Religious and Secular Humanism
What's the difference?
Is
humanism an alternative to religion, or an alternative kind of
religion? It is easy to find committed humanists who'll give either
answer. Those who call it a religion define the word religion
broadly, as tantamount to any dedicated philosophy of life. Those who
think humanism is not a religion would rather say simply that they
embrace humanism as a philosophy instead, since they associate
religion with the supernaturalist claims most traditional religions
make. This is ultimately a semantic argument, and both usages make
sense. But the debate over whether humanism is a religion threatens to
obscure a more interesting issue, namely whether there is such a thing
as religious humanism alongside and distinguishable from secular
humanism. Some would say there is no difference between secular and
religious humanism, so long as one practices one's humanism, pardon the
expression, "religiously." I would disagree. In fact, there is much to
religious humanism that secular humanists do not share—and vice versa.
The Son of Man
Some among the ancient
Gnostics, those great spinners of mystical, allegorical mythologies, had
a name for the Ultimate Godhead. They called it "Man" (Anthropos,
human being). This is a very old idea, rooted in the Upanishads where
the world springs into being from the self-sacrifice of the Primal Man,
Purusha, whose name is also one of the words for "soul." What a
breathtaking myth! What a powerful image! Let me suggest that the
Gnostic myth implies something about what distinguishes religious from
secular humanism, namely, a belief in the divinity of human nature.
Such belief may not be a necessary condition for religious humanism, but
it seems to me a sufficient one. That is, if you believe human nature
deserves the epithet "divine," you qualify as other (or, if you prefer,
more) than a secular humanist.
I think of Ludwig Feuerbach
and his relentless hermeneutic of suspicion. Feuerbach held that
theologians are correct when they say we can discern the divine
attributes. They are right to believe in such things as divine love,
justice, mercy, sagacity—even in eternal life and omniscience.
Theologians are merely wrong in ascribing these to some divine person
beyond humanity. On this argument the grandeur of human nature, of the
human race collectively, truly is divine. It is also a terrific
burden to bear. Our problem is that we shirk the burden of our own
divine greatness. We create the devil as the scapegoat for the evil that
we do, both trivial and titanic; and we create God as a paradoxical
scapegoat to take the burden of our righteousness—we don't want
responsibility for either! Feuerbach said he knew his readers
would consider him an atheist for denying the existence of God, but he
riposted that he was the genuine believer, because he revered
true divinity where it was really to be found—in the human breast, or in
humanity as a whole. Feuerbach thought that conventional theists, by
contrast, were unbelievers or idolaters, erecting for themselves a false
God instead of the real divinity within them.
That,
it seems to me, is religious humanism. Of course, secular humanists also
point to the surpassing greatness of human nature and human
achievements. So what is the real difference? It comes down to two
rather technical questions.
Dimensions of the
Difference
First, are you a
philosophical Idealist? Do you believe there is such a thing as capital
D Divinity? Do you think calling human nature "divine" really
adds anything to a description of it as "profound" or "impressive" or
"venerable"? Or is "divine" just a metaphorical value judgment, as in
"That dress looks divine"? If you're an Idealist and you believe there
is an extra something beyond great impressiveness, a literal divinity,
to human nature, you would certainly qualify as a religious humanist.
But if to you "divine" is just a metaphor, then you are a secular
humanist.
Second, do you think there
is a sort of reverence or veneration that is uniquely religious?
Is it specifically "religious"-as opposed to, say, merely aesthetic-to
cherish something as sacred? Scholars including Friedrich
Schleiermacher, Rudolf Otto, and Mircea Eliade thought a unique form of
religious experience exists. Schleiermacher called it "the feeling of
absolute dependence." Otto called it the "numinous" experience. It is a
creature-feeling of ontological humility before the overwhelming
greatness of the Holy. A religious humanist might experience the
numinous when contemplating the greatness of human nature in a choice
piece of music or a painting or a sonnet. It is a deep chill that makes
one feel one's own unworthiness—though also perhaps one's own potential.
But what if the feeling of
reverence before the great and awesome is not singularly religious, but
rather simply part of the aesthetic judgment? One might then feel less
inclined to call an awe-experience triggered by a product of human art
"religious." The core issue here is not whether one has or lacks
aesthetic sensitivity. It is whether one regards the particular thrill
of the numinous experience as containing something not encompassed by
the idea of the aesthetic. If you think it's all just aesthetics, you
are secular. If you think there is something unique in the numinous
experience, even when called forth by products of human artistry, you
are religious. This religiosity would hinge on nothing supernatural, but
solely on the rather technical question of whether a uniquely
"religious" kind of appreciation exists.
