“I myself have ‘support for evolution guided by divine intervention.'”
“Rhetorical support, not true scientific evidence or support”
Do you agree with me that I support a particular variety of [Shapiro]”evolution”?
“Exactly which ‘religious beliefs’ is Behe ‘trying to insert… into what should be a more scientific discussion’?”
“ID/creationism”
If someone believes that an intelligent creator created the universe in the big bang, and then walked away from that universe, never to be heard from again, would you consider that belief a ‘religious belief’?
If someone believes that matter has existed for an infinitely-long amount of time, and only recently did mind appear, would you consider that belief a ‘religious belief’?
“He doesn’t say why, but in your own link Shapiro guesses:
‘One can only guess that professor Behe brings religion back into the evolutionary debate because he feels intelligence is somehow beyond nature.'”
Who is “he”? (Shapiro? Behe?)
Do you yourself believe that Behe “feels intelligence is somehow beyond nature”?
“Do you agree with this?:
‘Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.’
— Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_”
“Sounds reasonable enough as an informal observation”
What do you think is responsible for the origination of the realm of biology’s “complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”?
“Not sure why you’re inserting Shapiro’s name in brackets here”
Because he used the word.
I myself [Shapiro]“support… evolution guided by divine intervention.”
That makes me an evolutionist.
“Why would you ask me about your beliefs?”
I might ask you about your understanding of what my beliefs are.
“If someone believes that an intelligent creator created the universe in the big bang, and then walked away from that universe, never to be heard from again, would you consider that belief a ‘religious belief’?”
“Not necessarily religious, ‘though I suppose it could be associated with a religion”
If someone believes that an intelligent creator created the universe in the big bang, and created biology including humans, and then walked away from that universe, never to be heard from again, would you consider that belief a ‘religious belief’?
“Would the proponents of this hypothetical religion worship this creator? … Some might consider it to be a philosophical belief in deism, which is not typically considered a revealed religion”
Einstein was a deist.
I wouldn’t say he worshiped the god of deism.
I’m unaware of Einstein engaging in any religious rituals in connection with his belief in the god of deism.
One could say that the god of deism was revealed to Einstein via Einstein’s understanding of physics.
“If someone believes that matter has existed for an infinitely-long amount of time, and only recently did mind appear, would you consider that belief a ‘religious belief’?”
“Not typically, but there’s a lot of different religious beliefs out there. Some are pretty atypical”
I see.
“He doesn’t say why, but in your own link Shapiro guesses”
“Who is ‘he’? (Shapiro? Behe?)”
“If you had read your own link, which you claim you did, it should be perfectly obvious”
‘Shapiro doesn’t say why, but in your own link Shapiro guesses’
‘Behe doesn’t say why, but in your own link Shapiro guesses’
“Do you yourself believe that Behe ‘feels intelligence is somehow beyond nature’?”
“You would need to ask Behe”
I doubt Behe even knows that you exist.
Do you yourself believe that Behe “feels intelligence is somehow beyond nature”?
“What do you think is responsible for the origination of the realm of biology’s ‘complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose’?”
“Are you asking me what I believe is responsible for the origin of life. I don’t know”
I’m not asking that.
“Are you asking me why biologists have traditionally understood living things to have been designed for a purpose?”
No.
Dawkins says that, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
I’m asking, What do you think is responsible for the origination of the realm of biology’s [Dawkins]”complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”?
And to see how familiar you are with Dawkins, I will also ask,
Do you know what Dawkins believes is responsible for the origination of the realm of biology’s [Dawkins]”complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”?
If ‘yes,’ what does Dawkins believe is responsible?
_Evolution “On Purpose”: Teleonomy in Living Systems_ (2023)
A unique exploration of teleonomy—also known as “evolved purposiveness”—as a major influence in evolution by a broad range of specialists in biology and the philosophy of science.
The evolved purposiveness of living systems, termed “teleonomy” by chronobiologist Colin Pittendrigh, has been both a major outcome and causal factor in the history of life on Earth.
Many theorists have appreciated this over the years, going back to Lamarck and even Darwin in the nineteenth century.
In the mid-twentieth century, however, the complex, dynamic process of evolution was simplified into the one-way, bottom-up, single gene-centered paradigm widely known as the modern synthesis.
In _Evolution “On Purpose,”_ edited by Peter A. Corning, Stuart A. Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, Richard I. Vane-Wright, and Addy Pross, some twenty theorists attempt to modify this reductive approach by exploring in depth the different ways in which living systems have themselves shaped the course of evolution.
