Talk:Religious humanism

American Religious Humanism
"However it is careful not to outline a creed or dogma." Is not the Humanist Manifesto a creed or dogma? This sentence needs to be deleted.

Spiritual Humanism
http://www.spiritualhumanism.org is the offical website for The Church of Spiritual Humanism They believe in total religious freedom, and ordain people online. www.spiritualhumanism.net is a test of their online seminary, but it is not required although recommended. They believe that religion must be based on reason, and that humans can improve themselves and society. They believe in religious principals, the usage of rituals morals, our common bonds to nature and humanity. Their beliefs can be summed up by the title of the book: Spirituality Without God.

About a decade ago scientists advanced the hypothesis that neural activity during religious rapture occurs in a "God module" in the temporal lobes. The theory was inspired by the study of epilepsy patients in whom temporal lobe seizures induced mystical feelings. Results from a study by Mario Beauregard and Vincent Paquette of the University of Montreal, however, suggest that the neural activity that accompanies spiritual enlightenment is usually more complex."

This shows that, in one way or another, the brain is involved in spiritual activity. This, for me, is the epitomy of spiritual humanism. It is one of, prehaps the highest, functions of humans, for animals don't surely don't have brain functions as such. An it is indeed spiritual, for it deals directly with prayer and the the long sought god.

Human spirituality goes beyond this. Humans, unlike animals, have a natural set of morals, knowing right from wrong. We have the ability to reason, letting us to sperate truth from falsehood, allowing us to always seek what is right. And our bond to fellow man and the earth, which allows us to work with one another for the betterment of the whole.

All of these things certainly comprise something greater than ourselves, the best part of man that, when tapped into, can be used by man to improve himself and the world around him. This is what I call the "Inner God," and I have faith in it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaycm610 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not certain that Spiritual Humanism should be included in Religious Humanism as it appears to be just one guy with a website, a post office box, and an online store.

Your wrong, The Church of Spiritual Humanism has over 100,000 members. Go to the NYTimes site and do a search - http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?frow=0&n=10&srcht=s&query=%22spiritual+humanism%22&srchst=nyt&submit.x=18&submit.y=12&submit=sub&hdlquery=&bylquery=&daterange=full&mon1=01&day1=01&year1=1981&mon2=12&day2=28&year2=2006 (sorry for the long link) Also please sign your posts. 2ct7 23:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I did but I did not see anything convincing. It appears that Spiritual Humanism is a diploma mill for ordination. David Wallace Croft 21:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)]]

Since they don't award diplomas or any academic degrees they are obviously not a diploma mill. If you had read the link I posted you would have seen most of their clergy performing ceremonies listed in the New York Times are as far from being holders of diploma mill degrees as one can get. If you think the editor in chief of Scientific American is associated with a diploma mill for performing a wedding as a clergy person form the Church of Spiritual Humanism then I suggest your viewpoint is skewed. Maybe this is not the organization you want it to be but being as they are the largest religious humanist organization in the United States they obviously should be kept on the page. 2ct7 04:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not find you credible. Any organization with 100,000 members would have made a larger footprint than what Spiritual Humanism has done. Unitarian Universalism, for example, has 217,000 members. Spiritual Humanism appears to be an "ordination mill". If you want to convince me otherwise, show me evidence of a history of conferences, publications, churches, and elections. David Wallace Croft 13:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)]]

How you find me and your personal opinion of Spiritual Humanism are not the issues. You can make up whatever impossible requirements you want. The fact is Spiritual Humanism is the largest religious humanist organization in the US with over 100,000 members and many religious services as demonstrated by the NYTimes link. If any organization should be on this page they should.

Why do you keep deleting the discussion on this page? 2ct7 14:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I delete the discussion when there is no one is adding anything new on the older topics. How do you know that Spiritual Humanism has over 100,000 members? David Wallace Croft 19:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)]]

Archive — don't delete 100,000 members2ct7 00:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

First paragraph cleanup
Current first paragraph: "Religious humanism is an integration of humanism/humanistic philosophy with religious rituals and/or beliefs that center on human needs, interests, and abilities." Suggested rewording to eliminate slashes and give it a more decisive stance: "Religious humanism is an integration of humanist ethical philosophy with religious rituals and beliefs that center on human needs, interests, and abilities." Any problems with this sort of cleanup? Happy Humanist (talk) 17:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a different definition
According to this web site http://www.jcn.com/humanism.html RH = a religion and SH = a philosophy, that's simple straightforward and sensible. Shouldn't it be in the page? Is the AHA some a fringe group that should be ignored?

Frederick Edwords Executive Director, American Humanist Association The most critical irony in dealing with Modern Humanism is the inability of its advocates to agree on whether or not this worldview is religious. Those who see it as philosophy are the Secular Humanists while those who see it as religion are Religious Humanists. This dispute has been going on since the early years of this century when the secular and religious traditions converged and brought Modern Humanism into existence. Nitpyck (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs to spend more time up front talking about that than the historical components (Which seem like random tangents, because they don't discuss how that history relates to present day incarnations). As is, you can get to the end of the page and still not know what the difference is (if any) between religious and secular humanism.--Fyedernoggersnodden (talk) 17:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

That is very interesting. There is longstanding and very bitter dispute on the Humanism talk page about this. Religious humanists such as Chardin argue that man's fullest potential cannot be reached if the spritual dimension is left out and secular humanists argue that anyone who believes in divine revelation cannot be a humanist because divine revelation is contrary to reason and humanists believe in reason above all else. Religious humanist counter that they do believe in reason but for them divine revelation transcends human reason. For secular humanism reason is transcendent. Religious humanists counter that reason cannot predominate over human values, because the values of reason (efficiency, technology, commerce, and even pragmatism) are often contrary to the human values of compassion, contemplation, tradition, culture, and leisure, to name a few. Some religious humanists have also argued passionately that secular humanism leads to permissiveness. Critics (or skeptics) also claim that the American Humanist Organization is nothing but another church, and that its various manifestos are but a "creed" or belief system like that of a church. The American Humanist Website appears to acknowledge the justice of this:

Meetings of primarily humanist groups are not considered church functions. Some of these groups are, however, very little different from those within liberal churches.

Another way that it seems to me to resemble of the liberal churches is its emphasizes on works, in the form of support of a number of causes, such as racial and social justice (not that that is a bad thing IMO).173.52.253.91 (talk) 17:25, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

A new page on Humanism to view
Uploaded a new Wikipage on Buddhist humanism., including a comapsison with Secular and Religious humanism.SafwanZabalawi (talk) 06:06, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Unitarian citations
Changed text claiming that a declining number of UU members identify as humanists. I can't find anything to substantiate that claim. When surveys have been taken it has been as many as half but we don't have current data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralph1Waldo (talk • contribs) 21:17, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Satanism is not humanistic
I suggest removing the section on Satanism. There are many reasons but the claim that it is close to Ayn Rand's philosophy is enough to remove it since Ayn Rand was not a Humanist but an Objectivist. Moreover, in contrast to Satanism, altruistic and collectivist ethics are fundamental and necessary in Humanism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.34.177.49 (talk) 02:00, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Adding the Objector Church?
I would like to add [www.objector.church] to the external links page, but since I am minister with this religious humanist community, I am obviously biased so I thought it best to pose the question of whether it should be added before just adding it.

For more information on the church's religious humanist teachings, this page provides more detail:

Jmbranum (talk) 18:53, 6 March 2020 (UTC)