Caspar Responds: Humanist Religion IS a No-no
by: Dave Belden on September 16th, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Over at the New Humanist blog, Caspar Melville writes:
That nice Dave Belden over at Tikkun magazine has paid me the compliment of disagreeing with a piece I wrote for the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, in which I argue against Dave’s notion that humanists need to organise themselves like religious communities, have services, rituals, build a community that sort of thing. Dave thinks I am too individualistic and we will never heal the world if we can’t build a strong ‘base’. He may well be right.
His perspective, I think, would be that being a humanist implies a desire to improve the world – for humans and other animals – it’s a commitment to a kind of activist attitude. (This is well expressed in Tikkun’s strapline, they want to ‘mend, repair and transform the world’). I wonder if my own humanism isn’t more of the “I don’t believe in God, I’m fascinated by what humans have done, do and might be capable of (good and bad), I want more peace and love, less war and greed, but life is short and full of sorrow (and plenty of laughs), most human endeavours and ambitions are fragile and misguided, if not ludicrous, and much harm is done by those with grand visions, so I don’t want to join a movement, any movement, and I will choose my friends and confreres from the weird and (often) wacky individuals I gather to myself, for possibly perverse and certainly unexamined reasons, along the way,” sort. Not a very snappy slogan, I grant you, but my own. I admire those with the courage to believe they can change the world and the drive to try – but they scare me too. So, good luck with your humanist religion, Dave, but include me out.
What about you?
Well the last line was irresistible, so of course I left a comment much longer than Caspar’s post–I’m the Dave on his site here. The next two comments side with Caspar. It’s fun to get out among the movement-phobic.
I’m inclined to agree that a Humanist religion is doomed to failure or, at best, not great attractiveness. The Unitarian Universalists are probably the exception to this rule, but no others come to mind at the moment. Belay that. I just thought of one other. The number of Humanist Jews who belong to Sherwin Wine’s organization are fairly small (I’ve never met one), but can’t imagine a bunch of Dawkins-Gould atheists meeting to pray, so I wonder what they actually do in these services? Maybe they have killer sermons and great kiddushim. But, yeah, good luck.
Has anyone heard of Ethical Culture, founded by a young Rabbi who was hired and preached at Temple Emanuel and then left. The Ethical societies, connected to the Humanists through the International Humanist Ethical Union, has “Leaders” who perform rituals that some people feel a need for and which are usually provided by religion: marriages, burials, naming ceremonies, etc. The movement is over 100 years old
My sense is that this effort to replace religion with a humanist alternative has been a failure. Many people are seeking spiritual meaning. And the intellectual activities of classes and Sunday morning addresses does not provide the kind of community bonding that religious groups give.
Interesting. Check out my blog for a description of a community (for interfaith families) that is providing both education and spirituality without creed, credo, dogma. God optional. Be sure to read “Why Aren’t You Unitarians” posting. –Sue
onbeingboth.com
Here’s the link to “Why Aren’t You a Unitarian?” to make it easier: http://onbeingboth.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/%E2%80%9Cso-why-aren%E2%80%99t-you-a-unitarian%E2%80%9D/
The UU congregation that I joined in Kingston, NY very deliberately did not call itself a church because of the Christian connotations of the word. I’d say a good third of the members were Jewish. The first guy I got to know there, an amusing, gentle, wonderful man, introduced himself as a “Hindu Buddhist Christian Jew” to me. So there are different kinds of UU congregations.
Here is a piece by Susan about the interfaith organization, The Dovetail Institute for Interfaith Family Resources: http://www.interfaithfamily.com/news_and_opinion/synagogues_and_the_jewish_community/One_Interfaith_Mothers_View.shtml
Hi Dave, I am a Unitarian who married a Jewish Aetheist. I consider myself to be agnostic. Eventually my husband became a Unitarian when we got a Jewish minister, but toward the end of his life he became quite spiritual and wanted more connection to his Jewish roots. I was very happy to join him in this and after a search we ended up with Sherwin Wein’s Humanist movement. We only have services for the High Holidays but the sermons are good and there is lots of music with the words suitably changed and inspirational readings. We also do “good works” and have lots of social gatherings.. I agree that the movement can’t grow to much because of it’s narrowness. Unitarians can be Theist, Humanist, Earth religious, Mystic, or whatever. Because there is not the certainty built into God based religions, we may not grow much more than the Humanists but it suits me so I remain a Jewnitarian, Thanks for the chance to share. Elisabeth