_Evolution “On Purpose”_ puts forward a more inclusive theoretical synthesis that goes far beyond the underlying principles and assumptions of the modern synthesis to accommodate work since the 1950s in … and other fields.
In the view of the authors, active biological processes are responsible for the direction and the rate of evolution.
Essays in this collection grapple with topics from the two-way “read-write” genome to cognition and decision-making in plants to the niche-construction activities of many organisms to the self-making evolution of humankind.
As this collection compellingly shows, and as bacterial geneticist James Shapiro emphasizes,
“The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable.”
“Anything of value to contribute here”
“Value” is in the eye of the beholder.
Essay “Problems with the Theory of Natural Selection”
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Timeline of Materialism, Spontaneous Generation, and Blindwatchmaking Views
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The Search for a Loophole to the Beginning of the Universe and to the Seeming-Design of Physics
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“Do you agree with this?:
‘Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.’
— Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_”
“Sounds reasonable enough as an informal observation…
I imagine I get Dawkin’s point, but I haven’t read it in context.”
Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_ (1986)
amazon .com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Universe/dp/0393351491/
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CHAPTER 1 EXPLAINING THE VERY IMPROBABLE
We animals are the most complicated things in the known universe.
The universe that we know, of course, is a tiny fragment of the actual universe.
There may be yet more complicated objects than us on other planets, and some of them may already know about us.
But this doesn’t alter the point that I want to make.
Complicated things, everywhere, deserve a very special kind of explanation.
We want to know how they came into existence and why they are so complicated.
The explanation, as I shall argue, is likely to be broadly the same for complicated things everywhere in the universe; the same for us, for chimpanzees, worms, oak trees and monsters from outer space.
On the other hand, it will not be the same for what I shall call ‘simple’ things, such as rocks, clouds, rivers, galaxies and quarks.
These are the stuff of physics.
Chimps and dogs and bats and cockroaches and people and worms and dandelions and bacteria and galactic aliens are the stuff of biology.
The difference is one of complexity of design.
Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.
Physics is the study of simple things that do not tempt us to invoke design.
[Dawkins]”Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
Cf.
Stephen C. Meyer, “Signature in the Cell: Intelligent Design and the DNA Enigma” on 270-282 of
_The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity_ (2012)
amazon .com/Blackwell-Companion-Science-Christianity/dp/1444335715/
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But with the advent of Darwinism, and later neo-Darwinism, modern science claimed to explain the appearance of design in life as the product of a purely undirected process.
In the _Origin_, Darwin argued that the striking appearance of design in living organisms – in particular, the way they are so well adapted to their environments – could be explained by natural selection working on random variations, a purely undirected process that nevertheless mimicked the powers of a designing intelligence.
Thus, as evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala (2007, 8567) notes, Darwin accounted for “design without a designer.”
Indeed, since 1859 the appearance of design in living things has been understood by most biologists to be an illusion – a powerfully suggestive illusion but an illusion nonetheless.
Or as Francis Crick put, biologists must “constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved” (Crick 1988, 138).
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“GR predict singularities–basically, divide by zeros, to arise in reality; That is generally regarded as a serious problem.
It also don’t work with anything inherently quantum.
It also gives rise to the black hole information paradox.”
Reference for “divide by zeros”?
In the Roger Penrose and Kip Thorne I read recently, I didn’t see any mention of dividing by zeros.
In 2003, Penrose had a seemingly-contradictory stance that big bang and black hole singularities are real, while anticipating that a quantum theory of gravity would eliminate them.
Roger Penrose, in
_It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science_ (2003), 284pp., 180-212, on 209, 210
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Page 209
According to my own perspective on these issues, while we must be cautious about claims concerning the observational status of the large-scale universe, we must accept that the Big Bang and black-hole singularities are indeed part of nature.
Rather than shrinking from them we must try to learn from them something of the ‘quantum geometry’ that should ultimately replace them.
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Page 209
The first is that although unstoppable gravitational collapse must sometimes occur (such as with a supermassive star or collection of stars at a galactic centre), we do not know for sure that a black hole would be the result even though the singularity theorems tell us to expect space-time singularities.
There is a still unproved assumption, referred to as “cosmic censorship’ (that I pointed out in 1969), which asserts that the resulting singularity cannot be ‘naked’, which means in effect ‘visible from the outside’.
