Secular Humanism: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

One life, no supervision, and the whole of the responsibility.

The organised non-religious stance: no god, no revelation, no afterlife, and ethics built from reason and human sympathy rather than command. It has a founding document revised twice, an international federation of more than 120 member organisations, and — the part most people never hear about — a licensed clergy in all but name, conducting weddings that are legally valid in Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey and legally invalid in England and Wales.

Why it is filed this way

Whether humanism is a religion is a live argument that humanists themselves take both sides of. The 1933 Manifesto called it one deliberately; the 2003 successor does not. United States courts have treated it as one for constitutional purposes — Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) lists Secular Humanism and Ethical Culture among religions that do not teach belief in God — which humanist bodies use when claiming equal access to chaplaincy and resent when opponents use it to argue that state schools teach a religion.

DeitiesNo god, and no substitute installed in the position. What the Amsterdam Declaration puts there instead is responsibility: since nothing external supplies meaning or rescue, the obligation to act well falls entirely on human beings, now, without appeal. Humanists are emphatic that this is a positive commitment and not merely the absence of belief, which is the distinction they draw between humanism and atheism.

Founded1933 CE · Chicago, United States

AfterlifeNone. Humanist funerals are explicit that this is the end, and are designed around that rather than around consolation.

TextsA Humanist Manifesto (1933) · Humanist Manifesto II (1973) · Humanism and Its Aspirations: Humanist Manifesto III (2003)

The map

Secular Humanism’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

c. 1000 BCE Judaism 30 CE Christianity 1517 CE Protestantism 1933 CE Secular Humanism 1961 CE Unitarian Universalism

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

This life is the only one, and it is enough to be getting on with. No supervision, no rescue, no second attempt. Humanists treat this as the ground of the ethics rather than a loss to be managed. Go deeper — context →

Whether humanism is a religion. The 1933 Manifesto said yes, thirteen times over. The 2003 version drops the word. US courts have said yes for First Amendment purposes, which humanists find useful and irritating in roughly equal measure. ⚖ contested within Go deeper — context →

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Enter →

J John Dewey — the name that carried the document. He signed A Humanist Manifesto in 1933; Roy Wood Sellars and Raymond Bragg drafted it. Humanism has no founder and does not pretend otherwise. Domain Education, democracy and inquiry without metaphysicsStanding The most cited name on the founding document, and a reminder that it was drafted by others Meet them — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

The celebrant at the crematorium door. A humanist funeral has no prayers, no hymns and no reference to heaven. It is built from the life of the person who died, by someone who met the family first. When Lifetime — namings, weddings and funeralsWho Anyone; led by an accredited celebrant Go deeper — context →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Buddhism — 11 shared ideas, a different faith Yoruba Religion — 11 shared ideas, a different faith Jainism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Islam — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Branch Secular Humanism — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what Secular Humanism shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been

Sources

2 cited texts

The American Humanist Association, Our History where it is cited →
The Amsterdam Declaration 2022, Humanists International where it is cited →

These citations identify texts used in the linked passages. Follow each passage to read its quotation and context. A tradition’s own texts explain its teachings; historical claims may also require independent scholarship. Translations marked (rendered) are our own plain-English wording, not a standard edition; where a passage matters, read it in a full translation.