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