Friday, October 14, 2011

Quoting my iFriends: Secular Humanism

So, emilyperson posted this in the comments over at Confessions of a Former Conservative. It struck me as one of those thoughts that ought to be shared, so I'm reproducing it here:

I’m reasonably sure you can be a Christian secular humanist. The word “secular,” contrary to popular belief, doesn’t mean “anti-theistic.” It just means it lacks mention of religion. All a Christian would have to do in order to qualify as a secular humanist is not tie hir theology up with hir humanism.

(Of course, it’s more complicated than that. Religion informs worldview, and worldview influences philosophy tremendously. But a Christian can still say “because it’s right” without adding “because God said so.”)
That'll preach.

2 comments:

  1. I'm reasonably sure I know a lot of Christians who are also secular humanists. That is, their religion isn't necessarily the reason they believe something to be right or wrong. They are humanitarians in the sense that they don't have to have a book "tell" them that they have to be or how to be humane. In fact they understand that their book goes into a lot of detail to explain how to be inhumane.

    Having said that, I was one of those Christians whose Christianity ruled her life. Everything I did I ran through the filter of my Christianity. What does the Bible have to say about this? What does Jesus teach about that? Sometimes what seemed like the humane thing to do ran counter to that so I chose to do what "The Good Book" said was "right". I believed being a True Believer entailed living my life according to that code of standards whether I liked it or not, whether it was easy or not, whether it seemed right or not. Even now it's hard to look through another lens.

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  2. A lot of people would read that and think, "Yeah, so what else is new?" Other people would read that and think, "What? Impossible! Secular humanism is one of the great evil undermining Christian decency!"

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