Humanism

Its ethical core is ancient (Confucius, Greek philosophy); its name comes from the Renaissance 'humanists' of the 14th–16th centuries; organized modern humanism dates to the 19th–20th centuries, with the Humanist Manifesto (1933) as a landmark.

The Renaissance recovery of classical learning; Enlightenment confidence in reason and rights; 19th-century ethical societies; and, after the world wars, the restatement of human dignity without appeal to God — the manifestos, and the founding of the international humanist body (1952).

Renaissance scholars (Petrarch, Erasmus); the Enlightenment philosophes; Felix Adler, founder of Ethical Culture; John Dewey among the first Manifesto's signers; and Julian Huxley, first president of the international humanist union.

Through ethical societies, humanist associations, education, and above all the language of human rights — the Universal Declaration (1948) speaks its vocabulary. It is strongest in Europe and the English-speaking world.

Organized membership is small — national societies of thousands to tens of thousands — but its ideas are held far more widely among the ~1.2 billion religiously unaffiliated. There is no reliable global count.

The Renaissance; the Enlightenment; Humanist Manifesto I (1933), II (1973), and III (2003); the Amsterdam Declarations (1952, 2002, 2022); and the growth of humanist ceremonies — weddings, namings, funerals — as civil alternatives to religious rites.

Humanists say the main problem is human suffering, ignorance, and injustice — not sin against a god. These come from natural conditions and human choices, and can therefore be reduced by human effort.

From two sources: nature (disease, disaster, scarcity) and human beings themselves (cruelty, greed, ignorance, unjust institutions). No devil, curse, or cosmic fall is involved.

Nothing in human nature is held to be metaphysically broken. The deeper failure is ignorance, dogma, and social arrangements that block human flourishing — all of which it treats as repairable.

Human effort guided by reason, science, and compassion: education, democratic institutions, human rights, and cooperation across borders. Manifesto II states it plainly: “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”

Free inquiry and education lead to knowledge; knowledge joined with empathy shapes better ethics; better ethics reform institutions. The path is gradual and generational — no savior and no shortcut.

Partly and progressively — never finally. Early humanism (1933) was notably optimistic; after the world wars the manifestos grew more sober, claiming only that problems can be reduced, not abolished.

The person gains freedom to think, grow, and act responsibly; society gains justice, education, and rights; the world gains measurable improvement — humanists point to health, literacy, and the spread of rights as evidence the method works.

There is no single infallible source. Truth is whatever survives open inquiry — evidence and reason, with science as the most reliable method humans have found.

Reason, science, and lived experience. Revelation is rejected as an authority; tradition and intuition may be weighed as human testimony, but nothing is exempt from examination.

Because it corrects itself: claims can be checked by anyone, tested, and revised when wrong. Humanists point to the track record — medicine, technology, expanding knowledge — as the method’s credentials.

By evidence, logic, and open scrutiny: a claim earns belief in proportion to its evidence, and extraordinary claims need strong evidence. Willingness to be corrected is treated as the mark of honesty.

Humanists agree morality is not arbitrary, but split on its status: some hold moral truths are objectively real without God (Wielenberg); others treat ethics as a human project built to answer shared needs and refined over millennia (Kitcher, Kurtz).

Most humanists say there is no reliable way to such knowledge: claims about realities beyond nature cannot be checked, so they are set aside. What people call spiritual — awe, love, wonder — is embraced as fully natural.

Explicitly open. The manifestos call themselves statements of their generation, not creeds; humanists rewrote them twice (1973, 2003) and present that revisability as a strength, not a weakness.

No scripture. The working canon is the Humanist Manifestos I–III (1933, 1973, 2003) and the Amsterdam Declarations (1952, 2002, 2022), read alongside a shelf of arguments: Dewey’s A Common Faith, Russell, Kurtz, Grayling, Kitcher.

Drafted openly by named authors and committees, published in journals and books, signed publicly, and revised in later editions. Nothing was dictated, hidden, or passed on orally — the publication record is complete.

No divine claim is made — the texts claim only the authority of their arguments. They are explicitly revisable, and humanists present that as a strength: a statement that can be corrected is one that can stay honest.

Short declarations of principle in plain, public prose — theses, not stories or laws. Recurring themes: human dignity, reason and science, ethics for this life, democracy, and responsibility for the planet and future generations.

Manifesto III states six affirmations plainly: knowledge comes from observation and reason; humans are the product of unguided evolution; ethical values derive from human need and interest as tested by experience; life’s fulfillment lies in serving humane ideals; humans are social by nature; and working for society’s good serves individual happiness.

As arguments, not scripture: read plainly, weighed critically, and dissented from freely. Signing a manifesto binds no one — later humanists disagree in print with earlier ones as a matter of course.