If naked singularities do not occur, then a black hole must indeed be the result.
(In any case, naked singularities would be, in a clear sense, “worse’ than black holes!)
A black hole swallows material in its immediate vicinity and (cosmic censorship being assumed) destroys it all in the singularity at the centre.
To the infalling material, this singularity represents the “end of the universe’, and it plays a role like a big bang reversed in time.
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Page 210
In effect, cosmic censorship may be interpreted as telling us that there are just two kinds of space-time singularity in the universe, the past type (in the Big Bang) and the future type (in black holes).
Matter is created at the past-type singularity and it is destroyed at the future-type ones.
Thorne says “the correct laws of physics… probably do not” have singularities, and he awaits the formulation of “a quantum theory of gravity.”
He seemingly-contradicts himself by also saying, “recent numerical simulations on supercomputers have confirmed those analyses: singularities are a generic outcome of stellar implosion.”
Kip Thorne & Roger Blandford, _Relativity and Cosmology: Volume 5 of Modern Classical Physics_ (2021), 1151-1544, on 1271
As with r –> 2M, there are two possibilities:
either the tidal forces as measured on the star’s surface remain finite as r –> 0, in which case something must be going wrong with the coordinate system;
or else the tidal forces diverge, destroying the star.
The tidal forces are computed in Ex. 26.10, with a remarkable result:
they diverge.
Thus, the region r = 0 is a _spacetime singularity_:
a region where tidal gravity becomes infinitely large, destroying everything that falls into it.
This conclusion, of course, is very unsatisfying.
It is hard to believe that the correct laws of physics will predict such total destruction.
In fact, they probably do not.
As we will find in Sec. 28.7.1, in discussing the origin of the universe, when the radius of curvature of spacetime becomes a small as … 10^(-33) cm, space and time must cease to exist as classical entities;
they and the spacetime geometry must then become quantized.
Correspondingly, general relativity must then break down and be replaced by a quantum theory of the structure of spacetime– a quantum theory of gravity.
That quantum theory will describe and govern the classically singular region at r = 0.
Since, however, only rough hints of the structure of that quantum theory are in hand at this time, it is not known what that theory will say about the endpoint of stellar implosion.
on 1273:
Our discussion here has been confined to spherically symmetric, nonrotating black holes created by the gravitational implosion of a spherically symmetric star.
Of course, real stars are not spherical, and it was widely believed– perhaps we should say, hoped– in the 1950s and 1960s that black-hole horizons and singularities would be so unstable that small nonsphericities or small rotations of the imploding star would save it from the black-hole fate.
However, elegant and very general analyses carried out in the 1960s, largely by the British physicists Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking, showed otherwise.
More recent numerical simulations on supercomputers have confirmed those analyses:
singularities are a generic outcome of stellar implosion, as are the black-hole horizons that clothe them.
“Maybe its just religion masquerading as science”
James Shapiro, “What Is the Best Way to Deal With Supernaturalists in Science and Evolution?”
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One reason Darwinism has failed to convince skeptics may be that it ignores over 60 years of molecular science.
Thirty years ago, I was at a conference in Cambridge, England, to celebrate the centennial of Darwin’s death.
There, Richard Dawkins began his lecture by saying,
“I will not only explain that Darwin had the right answer, but I will show that he had the only possible right answer.”
Hearing this (and knowing that alternative explanations inevitably arise in science), I said to myself that the Creationists have a point.
They are dealing with a form of religious belief on the “evolution” side.
Dawkins’ transformation into an aggressive proselytizer for his undoubting and absolutist version of atheism confirms this conclusion.
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Socialism should be classified as a religion, not an economic system, because it behaves exactly like one and fails by the same standards every time you test it as science.
It runs on faith over evidence. A century of famine, gulags, and collapsed economies from the Soviet Union to Venezuela never shakes a true believer. Each failure gets the same answer religions give when prophecy fails: it wasn’t real socialism, it wasn’t done right, next time will be different. That is not a hypothesis responding to data.
It has its own eschatology. Marx promised a final state of history where class conflict dissolves and abundance arrives, a secular version of the same promised land every millenarian religion has preached. It has martyrs, sacred texts, heresies, and true believers who treat Das Kapital the way others treat scripture, quoting chapter and verse to settle arguments rather than checking the passage against reality.
