Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site teddy.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!teddy!lkk From: lkk@teddy.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion Subject: Re: "Secular Humanism" banned in the US Schools. Message-ID: <1175@teddy.UUCP> Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 18:45:27 EDT Article-I.D.: teddy.1175 Posted: Tue Aug 20 18:45:27 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 20:38:30 EDT References: <4141@alice.UUCP> <938@bunker.UUCP> <161@gargoyle.UUCP> Reply-To: lkk@teddy.UUCP (Larry K. Kolodney) Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass. Lines: 48 Xref: linus net.politics:9882 net.religion:7022 In article <161@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >In article <938@bunker.UUCP> garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) writes: > >> Didn't the Supreme Court >> recognize Secular Humanism as a religion not too long ago? > >I imagine I'm not the only one who missed this. References, please. >Whatever "secular humanism" means (and it seems to cover a wide area >of ambiguity) I doubt that it refers to a religion. Perhaps there >are several Secular Humanist temples in your neighborhood, but there >are none in mine. Oh, you mean the University of Chicago? Wrong, >pal. The U of C (in the classic description) is a Baptist university >where atheist professors teach Thomas Aquinas to Jewish students. >More than a grain of truth in this. > >Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes There IS a secular humanist church. It is called: The Ethical Culture Society. It was founded about 100 years ago in NYC. There are various congregations around the NY metro area (and perhaps elsewhere), and they have a rather large headquarters on central park west in manhattan. Local congregations (I don't know if that's what they're called), have sunday school, and weekly meetings at which the "leader" discusses moral issues. They generally don't believe in God, or at least don't beleive in organized religion as such. Unitarians might also be called a secular humanist church for all intents and purposes. I believe the reference on secular humanism being a church stems from a footnote by Mr. Justice Hugo Black in a Supreme Ct. decision overturning a rule which required that a person be a beleiver in God to be a conscientious objector. The court ruled that a number of "religions" didn't have such a belief, and the footnote listed secular humanism (or maybe it was "ethical culture" now I'm not sure) among them. -- Sport Death, Larry Kolodney (USENET) ...decvax!genrad!teddy!lkk (INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa