Secularist organizations promote the view that moral standards should be based solely on concern for the good of humanity in the present life, without reference to supernatural concepts, such as God or an afterlife. The term secularism, as coined and promulgated by George Jacob Holyoake, originally referred to such a view. Secularism may also refer to the belief that government should be neutral on matters of religion, and that church and state should be separate. The term is here used in the first sense, though most organizations listed here also support secularism in the second sense.
Secularists, and their organizations, identify themselves by a variety of terms, including agnostic, atheist, bright, freethinker, humanist, nontheist, naturalist, rationalist, or skeptic. Despite the use of these various terms, the organizations listed here have secularist goals in common. Note that, while most of these organizations and their members consider themselves irreligious, there are certain exceptions (Ethical Culture, for example).
Famous quotes containing the words list of and/or list:
“A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)