None of that is a reason to ban it. Religious freedom means people get to organize their private lives around whatever creed they choose, including this one. A commune of adults who voluntarily pool everything, share labor, and reject private property among themselves is doing exactly what monasteries have done for a thousand years. Let them. Nobody is harmed when consenting adults live out their faith on their own dime.
The line should sit exactly where it sits for every other religion: you can practice it, you cannot impose it. A Christian cannot force you to tithe. A socialist should have no more power to force you into collectivized property than a Mormon has to force you into his church.
Voluntary socialism among believers is a lifestyle. Socialism imposed by the state on people who never converted cannot be classified as economics, but rather a forced conversion(with a tax code attached). A religious crime against humanity.
“communism is most definitely not a religion”
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**Statements by communists themselves often frame their commitment in terms of faith, dogma, salvation, absolute submission, messianic destiny, and catechism-like structure—hallmarks of religious devotion—even while officially rejecting supernatural religion.**
### Explicit comparisons of communism to religion
Joseph Dietzgen (a self-educated Marxist tanner and philosopher whose work Marx and Engels praised, and whom Lenin later recommended) wrote *Six Sermons on Communism and Religion* (1870s, also known as *The Religion of Social-Democracy*).
He stated:
> “The teachings of Communism contain the material for a new religion which, unlike any other religion, appeals not merely to the heart and emotions, but at the same time to the brain, the organ of knowledge.
From all other earthly knowledge communism is distinguished by its religious form, by its fervid appeal to the heart and soul of man.”
He continued that communism is “all the more the true religion” because it seeks humanity’s salvation from suffering not through prayer or fantasy but through “the social organization of manual and mental work,” calling the conscious organization of social labor “the redeemer of modern times.”
Dietzgen presented communist ideas in sermon form and treated the movement as a secular faith that supersedes prior religions.
Friedrich Engels drafted a *Communist Confession of Faith* (1847) in explicit catechism/Q&A form (“Question 1: Are you a Communist? Answer: Yes…”), ending with the claim that communism makes all existing religions “superfluous and supersedes them.”
This mirrors religious instructional texts.
### Faith stronger than traditional religion
Leon Trotsky’s final testament (February 1940, shortly before his assassination) declared:
> “Whatever may be the circumstances of my death I shall die with unshaken faith in the communist future.
This faith in man and in his future gives me even now such power of resistance as cannot be given by any religion.”
He repeatedly described his lifelong commitment as “faith in the communist future of mankind,” calling it more ardent and firmer than in his youth, while affirming himself an “irreconcilable atheist.”
This directly equates the intensity and sustaining power of communist belief with (and claims superiority over) religious faith.
### Absolute submission and dogma
Georgy (Yuri) Pyatakov, a leading Old Bolshevik, stated (as reported by contemporaries including in accounts of his recantation and later testimony):
> “For the Party’s sake you can and must at 24 hours’ notice change all your convictions and force yourself to believe that white is black.”
(Variant formulations: a true Bolshevik must be ready to believe black is white if the Party required it.)
This reflects the demand for total, faith-like obedience in which Party judgment overrides personal perception or evidence—analogous to religious submission to dogma or hierarchical authority.
Lenin, while insisting Marxism is atheistic and hostile to religion as “opium,” acknowledged that some Party members or agitators used formulations like “socialism is my religion.”
He treated this as sometimes acceptable as a pedagogical transition for backward masses (from religion toward socialism) but condemned it when it became “god-building” that moved from socialism back toward religion.
### Lifelong conviction and messianic framing
– Fidel Castro: “I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I will be a Marxist-Leninist until the last days of my life.”
(And earlier variants affirming lifelong adherence.)
– Mikhail Gorbachev: “I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.”
These echo confessional or lifelong vows of faith.
Broader communist rhetoric frequently treated the proletariat as a messianic class, History as an inexorable force guaranteeing salvation in a classless “paradise,” and the Party as the exclusive interpreter of truth—features observers (and some internal critics) have long noted as structurally religious, even as the ideology remained materialist and anti-theistic.
These statements come from major figures across the tradition (Dietzgen as an early theorist close to Marx/Engels; Trotsky and Pyatakov as central Bolsheviks; Castro and Gorbachev as later leaders).
They illustrate how commitment was experienced and expressed as an all-encompassing, faith-demanding, salvific worldview rather than a purely provisional or empirical political program.
“communism is most definitely not a religion”
Was Nazism a religion for some adherents of Nazism?
