Why Humanism Needs Religion and Religions

by Jason Smick - lecturer, Santa Clara University

I would like briefly to sketch out several reasons why I think Secular Humanist individuals and organizations need both the term ‘religion‘ and the religions themselves. Let me immediately add that the following remarks offered in support of this claim are necessarily programmatic. Their intent is to provoke a dialogue on the meaning and goals of Secular Humanism and Secular Humanist communities, not to conclude one. They are meant to appeal to the capacity for critical reflection upon unquestioned assumptions that Secular Humanists rightly pride themselves on. In particular, they are intended to encourage Secular Humanists to rethink their relation to the term ‘religion‘ and to the religions.

Regarding the asserted need Secular Humanist communities have for the term ‘religion‘, let me begin with a very simple point. Like the religions, being a Secular Humanist entails some meaningful measure of commitment to a view of the world and all that the phenomenon ‘world‘ includes. In this respect, Secular Humanism offers a more or less radical alternative account of the world relative to traditions like Christianity or Hinduism.

But Secular Humanism involves not only a commitment to a distinct way of interpreting the world – in this case, a broadly scientific interpretation of the world – it involves a commitment to a way of life. ‘Commitment‘ (or ‘being bound to something‘) and ‘meticulous care‘ are meanings associated with two Latin terms scholars generally agree constitute the sense of the English word ‘religion‘, namely, religare and religio, respectively. In the West, religion is most often – and quite understandably – associated with traditions like Christianity or Judaism. It is thus often thought to refer to traditions that include devotion to a god. But such a definition of religion is unable to explain why non-theistic traditions like Zen Buddhism are considered religions. The minimalist definition of religion I am proposing allows for the inclusion of both theistic and non-theistic traditions and communities in the family of religions. The test of whether or not a tradition is religious, on this view, would not be the presence or absence of a positive relation to a deity. Instead, it would require only that a tradition articulate and advance a distinct view of the world – a worldview that accounts for its origins, its constitutive elements, the place of humans and non-human forms of life in the world, the appropriate meaning and relation to death – and a way of life worked out in light of a worldview.

These considerations suggest the first reason I think Secular Humanism needs to reconsider its relation to religion and religions. It appeals, I hope, to what I take to be a central value and aspiration of Secular Humanists: truth. Secular Humanist communities are communities of like-minded people committed to the preservation and transmission of a worldview and way of life. To the extent that this is true, Secular Humanism arguably needs the term ‘religion‘ in order to clarify what it itself is.

Commitment to a worldview and way of life – and meticulous care for that worldview and, especially, the world it interprets – is manifest in the internal life of the HC. It is a vibrant, living community founded upon the acceptance, promotion, and application of shared values and ideas related to the world.

But many of us perhaps would like to see the HC, and Secular Humanism more generally, achieve even greater public visibility so as to expand its membership. . How might this be accomplished? One sure way is to make people aware of the alternative worldview and way of life that Secular Humanism represents and in fact is. I would guess that many of those who are seeking an alternative worldview and way of life are simply unaware that groups like the HC exist. Indeed, given how many people today have left the religions in which they were raised and are in search of a community for themselves and their children oriented to science, reason, justice, compassion, etc., and have yet to find such a community, Secular Humanism has a genuine opportunity to expand its community and become a cultural force. I suspect that the suggestion in public for a that Secular Humanism is a religious tradition would garner significant attention and lead to an increase in its membership. Or, at the very least, the sight of a rabbi, a priest, an imam, a monk, a guru, and a Secular Humanist chaplain speaking out together against police brutality or environmental devastation would make these ‘liminal‘ persons aware of the alternative that Secular Humanism offers.

In addition to the first motivating reason offered here for rethinking Secular Humanism‘s relation to religion and religions in connection with truth, these remarks are spurred by two pragmatic considerations. The first is the one just mentioned. The second is related to the need at this particular historical juncture to establish a more peaceful relation among those traditions that are at issue here. While not all of the current crises are rooted in conflicting worldviews and ways of life, many – and many of the most troubling and problematic – are. For this reason, it seems to me that there is a pressing need to locate and assert commonalities that link Secular Humanism to those sub-traditions within religions like Christianity and Buddhism that advance analogous visions of social and political life, or that take it as a goal of their particular way of being religious to diminish the harm we do to the environment and to one another.

Traditions like Christianity and Buddhism are already in dialogue and working toward the amelioration of such things as religious violence and environmental devastation. I believe Secular Humanism should and can be an important dialogue partner and fellow laborer where such matters are concerned. For its part, Secular Humanism needs the religions if it wants to address problems like these because their scope and causes are such that it seems no one tradition can resolve them on its own.

The rudimentary explication of the etymology of the term ‘religion‘ offered here indicates one way in which Secular Humanism and traditional religions are alike. They are both competing for the hearts and minds of individuals at the deepest levels of reflection and life. While this particular point of intersection may not and should not reconcile Secular Humanists to, for example, Christian fundamentalists, acknowledging and accepting it could open up a dialogue between Secular Humanist traditions and communities and those forms of religion whose social and political visions are more closely aligned with its own.

What I have tried to do here is raise the possibility that redefining Secular Humanism‘s relation to the term ‘religion‘ – that is, redefining it as a religion – would serve the interests of truth regarding what it is, as well as enhance its visibility and potentially increase its numbers. I also have tried to show in a rough and ready way how such a redefinition could draw it into a respectful and productive dialogue with religious traditions. This, in turn, might lead to activities and courses of action that would either directly or indirectly contribute to the resolution of some of the more intractable problems that we as a species now face. ᴥ

This column was first printed in the Humanist Community Newsletter (September 2010, vol.16, issue 9)
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(Jason Smick is a lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at Santa Clara University. A native of the Sacramento area, he holds degrees in philosophy, theology, and religious studies. His work focuses on the practical and communal dimensions of ancient and modern Western philosophical traditions, and the relation of secular cultures and traditions to both the religions and Western philosophy.)