Pootie. I don't think they buy a god thing. About as close as an anti-theist as two people can get. They have no empathy for other humans, as a Humanist would and no fear of a make believe hell as a theist might.
You may want to go back and read the Manifesto. I don't see any of that. It speaks to the basic humanity shared by almost every culture, religious or not. Humanism put humans before gods, that's the point. I think you miss the point and get tied up in hate, just like a religion might teach to attack the "other". Open your mind and read and study some comparative religion classes. Then take some time to look at Zen and Lao Tzu and tell me about what they think and teach.

Anyway, good luck with the journey.

The first line of your OP is "FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created."

You confuse my outrage with hate. Spend countless hours over the years with the victims of clergy sex abuse (not just Catholics), watching their lives unravel as the "church" and its congregations move on to the next hymnal, and maybe you'll ask yourself just how much more we need to study yet another religion before we accept that evil, even when cloaked in religion, is evil. Others may equate my hate of child rape with religion-based hate of homosexuals but I distinguish the two.

Not everyone considers Zen or Jainism religions, in no small part because they are non-theistic. Ask an evangelical, ANY evangelical, about putting humans before god, and I suspect you'll find yourself wanting to clearly distinguish religion . . . and humanism.

I suspect you and I agree on more than we disagree. I am very sorry that my response took a post with a presumptively positive intent down this path.

Please be well.

-Onebro

Isn't that the essence of non-religious thought?
Of course you can bring out example of evil and disregard those mid-19th Century that brought about the end of slavery, like the Quakers and others. Oh, that doesn't count. Even the Catholic Church has the Franciscans that have done great things for the poor. Look up St.Francis and St.Clair and their devotion to the poor and animals, not perfect, if that is what you are looking for.
Now lets blame some famous Atheists and tie them to all Atheists. Start with Ho Chi Minh who killed 3.5 million. You must love that Atheists Joseph Stalin, deaths, 10-20 million. By the way Hitler was an Atheist that used the RCC, because he could. He was not a devout Catholic. He was a cynical Darwinist Atheist who banned Christianity after using state of the art technology to efficiently kill thousands of Catholic priest and the head of the Lutheran Church.

I think most would consider Jainism a religion. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching a book of philosophy that became the "religion" of Eastern countries. You might be interested in reading The Tao of Physics, a great book.

Starting to sound a lot like a gray area. Neither all good or all bad. Unless you wish to deny truth.

Why would I ask Ask ANY evangelical, about putting humans before god? The whole point of Humanism is to deny gods. That is my point, sorry you missed it. It'd be like ask any Atheist to deny Stalin.

The ONLY difference between evil atheists and evil deists is that evil deists often cloak their evil in religion. Then apologists come through and suggest that they simply weren't devout.

Never-mind that the Vatican signed a treaty with Nazi Germany, remained silent as the holocaust bloomed, then helped thousands of Nazi leaders escape to safety after the war. (Same Church that recently secreted an army of child rapists out of the US and relocated them to churches in developing countries with fresh, young victims.). But Catholic-raised Hitler wasn't devout, you say. Sure, maybe he was an atheist who simply took advantage of the Vatican. I mean, how could an oracle of God have known, right?

Nothing better sums up your entire argument than the comments of Msgr Owen Keenan, a priest in Canada who, after learning that 215 children were found in unmarked graves at one site before 751 were found in another, said yea but "there was good done" in those Indian residential schools run by Catholics. THAT, sir, is religion writ large.

Reminds me of a one-liner: "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?"

Humanist do not support the evils of theist or Atheist like Stalin. Now what is your point about Humanist again? Read the original post again. I’m sticking to it. They support science and a natural world without a creator.

My point is back where I started: "Why adulterate humanism with religion?" You may conveniently suggests that Humanists are not deists, but the Manifestos all recognize that some humanists can be deists/theists. However, the humanism is supposed to override their god. Adulterating humanism with religion thus ultimately gives religion yet another mulligan, i.e. ignore the evil that we do in the name of god, we are all humanists.

At no point did I suggest that humanists support the evils of theists or atheists like your fav Stalin or your distant black sheep of the family, Hitler. I'm done with responding to straw men.

Do enjoy your new and improved, updated, revised religion.

nature of energy.

FIRST: According to religious humanists, the universe is an uncreated, self-sustaining entity. Second, humanism holds that man has always existed as a part of nature and that his development has been a continuous one. THIRD: Humanists believe that the conventional dualism of mind and body must be discarded since they have an organic perspective on life. Visit This Site