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**Statements by leading Nazis frequently framed their commitment in explicitly religious terms—faith, gospel, salvation, divine mission, providence, dogma, ritual, and absolute devotion—treating National Socialism as a sacred worldview or surrogate religion, often while attacking traditional Christianity.**
### Explicit identification of Nazism as a religion
Joseph Goebbels recorded in his diary (23 July 1926):
> “National Socialism is a religion.
Only the religious genius is missing who breaks the old formulas and creates new ones.
We lack the ritual.
National Socialism must become the state religion of the Germans.
My party is my church, and I believe that serving the Lord is best done by fulfilling His will and freeing the oppressed people from their chains of slavery.
This is my gospel.”
He later wrote of the need to be hard against the churches so that “we ourselves will become one.”
Similar language appears in other Party contexts describing National Socialism as “a religion, born out of blood and race… the new, only true religion.”
Robert Ley (Reich Labor Front leader) offered a formal “confession of faith”:
> “Adolf Hitler!
We are united with you alone!
We want to renew our vow in this hour:
On this earth we believe only in Adolf Hitler.
We believe that National Socialism alone is the saving faith for our people.
We believe that there is a Lord-God in Heaven, who created us, who leads us, who directs us and who blesses us visibly.
And we believe that this Lord-God sent Adolf Hitler to us, so that Germany may become a basis for all eternity.”
Ley’s circle also produced verse rejecting the Christian cross in favor of the swastika and mocking Christian self-denial as incompatible with the movement.
### Faith in Providence, the Führer, and the Volk
Adolf Hitler repeatedly invoked a higher power guiding his mission.
In *Mein Kampf*:
> “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator:
by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
He spoke of acting under Providence, of being chosen or sent for Germany’s salvation, and of National Socialists possessing “deep in our hearts our own faith,” insisting that no one can shape history without “the blessing of Providence.”
Surviving assassination attempts was interpreted as a sign of continued divine favor for his work.
Public rhetoric often blended this with “positive Christianity” for political utility, while private statements (recorded by Goebbels and others) showed contempt for Christian ethics as weakening.
### SS as a quasi-religious order
Heinrich Himmler treated the SS as an elite order with its own sacral character, modeled in part on the Jesuits and Teutonic Knights, complete with rituals, ancestral veneration, and neo-pagan elements (including use of Wewelsburg Castle).
He required belief in a higher power:
> “We believe in a God Almighty who stands above us;
he has created the Earth, the Fatherland, and the Volk, and he has sent us the Führer.
Any human being who does not believe in God should be considered arrogant, megalomaniacal, and stupid and thus not suited for the SS.”
In a 9 June 1942 speech (at Reinhard Heydrich’s funeral), Himmler declared the need to settle accounts with Christianity as “this greatest of plagues,” while affirming “from my deepest conviction a belief in God, a belief in fate, in the ancient one as I called him—that is the old Germanic word: Wralda.”
He spoke of rooting the people in an eternal chain of ancestors and grandchildren as the moral foundation for a Germanic Reich that would be “a blessing for the earth.”
Atheism was barred as a source of indiscipline.
### Broader sacralization
Nazi rhetoric and practice included messianic portrayals of Hitler, confessional vows, blood-and-soil mysticism, cultic rallies (“cathedral of light”), and claims that service to the nation or Führer was service to God.
Alfred Rosenberg described National Socialism as a “religion of action” in which serving highest racial-national values made the metaphysical present in human deed.
The movement demanded total, faith-like commitment, with the Party/Führer as the ultimate source of truth and salvation for the Volk.
These statements—from Goebbels, Ley, Himmler, Hitler, and others—reveal how core Nazis experienced and propagated their ideology as an all-encompassing sacred cause, complete with its own gospel, elect order, providential narrative, and demand for absolute devotion, even as they sought to displace or subordinate traditional religion.
“communism is most definitely not a religion”
Was secular humanism a religion for some adherents of secular humanism?
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**Early and foundational secular humanists frequently described their commitment in explicitly religious language—calling humanism a new religion, a faith, a gospel of humanity, or a sacred quest—while rejecting supernaturalism.**
Later figures often distanced themselves from the “religion” label to emphasize naturalism, but the original statements reveal a strong sense of ultimate, faith-like devotion to human potential, reason, and earthly progress.
