8 - Growing Humanism in a Faith-Dominated Society

Summary

Dialogue concerning, and embrace of, secularization in general and humanism in particular, within the European context, has come to represent something of a litmus test for marking out a compelling framing of life that challenges the myopic and reified framing of the public and the private marking of religious discourse. Much of what stems from this attention to secularization involves battle over ideas, a rethinking of the language and grammar of the public sphere. Unfortunately, certain ways to enhance humanist agendas have given less systematic attention to the development of solid strategies that might be applied across various communities. We bring this to the fore because developing societies committed to secular values and sensibilities have clear strategies and implementation plans that can be used by humanist organizations. What this chapter proposes involves one way of thinking about such strategies for advancing humanist societies. Although we frame much of this conversation regarding the United States as a case study, we believe the general principles and strategies can have value and find application in other areas of the world as well.

In 2007 the Pew Forum conducted the US Religious Landscape Survey, the largest nationwide survey to date on religion in the United States, with a sample of more than 35,000 adults. This survey found that the percentage of people unaffiliated with a particular faith is at 16 percent, more than double the percentage of those who said they were not affiliated with a particular religion as children.