Editing Secular humanism (section)

==History==
[[Humanism#History|Historical use of the term humanism]] (reflected in some current academic usage), is related to the writings of [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratic philosophers]]. These writings were lost to European societies until Renaissance scholars rediscovered them through Muslim sources and translated them from Arabic into European languages.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/arab-y67s11.html |title=Islamic political philosophy: Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes |publisher=Fordham.edu |access-date=13 November 2011}}</ref> Thus the term humanist can mean a humanities scholar, as well as refer to [[The Enlightenment]]/ [[Renaissance]] intellectuals, and those who have agreement with the pre-Socratics, as distinct from secular humanists.

===Secularism===

[[File:Holyoake2.JPG|thumb|upright|George Holyoake coined the term "secularism" and led the secular movement in Britain from the mid-19th century.]]
In 1851 [[George Holyoake]] coined the term "secularism"<ref>Holyoake, G. J. (1896). ''The Origin and Nature of Secularism.'' London: Watts & Co., p. 50.</ref> to describe "a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions, the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life".<ref name="Secularism 101">{{cite web 
|url= http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/religion/blrel_sec_def.htm 
|title= Secularism 101: Defining Secularism: Origins with George Jacob Holyoake 
|publisher= Atheism.about.com 
|date= 2 September 2011 
|access-date= 13 November 2011 
|archive-date= 22 September 2006 
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060922083203/http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/religion/blrel_sec_def.htm 
|url-status= dead 
}}</ref>

The modern secular movement coalesced around Holyoake, [[Charles Bradlaugh]] and their intellectual circle. The first secular society, the [[Leicester Secular Society]], dates from 1851. Similar regional societies came together to form the [[National Secular Society]] in 1866.

===Positivism and the Church of Humanity===
Holyoake's [[secularism]] was strongly influenced by [[Auguste Comte]], the founder of [[positivism]] and of modern [[sociology]]. Comte believed human history would progress in a "[[law of three stages]]" from a [[theological]] phase, to the "[[Metaphysics|metaphysical]]", toward a fully rational "positivist" society. In later life, Comte had attempted to introduce a "[[religion of humanity]]" in light of growing anti-religious sentiment and social malaise in [[French Revolution|revolutionary France]]. This religion would necessarily fulfil the [[structural functionalism|functional]], cohesive role that supernatural religion once served.

Although Comte's religious movement was unsuccessful in France, the positivist philosophy of science itself played a major role in the proliferation of secular organizations in the 19th century in England. [[Richard Congreve]] visited Paris shortly after the [[French Revolution of 1848]] where he met [[Auguste Comte]] and was heavily influenced by his positivist system. He founded the London Positivist Society in 1867, which attracted [[Frederic Harrison]], [[Edward Spencer Beesly]], [[Vernon Lushington]], and [[James Cotter Morison]] amongst others.

In 1878, the Society established the [[Church of Humanity]] under Congreve's direction. There they introduced sacraments of the Religion of Humanity and published a co-operative translation of Comte's Positive Polity. When Congreve repudiated their Paris co-religionists in 1878, Beesly, Harrison, Bridges, and others formed their own positivist society, with Beesly as president, and opened a rival centre, Newton Hall, in a courtyard off Fleet Street.

The New York City version of the church was established by English immigrant [[Henry Edger]]. The American version of the "Church of Humanity" was largely modeled on the English church. Like the English version, it was not atheistic and had sermons and sacramental rites.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eUnCQ6dD0YEC&q=%22church+of+humanity%22+positivist&pg=PA23|title=Positivist Republic|access-date=12 June 2015|isbn=978-0271039909|last1=Harp|first1=Gillis J.|date=2010-11-01|publisher=Penn State Press }}</ref> At times the services included readings from conventional religious works like the [[Book of Isaiah]].<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F03E4DE1730EE3ABC4E52DFB766838A699FDE | title=A Positivist Festival| journal=The New York Times| date=1881-01-16}}</ref> It was not as significant as the church in England, but did include several educated people.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 3169031|title = "The Church of Humanity": New York's Worshipping Positivists|journal = Church History|volume = 60|issue = 4|pages = 508–523|last1 = Harp|first1 = Gillis J.|year = 1991|doi = 10.2307/3169031| s2cid=162304255 }}</ref>