### Humanist Manifesto I (1933)
The foundational document, signed by 34 people including philosophers and Unitarian ministers, explicitly presents humanism as a form of religion:
> “In order that religious humanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make certain affirmations…
There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance…
Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life.”
Key affirmations include:
– “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.”
– “Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant.
Nothing human is alien to the religious.
It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation—all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living.
The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.”
– “Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now.
This is the explanation of the humanist’s social passion.”
– “In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.”
The signers framed humanism as a dynamic new religion suited to the scientific age, replacing outdated theism.
### Julian Huxley
The biologist and first Director-General of UNESCO presented “evolutionary humanism” as a new world religion.
At the inaugural World Congress on Humanism and Ethical Culture (Amsterdam, 1952), he offered it as a creed in which humanity, as the product of evolution, would consciously guide its own destiny to higher levels.
He had earlier developed these ideas in *Religion without Revelation* (1927, revised later), arguing that science’s next great task was to create a religion for humanity.
### Other early statements
– **Charles Francis Potter** (*Humanism: A New Religion*, 1930):
“Humanism is not simply another denomination of Protestant Christianity;
it is not a creed; nor is it a cult.
It is a new type of religion altogether.”
– **John Dewey** (*A Common Faith*, 1934):
Distinguishing institutional “religion” from the “religious” quality of experience, he concluded:
“Here are all the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class, or race.
Such a faith has always been implicitly the common faith of mankind.
It remains to make it explicit and militant.”
– **Roy Wood Sellars** (principal author of the 1933 Manifesto) described humanism as “a religion founded on realities in a religion coming of age.”
### Later continuations of faith language
Humanist Manifesto II (1973), drafted by Paul Kurtz and Edwin H. Wilson, still used religious-adjacent terms even while criticizing traditional religion:
> “These affirmations are not a final credo or dogma but an expression of a living and growing faith.
We invite others in all lands to join us in further developing and working for these goals.”
It affirmed that “in the best sense, religion may inspire dedication to the highest ethical ideals” while rejecting supernatural dogmas, and presented humanism as offering “a vision of hope, a direction for satisfying survival.”
Corliss Lamont and others spoke of humanism’s “ultimate faith” in humanity’s capacity to solve its problems through reason and science, and of a fundamental commitment (sometimes called “faith”) to human values as of ultimate significance.
Some religious humanists continued to embrace congregational forms, rituals, and the language of faith without theism.
These statements—from the Manifestos, Huxley, Dewey, Potter, and related figures—show secular humanists treating their worldview as an all-encompassing, emotionally charged, salvific commitment centered on humanity itself, with its own sacred values, shared quest, and call to militant realization of human potential in this life.
Later secular humanists often preferred “philosophy” or “life stance” terminology to avoid supernatural connotations, but the foundational rhetoric reveals a clear religious structure of devotion.
“communism is most definitely not a religion”
Was Ethical Culture a religion for some adherents of Ethical Culture?
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grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_94be7468-83d7-454c-9e87-777736143218
**Ethical Culture (also called the Ethical Movement or Ethical Humanism), founded by Felix Adler in 1876, has been described by its founder and subsequent leaders as a religion centered on ethics rather than theology or supernatural belief.**
Adherents often frame their commitment in religious language of faith, sacredness, holy ground, consecration, and devotion to the moral ideal.
### Felix Adler (founder)
Adler explicitly treated Ethical Culture as a religion and titled one of his key works *The Religion of Duty* (1905).
He wrote:
> “Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement.
By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.”
He emphasized that morality is primary and that faith arises from ethical living:
> “Theologians often say that faith must come first, and that morality must be deduced from faith.
We say that morality must come first, and faith, to those whose nature fits them to entertain it, will come out of the experience of a deepened moral life as its richest, choicest fruit.”
Adler’s early motto for the movement was “Not by the creed but by the deed” (or “Diversity in the creed, unanimity in the deed”).
He described this as “that practical religion from which none dissents.”
He also stated that “Ethical Culture is religious to those who are religiously minded, and merely ethical to those who are not so minded,” while regarding the societies themselves as religious bodies.
He called the place where people gather to seek the highest “holy ground” and developed a metaphysical framework in which the moral law and the intrinsic spiritual worth of every person hold a sacred, quasi-divine status.
### Movement statements and later leaders
Ethical Societies have long functioned with religious forms (Sunday platforms, ceremonies for naming, marriage, and memorials, moral education for children) and have secured legal recognition as religious organizations.
