What is a Secular Humanist?

[louis c]

What's a Secular Humanist? I get that question all the time when I answer the question of "What religion are you?"

The closest I can come in describing what a Secular Humanist is this:

[Warpy]

1. Most secular humanists are quite practical

and limit their activity to voting for bond issues for things like schools and parks and generally trying to make their local area a better place for people now and those are to come.

They're secular humanists because waiting for god to come to it all for us has simply never worked. If we want a better world, we'll have to build one ourselves.

They also realize something else has never worked: shoving god into government. Just look at what a mess that has made throughout history.

[louis c]

2. Those sentiments capture my interpretation, too

That's why I'm a social activist and a union leader. I don't "Pray" for change, I work hard to make it happen.

Another saying that fits my philosophy is Shakespeare's "Our fate is not in our stars, but in ourselves"

[RKP5637]

3. Exactly! I am always so irked by people that pray to a god than getting off their

butts and doing something. What a cop out! Others that irk me are those saying the world is ending and sitting on their butts waiting for some whatever to float them into some heaven. What a bunch of absolute BS. And I'll stop here, but one other that is very annoying are those that say god works in mysterious ways after some horrific event ... or xxxx dies and they say, well, god needed xxxx in heaven. Idiots and losers!

[Hekate]

4. In the mouths of RW politicians, it's code like "rootless cosmopolite" was in old Russia...

It's kind of confusing until you realize they mean it in a bad way, but you're not sure how they got there. I don't think that any of us who are political secularists in particular or humanists generally would ever have put those two words together and have them come up meaning "godless atheists" the way GOPers seem to do.

Sorry if I'm drifting OT, but my world-weariness is weighing on me today.

[cbayer]

5. This is nice and something I think most people here can embrace

no matter what else they call themselves.

[rhett o rick]

6. Well I gotta say it ...... "You're a dreamer."

Good for you.

[louis c]

7. Thanks

[rhett o rick]

8. Dont tell others but I consider myself a progressive secular humanist.

Bill O likes to call us secular progressives, leaving out the humanist as he tries to make it pejorative.

[brentspeak]

9. Kurt Vonnegut on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut#Religion

"I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead."