Prisoner lawsuit results in ruling that Secular Humanism is a Relgion (believe, born)
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Haven't you ever gotten the "atheism is just another religion" lecture? Dunno about you, but that argument has always struck me as condescending, and devolves discussion of important issues to "my religion is better than your religion".
To me, religion involves faith in "things that are unseen" (and paul did not mean microbes).
I try to draw pretty definite lines between things with solid factual evidence, things with suggestive factual evidence, and things with no factual evidence. Suggesting that Secular Humanism is a religion is a contradiction in terms. If it's religious, it isn't secular. And, if it's religion, how can it be humanist?
Note - I don't think religion requires a deity, bit it does require that we assert things to be universally true irrespective of factual evidence.
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Unless one sees humanism as a branch of atheism (and I can understand that argument), I don't see it as an issue. If it is just a matter of a bunch of gawd fearin' people able to say, "AHA! See I TOLD atheism is just another religion" my answer is, "Meh, sure, if you want to think so".
Besides, let's not forget, this applies only to the USA. There is a whole big world out side of those borders.
Compromising a principle to gain a benefit or, in this case, ignoring it in order to allow one.
I can understand the beneficiary(s) being willing but don't think the court should have.
"But while some Humanists may chafe at being called a “religion,” others feel that the larger pursuit of equal rights trumps legal classifications."
IMO, the decision was wrong .
I also have mixed feelings about this, but I don't think freethinkers should be primarily guided by the misconceptions or lack of nuance in others.
While neither humanism nor atheism are religions or beliefs in god-substitutes, they do have some things in common with religions, which is that both are worldviews. People use worldviews to frame their understanding of reality and to deal with their existential and motivational issues. To the extent that a religious person actually relies on their religion for a worldview and motivational framework, if they ditch their theism then they are obliged to rethink their worldview. In doing so they may turn to people who have had more time and training in such things than they, and who have external objectivity they may lack. The mechanism for delivering this support are things like military chaplaincies and other church-like structures. I see no reason why such systems should exclude a significant and growing percentage of the population or oblige them to deal with poor signal-to-noise ratios in filtering god talk and god justifications just to get to some sort of empathy and human contact.
One conclusion I'm rapidly coming to is that it's a fool's errand to work overtime to be clear to people who don't want to be confused with facts. I have, for instance, historically been in the "I don't take a knowledge position about god" persuasion. Our own Cruithne has always pointed out that there's nothing wrong with saying "there IS no god", and my resistance to that has been that it fosters misunderstanding and is technically incorrect. However, every theist I have encountered is so stubbornly insistent on this point that I no longer see any percentage in pedantically explaining my technical position is about belief rather than knowledge. The bottom line is that a person who BELIEVES there is no god and a person who KNOWS there is no god act exactly the same, and "there IS no god" is a legitimate semantic shortcut. Let them think what they think. Increasingly, I am weary of deliberately blinkered people who armor themselves against the real world.
It's like that with respect to tax exemptions. We are not technically religious but if being classified that way is what we have to do to give bureaucrats cover for treating us equally, so be it.
Atheism is merely the negation of superstition. To suggest otherwise, presupposes that religiosity is the norm. 'I want a special recognition because I don't happen to believe in a deity'? 'Oh, please f*** off'.
Yes, a disturbing and extremely misguided decision.
'Officer, I see the Christians can double park on Sundays.'
'Yeah, what of it?'
"Well, I'm an atheist and I was wonder ...'
'You can double park any day of the week you like'.
Unless one sees humanism as a branch of atheism (and I can understand that argument), I don't see it as an issue. If it is just a matter of a bunch of gawd fearin' people able to say, "AHA! See I TOLD atheism is just another religion" my answer is, "Meh, sure, if you want to think so".
Besides, let's not forget, this applies only to the USA. There is a whole big world out side of those borders.
In the same way that being obliged to have deference for people's religious causes nothing but trouble, being obliged to hold a non-belief in god with respect, is no less damaging. RE your comment about the US ... well, sure, in say, Denmark, any such ruling would be moot. We need the same redundancy here.
In the same way that being obliged to have deference for people's religious causes nothing but trouble, being obliged to hold a non-belief in god with respect, is no less damaging. RE your comment about the US ... well, sure, in say, Denmark, any such ruling would be moot. We need the same redundancy here.
I don't think this is about deference, but equal access and equal treatment. If it's wrong to have a humanist chaplain or humanist study group then it's wrong to have a protestant or catholic or muslim chaplain or study group, too. Even if this IS strictly about deference, then either abandon existing deference or provide it to all comers.
To my mind, unearned deference and respect has less to do with this kind of thing than with taboos against skepticism or criticism or debate around any group's ideas and dogmas. No opinion, belief, worldview or practice should be beyond debate or critique, or a requirement to substantiate positive claims. THAT is what religion is wrong to demand or expect, and THAT is what nontheist / freethinkers should not demand or expect. And in this instance it's not what they're asking for.
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