Secular and religious humanism: history and current state

Abstract

The term "humanism" is quite controversial and ambiguous. It seems more successful to use it in the narrow sense — as a movement of people of the Renaissance, who united by an interest in Antiquity, studying and commenting on monuments of Ancient classical, mainly Latin literature. However, it is obvious that the term became fixed and began to be actively used in the environment of free-thinkers in the beginning of the 20th century in a broader interpretation. It means now a person-centered worldview that does not share the theistic position or even completely rejects the supernatural. The term "religious humanism" as it is presented in the First Humanist Manifesto, refers not to the philosophical characteristics of the followers. It refers to a method of formalizing humanistic ideas. "Religious humanism" was created as an alternative to existing traditional religions that meets the needs of the times. If we accept belief in the supernatural as the main feature of religion, then we can't label religious humanism as religion, since it is oriented towards the exclusion of the supernatural. At the same time, however, in religious humanism rituals and institutions are preserved in the reinterpreted form. Secular humanism can be considered as quasi-religion. But in this case, it will not have any specificity in comparison with the movements of the free-thinking. The division of humanism into "religious' and "secular" seems unsu ccessful. As we have seen, the difference between them in fact lies only in particulars, while the key points are the same. It relates to a non-religious worldview and includes methodological naturalism, scientism, skepticism and the desire to promote the common good. The Russian Humanist Society is the most famous organization of free-thinkers in Russia. It organized in the 1990s as one of the branches of the humanistic organization of Paul Kurtz and a while back it took part in the discussion of the problem of whether humanism was a religion.