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Donald Clegg: You may think you know but labels can confuse

Donald Clegg Correspondent

I’ve been thinking about the weight of labels. The various associations people ascribe to religious belief (or disbelief) systems are as likely to confuse as to clarify.

If I were to say I’m a Mormon, for example, people would go, “Oh, Mormon, huh?” I’d be tagged with a whole set of beliefs and assumptions and you’d assume that you knew where I was coming from.

So, too, with secular labels such as humanism, agnosticism and, particularly, atheism.

This labeling doesn’t work well in actual practice, of course, because there are mean, nasty, vindictive people of all beliefs, as well as charitable folks. The apparent willingness to assign labels of “good” and “bad” based simply on whether you say, for instance, that you’re a Christian or not just complicates matters.

Never mind that a fundamentalist evangelical, for instance, can be as liberal as the day is long – or a Bush-loving-attack-Iraqer.

Labeling simply misinforms and, unless given the back-and-forth of real discourse, serves as well as anything else to foster divisiveness and antagonism. The moment you hear a label, the next thing out of your mouth should be, “What do you mean by that?”

I’m as guilty as the next person of ignoring that advice, but I think it’s worth trying, as clarification is always worthwhile. It may mean that you decide you really, really dislike someone, based on that expansion, but at least you’ll know you’re not wasting negative energy on the wrong person.

With that in mind, I think it’s time that I try to clarify my own beliefs as a self-professed secular humanist, as I’ve no doubt been tagged with a variety of labels for declaring such an affiliation. I think my overall point of view has been as obvious as a stop sign (Conservatives bad! Liberals good!), but obvious isn’t necessarily accurate.

Conservatism, per se, isn’t the problem, but a lack of humanism in the practice of said conservatism might be. Which leads to the obvious question: What is humanism? It’s time for me to take a test, of sorts, and see how I score – which needs some explanation, I think.

You see, I’m an indoctrination-free humanist, as I’ve come to this point of view without formal study of “Humanism.” I’ve read plenty of folks whom I consider great humanists, of course, and many of them are also people of faith – Bill Moyers, for instance – or not (Bertrand Russell comes to mind).

You might say that I’ve come to my faith without a Bible.

However, there is a formal Humanist movement. The magazine Free Inquiry, published by the Council for Secular Humanism, articulates a whole set of Humanist principles, none of which I’ve read; even writing “humanism” with a capital H (which isn’t how I envision it) feels odd.

I’m looking at the first copy of Free Inquiry that I’ve ever had in my magazine-and-book-loving hands, and just inside the cover is a list of humanist principles. I haven’t read them yet, so the test I’d like to take here is to simply write down a few “humanist” beliefs I’ve come to on my own and see how they compare with capital H “Humanism.”

First and foremost, I believe that each and every individual can determine for oneself, through personal inquiry and reflection, what they believe and why they believe it. That is, all well-educated people are, essentially, self-taught. Put another way, the student is also the teacher.

Second, although you certainly can and should learn from any and all sources that appeal to you – even actual professional teachers – you shouldn’t accept anything anyone says simply because that person in particular said it. Put another way, no truth is “sacred” – i.e., said to come from a higher power. (Although economist Paul Krugman, The Great and Wise, comes close.)

Third, I believe that human beings are able to understand and act ethically and morally through the development of a personal set of values that have been internalized through practice and experience. Stated more simply, you don’t need anyone to tell you what right and wrong is, and you can explain why it is so.

Fourth, human beings, all by their lonesomes, through the innate gifts of humanity and its concomitant faculties, can figure out their own fates, and – subject to the vagaries of chance and luck, both good and bad – work toward the fulfillment of that fate. That is, people, not God, determine their ends.

And this is mine for now; I’ll finish the test another time. I wonder how I’m doing?