Streams of thought rather than commentaries: religious humanism (Dewey, Ethical Culture), secular humanism (Kurtz and the Council for Secular Humanism), the analytic defense of humanism (Grayling, Law), and pragmatist rebuilding of ethics after faith (Kitcher).

Yes, and openly: the three manifestos differ on purpose. Manifesto I’s religious framing and socialist-leaning economics were dropped in 1973; the confident tone of II was softened in 2003. There is no dispute about wording — every draft and signature is on the public record.

They call themselves consensus statements of their generation, addressed to all humanity, carrying no authority beyond their arguments, and expressly open to revision as knowledge grows.

Secular humanists — the modern mainstream — find no sufficient evidence for God and live without that belief; religious humanists keep religious community and language while centering human welfare. The movement’s own arc runs from ‘religious humanism’ (1933) to plain naturalism (1973 onward).

On the mainstream view, nature is all there is — Manifesto I already described the universe as self-existing, not created. Experiences called spiritual — awe, love, wonder — are treated as real and precious, but natural.

No separate soul is affirmed. Manifesto II states that, as far as the evidence shows, the personality is a function of the living body and does not survive its death.

A natural capacity of the evolved brain. Humanists defer to science on how it works and admit openly that the full explanation is not yet in hand.

The natural continuity of one body, memory, and character through time — a biographical identity, not an eternal essence. It begins with birth and ends with death.

Neither sinful nor divine: humans are born with capacities for both good and harm, then shaped by nature, upbringing, and society. Original sin is explicitly rejected.

Humanists accept that humans are part of nature’s causal order, yet hold that deliberation, choice, and responsibility are real — most defend a practical freedom compatible with natural law. Naturalist philosophers genuinely dispute how much freedom that leaves.

Mind is understood as the working of the brain, not a separate substance. Mental life is real, but it arises from and depends on the living body.

Humanism has no doctrine here. Many humanists say the question belongs to physics or may have no answer; the classical humanist position simply takes the universe as self-existing rather than created.

It defers entirely to cosmology: the observable universe expanded from a hot, dense state about 13.8 billion years ago. Humanism adds no creation account of its own, and treats open questions as science’s to answer.

Consequences for human welfare, judged by reason and empathy: Manifesto III holds that ethical values derive from human need and interest as tested by experience. What reliably harms people is wrong; what helps them flourish is right.

Reason, honesty, compassion, fairness, tolerance, courage, and responsibility. Kurtz catalogued them as the ‘common moral decencies’ — kindness, truthfulness, keeping promises — plus excellences of character such as self-discipline and creativity.

There is no ritual code of prohibitions. Humanism condemns whatever damages human dignity and welfare: cruelty, dishonesty, exploitation, discrimination, and the coercion of conscience.

No worship or rites are required. The shaping practices are learning and inquiry, honest work, service and activism, and — for many — humanist ceremonies marking birth, marriage, and death, with local groups for fellowship.

Relationships on honesty, consent, and mutual respect; work as contribution, not only wages; hardship met with human solidarity and practical help rather than prayer; community built through voluntary association and shared causes.

A person of reason and warmth together: curious, honest, self-directed, compassionate, and engaged — someone who thinks for themselves and takes responsibility for others’ flourishing as well as their own.

No sin against God and no ritual purification. Failure calls for honest acknowledgment, repair of the harm, and correction of the habit; where law is broken, humanists favor humane justice aimed at reform rather than vengeance.

Meaning is made, not given: it is built from love, work, learning, and service to humane ideals. Humanists argue that a purpose we choose and share is no less real for being human.

On the mainstream view, death is final: the person ends. What continues is influence — the lives one touched, the work one leaves, and memory in those who remain.

Not salvation but a meaningful, ethical, flourishing life here — and a better world handed on. The promise is deliberately modest: no guarantees, only what human effort can win.

For each person, death; for humanity, no fixed destiny — an open future that humans will make better or worse. Some humanists, following Russell, add that even a universe that ends does not erase the worth of the lives lived in it.

None of the three: no final judgment, no cosmic cycles, and the self simply ends at death. Accountability is located here — before one’s own conscience, the law, and the people one affects.

Many describe it as freedom and relief — a life without fear of divine punishment — alongside a real weight: meaning must be made, not received. Socially it is lived in humanist groups, ceremonies, and causes; humanist writers themselves admit the community is thinner than a church’s.

Secular humanism (the modern mainstream); religious or congregational humanism (Ethical Culture, humanistic Judaism, Unitarian circles); and adjacent currents such as transhumanism — whose place inside humanism is itself debated.

Deeply. In Norway, humanist confirmation is a mainstream rite of passage; in Britain, humanist funerals and weddings are common; in India, rationalist and radical-humanist movements fight superstition and caste; in the United States it lives largely as freethought advocacy and church–state work.

