With the understanding that Humanists of Utah is a democratic organization that considers dissident views, I am writing this rebuttal to Bob Green's article in the September 1993, issue of The Utah Humanist with the hope it can be printed in that publication so that members will be exposed to both sides of the issue.

I do not think we should be too quick to indulge in self-congratulation over the expression of support from the AHA President to President Wineriter of Green's viewpoint in the article; I suggest there are some serious problems with the Editor's expressed position that need to be addressed.

The article contains a good deal of invective criticism including name-calling, impugning of motives, and attacking of the character of writers of what Green considers to be objectionable pieces in the Grassroots News. He condemns "a militant anti-religionism, a rejection, (approaching hatred) of supernaturalism."

I was puzzled as to what Green is talking about, since he fails to provide in the article a single specific example of the kind of writing that was upsetting him. Most Utah humanists, I believe, like me, do not take the Grassroots News, but do take The Humanist. Since he says that the offensive rhetoric was "encouraged by" the latter, I reviewed all the articles in that magazine from the September/October, 1992 issue to the present one.

I found that the articles on the subject he was referring to were informative: (1) describing activities and conditions promoted by some creeds and (2) including thoughtful analysis which indicated the implications of these for values cherished by humanists, such as religious liberty. The pieces discussed the need for freedom from religious libel and unfair and dishonest attacks by believers, fundamentalist and otherwise, and the absurdities of some religious beliefs, as well as the harm some of these do by promoting intolerance and persecution. Examples are the articles about Catholicism in the September/October, 1993 issue: "Sweet Land of Libertines? Fear mongering over Gays in the Military" in the May/June, 1992 issue; "The Great Satan of Humanism" in the September, 1992 issue; and the regular features, "Civil Liberties Watch" and "Watch on the Right."

Green says, "Forget the insensate fight with the fundamentalists and old bugaboo of religion."

If we did that, we would be signaling to the world that humanists are not concerned about the abuses perpetrated against people in the name of religion. We would also be abandoning the posture taken in the "Religion" section of Manifesto II, which forcefully criticizes traditional dogmatic or authoritarian faiths as doing a disservice to humankind and as harmful or inadequate in other ways. I suggest all humanists re-read this section.

The war in Yugoslavia is as much a battle of religious faiths between Roman Catholics (in Croatia) and Eastern Orthodox Christianity (in Serbia) as it is of ethnic intolerance; the Roman Catholic Church has established compulsory religious teaching and prayer in public schools in Poland; and Hindus and Muslims in India, spurred on by propaganda from the leaders of fundamentalist sects in both camps, are killing each other in large numbers.

Fundamentalist and authoritarian believers are unrelenting in their efforts to take control of the public schools and politics and to push their beliefs and practices upon others. Because of their tendency to practice thought control, their posture is a threat to freedom of speech, religion, and the press, as well as to the separation of church and state, principles which humanist support. They also continually spread misrepresentations about humanists.

It is obvious that we are talking about good guys here and we must not critique them and their activities.

Green argues for Roy Wood Sellars' "basic interrogation of human life," a concept with which I have no argument; but I question this author's second point, which entails a change in dominance from attacking supernaturalism to describing humanism within a "new framework," in which belief in supernaturalism simply fades out. Not many people in the United States have experienced this fading out, if we can go by public opinion polls. If people believe their traditional creeds provide the definitive answers to the important questions, are they likely to look any further for answers? Probably not.

The people who most influenced me toward humanism were such as H. G. Wells, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, and Bertrand Russell who pointed out candidly that much in traditional creeds consists of superstitious and magical belief and blind obedience to authority. In everyday life I encounter many people who seem unaware of the potential for mind-control of these features of faith. How are we to make human beings aware of the problem, if we do not call their attention to it, as Manifesto II does?

Green believes we will persuade more people to humanism if we drop the fight with fundamentalism and authoritarian religion. His assumption is questionable. Even if it were correct, are people who cannot face the facts about traditional faith really very promising as recruits to humanism? Actually, he is asserting an accommodationist position toward such faith. Such soft-pedaling may offend fewer people, but we are being something less than forthright in telling the full story of what we are about if we engage in it. It is better to state our case fully and candidly.

--Richard Layton