===Ethical movement===

[[File:Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London 07.jpg|thumb|[[Conway Hall]] in London]]
Another important precursor was the [[ethical movement]] of the 19th century. The [[South Place Ethical Society]] was founded in 1793 as the [[South Place Chapel]] on [[Finsbury Square]], on the edge of the [[City of London]],<ref name="City of London">[https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/environment-and-planning/planning/heritage-and-design/conservation-areas/Documents/Finsbury%20Circus%20Character%20Summary.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304054149/https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/environment-and-planning/planning/heritage-and-design/conservation-areas/Documents/Finsbury%20Circus%20Character%20Summary.pdf|date=4 March 2016}}, City of London page on Finsbury Circus Conservation Area Character Summary.</ref> and in the early nineteenth century was known as "a radical gathering-place".<ref>''The Sexual Contract'', by Carole Patema. p. 160</ref> At that point it was a [[General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches|Unitarian]] chapel, and that movement, like Quakers, supported female equality.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.keele.ac.uk/history/currentundergraduates/tltp/WOMEN/RENDELL/CORE1.HTM#Title| title = "Women's Politics in Britain 1780–1870: Claiming Citizenship" by Jane Rendall, esp. "72. The religious backgrounds of feminist activists"}}</ref> Under the leadership of Reverend [[William Johnson Fox]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ethicalsoc.org.uk/history.htm |title=Ethical Society history page |publisher=Ethicalsoc.org.uk |access-date=2013-09-29 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000118230842/http://www.ethicalsoc.org.uk/history.htm |archive-date=18 January 2000}}</ref> it lent its pulpit to activists such as [[Anna Wheeler (author)|Anna Wheeler]], one of the first women to campaign for feminism at public meetings in England, who spoke in 1829 on "rights of women". In later decades, the chapel changed its name to the South Place Ethical Society, now the [[Conway Hall Ethical Society]]. Today Conway Hall explicitly identifies itself as a humanist organisation, albeit one primarily focused on concerts, events, and the maintenance of its humanist library and archives. It bills itself as "The landmark of London's independent intellectual, political and cultural life."

In America, the ethical movement was propounded by [[Felix Adler (professor)|Felix Adler]], who established the [[New York Society for Ethical Culture]] in 1877.<ref>Howard B. Radest. 1969. ''Toward Common Ground: The Story of the Ethical Societies in the United States.''  New York: Fredrick Unger Publishing Co.</ref> By 1886, similar societies had sprouted up in Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis.<ref name=Campbell>Colin Campbell. 1971. ''Towards a Sociology of Irreligion.'' London: MacMillan Press.</ref>

These societies all adopted the same statement of principles:
*The belief that morality is independent of theology;
*The affirmation that new moral problems have arisen in modern industrial society which have not been adequately dealt with by the world's religions;
*The duty to engage in philanthropy in the advancement of morality;
*The belief that self-reform should go in lock step with social reform;
*The establishment of republican rather than monarchical governance of Ethical societies;
*The agreement that educating the young is the most important aim.

In effect, the movement responded to the religious crisis of the time by replacing theology with unadulterated morality. It aimed to "disentangle moral ideas from [[religious doctrines]], [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] systems, and ethical theories, and to make them an independent force in personal life and social relations."<ref name=Campbell/> Adler was also particularly critical of the religious emphasis on creed, believing it to be the source of sectarian bigotry. He therefore attempted to provide a universal fellowship devoid of ritual and ceremony, for those who would otherwise be divided by creeds. Although the organisation was overwhelmingly made up of (and entirely led by) atheists, and were many of the same people as in the secular movement, Ethical organisations at that time publicly avoided debate about religious beliefs, publicly advocating neither [[atheism]] nor [[theism]], [[agnosticism]] nor [[deism]], instead stressing "deed without creed" and a "purely human basis" for morality.<ref name=Campbell/>

The first ethical society along these lines in Britain was founded in 1886. By 1896 the four London societies formed the Union of Ethical Societies, and between 1905 and 1910 there were over fifty societies in Great Britain, seventeen of which were affiliated with the Union. The Union of Ethical Societies would later incorporate as the Ethical Union, a registered charity, in 1928. Under the leadership of [[Harold Blackham]], it renamed itself the British Humanist Association in 1967. It became the [[Humanists UK]] in 2017.

===Secular humanism===
In the 1930s, "humanism" was generally used in a religious sense by the Ethical movement in the United States, and not much favoured among the non-religious in Britain. Yet "it was from the Ethical movement that the non-religious philosophical sense of ''Humanism'' gradually emerged in Britain, and it was from the convergence of the Ethical and Rationalist movements that this sense of ''Humanism'' eventually prevailed throughout the [[Freethought]] movement".<ref>Walter, Nicolas (1997). ''Humanism: what's in the word?'' London: RPA/BHA/Secular Society Ltd, p. 43.</ref>

As an organised movement in its own right, humanism emerged from vibrant non-religious movements of the 18th and 19th centuries such as the Owenites, Ethical Culture, the freethinkers, secularists, and positivists, as well as a few non-religious radical Unitarian congregations. The first [[Humanist Manifesto]] announced the humanist movement by that name to the public in 1933, following work at the University of Chicago across the 1920s.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.americanhumanist.org/Who_We_Are/About_Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_I |title=Text of Humanist Manifesto I |publisher=Americanhumanist.org |access-date=13 November 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107221355/http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_I |archive-date=7 November 2011}}</ref> The American Humanist Association was incorporated as an [[Illinois]] non-profit organization in 1943. The International Humanist and Ethical Union was founded in 1952, when a gathering of world Humanists met under the leadership of [[Sir Julian Huxley]]. The [[British Humanist Association]] took that name in 1967, but had developed from the Union of Ethical Societies which had been founded by [[Stanton Coit]] in 1896.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.humanism.org.uk/about/history |title=British Humanist Association: History |publisher=Humanism.org.uk |access-date=13 November 2011 |archive-date=24 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121124042907/http://www.humanism.org.uk/about/history |url-status=dead }}</ref>