The Power of Myth (and
Ritual)
If the Gnostic myth of the
Primordial Cosmic Man stands for religious humanism, is there a myth
that would equally sum up secular humanism? There's the Prometheus myth,
of course. Then I think of the Klingon creation myth as revealed in an
episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The gods created the
first Klingon male and female, who then turned on their gods and
slaughtered them-now there's a powerful myth! But then, it is doubtful
whether secular humanists would care whether there is a myth for
them. My second criterion has to do with the importance one accords to
mythology as a source of wisdom and a metaphorical frame of reference.
My impression is that secular humanists in general don't think myth is
worth their time. To them, myth means bunk.
By contrast, Joseph
Campbell seems to exemplify the religious humanist apprehension of myth.
Following his mentor Carl Jung, Campbell thought all myths were about
the human life cycle—scripts for rites of life-passage. And so they are
for religious humanists. But some secular humanists, too, are open to
celebrating rites of passage. It is not this that separates them from
religious humanists. Some rites of passage have no connection to the
ancient myths: birthday parties, bachelor parties, college graduations,
and retirement dinners are true rites of passage yet bear no
mythological cargo.
Religious humanists such as
Don Cupitt's Sea of Faith movement in the United Kingdom continue to
perform religious rites although they don't believe in the supernatural
or in any metaphysically real deity. They know full well that the
motions they are going through are human creations from start to finish.
But they think that is no reason not to perform them! William Taylor
Coleridge spoke of a "poetic faith," the "temporary, willing suspension
of disbelief" we permit ourselves while watching drama or reading a
novel. We know the characters and action are not real, but we put this
awareness on the back burner for a while in order to enter the fictive
world and discover experiences there that do not occur in our mundane
realities. To get something out of a Shakespeare play, you by no means
need actually believe in Hamlet or Polonius. Only a fool would think you
do. And, I suggest, no Christian need believe in a historical Jesus or
his resurrection to have a powerful Easter; no Jew need believe in the
miracles of Charlton Heston to have a profound Passover. Few of them
seem to realize this, however—or if they do, they know better than to
admit it. But religious humanists admit it . . . or could.
Secular humanists could,
too—but what makes them secular humanists is that they just
aren't interested. I guess it's like having a friend who's engrossed in
Creative Anachronism or Civil War reenactment or attending Star Trek
fan conventions. More power to them, but it's not for me. And why should
it be?
God Is Lobe
One of the most intriguing
areas of recent research in brain science, and one that bears directly
on our question, is that of the physical, organo-chemical character of
religious experiences. As discussed in books like Matthew Alper's The
God Part of the Brain, studies indicate that the mystical experience
of God, the transcendent Satori of the Buddhist, the Moksha
enlightenment of the Hindu, and so on, are all functions of the temporal
parietal lobe of the brain. Meditation, to say nothing of epileptic
seizures, seems to bring about temporary erasure of the self-other
distinction. When that carefully maintained barrier between self and
world breaks down, one returns for a few moments to the oceanic
experience of pure consciousness. In his laboratory Michael Persinger
has stimulated, not merely simulated, God-experiences with
the use of a magnetic helmet that fires up the requisite portion of the
brain.
I suspect that this is the
final reduction, the ultimate demystification of religion's metaphysical
claims. But that isn't the point. The point is this: suppose you can
show that the mystical experience of nondual Pure Consciousness is
available, quite real as an experience, and that it is
desirable and wholesome. Here is another dividing line between
secular and religious humanists, perhaps the most important one. Simply
put, religious humanists seek the religious experience simply as an
experience. Though not believing in a God, they nonetheless seek a
"God-experience." Secular humanists prefer to give it a miss. They just
aren't interested. And chances are, they think religious humanists too
much the navel-gazers, too little occupied with serious business. They
should be out doing political canvassing or some such stuff.
Is It Better to Be a
Religious Humanist or a Secular Humanist?
I don't know if that's even
a proper question. These are coordinates, like "liberal" and
"conservative." Which are you? I suspect you are liberal on some issues,
conservative on others. This doesn't invalidate the two categories. They
are helpful precisely in that they allow you to plot yourself on a
chart, as it were, to understand yourself better. It's the same with
religious and secular humanism: maybe you're a hybrid. Maybe you're an
unstable mix, shifting and changing in your inclinations. That wouldn't
necessarily be a bad thing.
By
Robert M. Price