Whether morality is objective without God; how confrontational to be toward religion; whether humanism needs congregational forms; the movement’s politics and economics; and whether transhumanism is humanism’s future or a departure from it.

From misunderstanding: that it means selfish permissiveness — in fact its ethics are demanding. From real disagreement: that it cannot ground its values without God (Mavrodes, Craig), that it is over-optimistic about human nature (Gray), and that it lives on moral capital inherited from religion (MacIntyre).

The identity is usually adopted deliberately, often after leaving a religion, and carries a strong ethic of intellectual honesty. Behavior tilts toward education, rights activism, and charitable work; community life is real but voluntary and loose — a strength for freedom, a weakness for belonging.

With science there is no balancing act — science is its method. The real work lies elsewhere: facing mortality, grief, and the hunger for meaning in a secular frame, which humanists address through philosophy, ceremony, and community rather than doctrine.

A secular, democratic society: laws come from citizens through open deliberation and elections, constrained by human rights, with state and religion kept separate. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is treated as the program’s charter.

By constitutions, separation of powers, independent courts, a free press, and regular elections. Against an unjust ruler: dissent, protest, civil resistance, and lawful removal — rights stand above every ruler, and no authority is sacred.

Full equality — in rights, duties, and roles. The manifestos make discrimination by sex a moral wrong, and organized humanism has long campaigned for women’s rights, including reproductive rights — a stance religious critics contest.

With full civil equality: humanists defend freedom of religion or belief for everyone, including believers who reject humanism. Peaceful coexistence is not a concession but the core of its politics — persuasion only, never coercion of conscience.

There is no doctrine of sacred war. Mainstream humanism allows force only as a last resort — self-defense and the lawful protection of people and rights — and Manifesto II urged the end of war as an instrument of policy.

With complete freedom: leaving carries no penalty, no shunning, and no change of civil status. Humanists go further — defending everyone’s right to leave any belief, and campaigning against the world’s apostasy and blasphemy laws.

Its advocates point to three things: the moral record — abolition, women’s rights, religious tolerance, and humane law advancing wherever reason and rights spread; the practical record — science-based medicine, education, and rising welfare; and the fact that its language of universal human dignity became the world’s shared vocabulary in 1948. It asks belief in nothing that cannot be checked.

The sharpest objection is grounding: if no God exists, why is human dignity binding on anyone? Mavrodes pressed it academically and Craig in public debate; MacIntyre argues Enlightenment ethics is a fragment cut from a theistic whole, and Gray calls humanism Christianity’s morality without its foundation. Humanism’s best answers are Wielenberg’s case that basic moral truths are real and need no further ground, and Kitcher’s account of ethics as a human project tested over millennia — adding that divine commands face their own grounding problem (the Euthyphro dilemma).

Largely, yes: naturalism plus an ethics of welfare is a simple, stable pair. The pressure point its own philosophers name is affirming objective human dignity while denying any cosmic order that confers it; realists (Wielenberg) and constructivists (Kitcher) resolve it differently, and the tension is acknowledged rather than hidden.

With science the fit is by design — humanism revises itself to match the evidence. History is the contested ground: critics say the twentieth century broke its optimism about human nature; humanists answer that the same century’s data include the rights revolutions and doubled lifespans, and that the manifestos themselves grew soberer after the wars. Everyday experience — love, conscience, the sense of dignity — is claimed as its home territory.

In daily ethics, yes — honesty, kindness, and civic duty need no borrowing. Critics argue the strain shows at the edges: facing death, absolute evil, and unconditional dignity, where — they claim — humanists lean on hopes and certainties shaped by religion. Humanists like Kitcher reply that grief and mortality are met honestly with human resources — love, memory, community — and that calling every human consolation borrowed assumes religion owns them.

Achievements claimed: the human rights instruments, humane law reform, secular education, science-based medicine, and the humanist strand in abolition and tolerance. The harms: when secular confidence in remaking humanity turned coercive — the French Revolution’s Terror, and twentieth-century regimes that were atheist yet crushed the very dignity humanism centers — critics count these against the godless project as such. Humanists answer that manifesto humanism is defined by rights, democracy, and the individual, so those regimes broke its principles rather than applied them; but they concede the lesson that utopian confidence without limits is dangerous, and the later manifestos are written in that chastened voice.

Humanists offer real answers: firm evidence that a god exists and commands otherwise, or solid evidence that humans cannot live morally or make moral progress without religion — either would break its case. Kurtz framed humanist positions as revisable hypotheses, open to correction in principle. The honest report: its core commitment — that human dignity is worth everything — is a value, not a prediction, and fair humanists concede it is argued for and chosen rather than proven.