Humanism does not equal Atheism

So just finished reading The Humanist magazine from the American Humanist Association. Once again - it’s a great issue. However, one of the book reviews made me really annoyed. Jende Huang - whom I adore - reviewed Greg Graffin’s new book. Greg Gaffin was the lead singer for the punk band Bad Religion and now holds a PhD in zoology from Cornell. It sounds like a cool book; the problem is that Jende uses words like Humanism, Atheism, non-religious and nontheists interchangeably when he really shouldn’t. If you are talking about Atheists, you are not necessarily talking about Humanists. Simply put, not all Humanists are atheists and not all atheists are Humanists.

This comes up because apparently Graffin calls himself a naturalist even though he is an Atheist mostly because he doesn’t want to associate with what he calls “God-haters.” Jende takes issue with Graffins complaint.  I think Jende misses the point. 

Instead of taking issue with Graffin’s distaste for the New Atheist movement, maybe we should consider his concerns as valid. It may yield a more productive outcome for us as a movement. Just think of how many people like Graffin are out there looking for a meaningful philosophic affiliation that acknowledges their secular perspective while avoiding the anti-religious bigotry that seems to pervade the New Atheist movement.

Humanism should be providing just the sort of alternative that Graffin would find appealing. But it won’t unless we stop treating Humanism as if it’s equivalent to Atheism. Until and unless we can do that, we shouldn’t expect people like Graffin to know that there is indeed an alternative and that it not only has a name but a movement behind it.

Long story short, the Atheist movement should be promoting Atheism and the Humanist movement should be promoting Humanism. If Humanists don’t promote Humanism because we are too busy promoting Atheism because we ourselves can’t tell the difference, then we are idiots.

Until we can distinguish Humanism from Atheism we can’t talk to people about Humanism. And until we start talking about what Humanism is we shouldn’t be surprised that well educated people like Graffin not only don’t know what Humanism is but that they also don’t know that their personal philosophy is most likely Humanism.