35 Years Ago
“… I think it a fundamental misuse of language to equate religion with secularism when the latter refers to different aspects of experience. This is linguistic definition by capricious legislation, a form of definition-mongering. Anyone has the right to misuse language if he so wishes, but there is something basically unethical about such gross distortion. …
“Since all religious institutions are human institutions, they should not be immune to criticism. That is the salient feature of the secular humanism I defend: free inquiry about all human practices, including religions. Criticism of religion can be both useful and constructive.”
—Paul Kurtz, “On Definition-Mongering,” Free Inquiry, Volume 6, No. 4 (Fall 1986)
Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) was the founding editor of Free Inquiry and founder of the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry. A symposium on “Is Secular Humanism a Religion?” was published in the Winter 1985/1986 issue of Free Inquiry, with articles by several authors. Kurtz offered some final comments on the debate following some author responses.
25 Years Ago
“Perhaps we could define religion as ‘a life stance that includes at minimum a belief in the existence and fundamental importance of a realm transcending that of ordinary experience.’ In fewer words, a life stance is religious if it teaches that the cosmos is not self-justifying—that real meaning, legitimacy, and purpose demand that we anchor the concerns of this life somewhere beyond it. …
“If we define religion as preoccupation with the transcendent, what many religious humanists are up to can indeed be considered religious. What most secular humanists are up to clearly cannot. For them humanism begins with rejecting the transcendent as such. Rejecting transcendence brings us to [Mason] Olds’s realization that ‘human problems must be solved by humans themselves.’ As Olds wrote so stirringly of the human project, ‘The goal is not to be discovered, but created.’ Here he writes more as a secular humanist than he knows. If one arrives at such insights by emancipating oneself from the transcendent, what place then for religion in humanism?”
—Thomas W. Flynn, “Why Is Religious Humanism?,” Free Inquiry, Volume 16, No. 4 (Fall 1996)
Thomas W. Flynn (1955–2021) was the editor of Free Inquiry since 2000 and served as executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism until 2018. His article on religious humanism was included with several other articles on defining humanism, specifically secular humanism, due to the rising influence of the Christian Coalition on the Republican Party at the time.