Leaders have continued the religious framing:
– “Ethical Culture is a religion of humanity, committed to the supreme value that all humans, whatever their race, religion, gender, or political persuasion, are to be treated fairly and compassionately as fellow humans in one human family.” (John Hoad, Leader Emeritus)
– “We (Ethical Culture) are a religious community committed to consecrating our lives to acting in ways that honor our primary commitment to respect the worth and dignity of each person and to create human institutions which enable societies… to do so as well.” (Barbara Meyerson, Leader)
– “Ethical Culture is a religion centered on ethics, not theology, whose mission is to create a better world for all and to respect the sacredness of humanity and Nature.” (Society statement)
A 2003 Leaders’ Council statement and related documents affirm Ethical Culture as a religious movement whose core is the belief that relating to others so as to elicit their best simultaneously elicits the best in oneself, treating human personality as the supreme end and sacred value.
These statements—from Adler’s foundational writings through later Leaders—present Ethical Culture as a nontheistic ethical religion in which devotion to the moral ideal, the inherent worth of persons, and the continuous effort at moral improvement function as the object of faith, reverence, and consecrated living.
Members remain free regarding supernatural beliefs, but the movement itself is structured and described as religious by those most committed to it.
“communism is most definitely not a religion”
Was Fascism a religion for some adherents of Fascism?
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**Non-German fascists, especially the Italian founders and ideologues of Fascism, repeatedly described their movement in explicitly religious terms—as a faith, a religious conception of life, a civic religion, a mystique with martyrs, and an absolute spiritual commitment to the nation and the State.**
### Official Doctrine of Fascism (1932)
The authoritative text, largely drafted by Giovanni Gentile and published under Mussolini’s name in the *Enciclopedia Italiana*, states:
> “Fascism is a religious conception of life in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raises him to conscious membership of a spiritual society.
Whoever has seen in the religious politics of the Fascist regime nothing but mere opportunism has not understood that Fascism, besides being a system of government, is also, and above all, a system of thought.”
It continues:
“Life, therefore, as conceived by the Fascist, is serious, austere, religious:
the whole of it is poised in a world supported by the moral and responsible forces of the spirit.
The Fascist disdains the ‘comfortable’ life.”
Fascism seeks “to remake not the forms of human life, but its content, man, character, faith.”
### Benito Mussolini
Mussolini repeatedly framed Fascism as a faith and myth:
> “We have created our myth.
The myth is a faith, it is passion.
It is not necessary that it shall be a reality.
It is a reality by the fact that it is a good, a hope, a faith, that it is courage.
Our myth is the Nation, our myth is the greatness of the Nation!
And to this myth, to this grandeur, that we wish to translate into a complete reality, we subordinate all the rest.” (Speech at Naples, 1922)
He also called Fascism “a religious phenomenon of vast historical proportions” and “a belief which has reached the level of religion.”
In later statements he described it as a faith that goes beyond party or idea.
### Giovanni Gentile (chief philosopher of Fascism)
Gentile described Fascism as possessing “the religious sentiment for which one takes life seriously” and as “a cult born of the whole soul of the nation.”
He presented it as a true political and civil religion comparable in seriousness to Christianity, capable of demanding the negation of mere earthly attachment through sacrifice.
### Other Italian Fascist leaders
– Giuseppe Bottai:
Fascism is “something rather more than a doctrine. It is a political and civic religion… it is the religion of Italy.”
– Party and youth organs:
Young people should “believe in Fascism, in the Duce, in the Revolution, as one might believe in the Divinity.”
“A good fascist is religious.
We believe in a mystical Fascism because it is a mystique with its martyrs, its devotees, and humbles a whole people before an idea.”
– Salvatore Gatto (Party official):
“Fascism is a civil and political religion because it has its own concept of the state and its own method of understanding life…
only religion can deny and annul attachment to an earthly existence.”
### Spanish Fascism (Falange)
José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, described fascism as born
“to inspire a faith not of the Right… nor of the Left… but a collective, integral, national faith.
In its faith resides its fecundity.”
He emphasized a transcendent national unity and a spiritual, sacrificial conception of politics over mere tactics or materialism.
These statements—from Mussolini, Gentile, Bottai, official doctrine, and parallel figures such as José Antonio—show non-German fascists presenting their ideology as an all-encompassing spiritual and religious commitment, complete with faith, myth, martyrs, sacred national destiny, and total devotion that transcends ordinary politics.
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