From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!tim Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: Secular Humanism Article-I.D.: unc.4766 Posted: Sun Mar 13 17:53:40 1983 Received: Mon Mar 14 02:25:29 1983 References: teklabs.1815 The "Secular Humanist Manifesto" (or whatever it was called) was a very interesting, not to mention well-written, document, and I find myself in agreement with most of its statements. However, there were also some big problems. (1) It supported taxation of church property, but denied churches any benefit from tax revenues. This rather gives the churches the short end of the stick, don't you think? Everyone else who pays taxes gets something back for it. A very good case could be made that this is repression of religion, which I feel is immoral. Just don't charge them taxes, and don't give them any benefits. (2) The very existence of the document is a contradiction. It doesn't seem that the secular humanist movement should require any such dogmatic literature. (3) Throughout, a fundamental misunderstanding of the aims of true religion is betrayed. Of course it has nothing to do with the supernatural! The existence of miracles and anthropomorphic deities is entirely irrelevant to belonging to a religion (or it should be). A religion should not provide answers to questions when the answers come from a "divine" source and the questions can be answered by reason, because then the religion will interfere with the proper functioning of the individual's reason. A religion is a paradigm for self-exploration and -expansion (for want of better terms -- in fact, the lack of good terms for such things in normal English is one of the major motivations for having a religion), and a set of tools for accomplishing this. The fact that no major religion admits this is not grounds for a blanket condemnation; the major religions got where they are by pandering to the lowest common denominator. Summarizing this point, religion should only be criticized where it interferes with reason, not as a thing in itself. Overall, though, I liked the document a great deal, and my thanks to the person who posted it. Tim Maroney