Speaker: Charles W. Merrifield
I remember as a small child sitting in church services listening to the minister angrily yelling to his congregation. When I was 6 I asked him why he was so angry. He said something like, “Oh, I’m not angry, (chuckle, chuckle) I’m just trying to tell everyone to fear God.” Indeed, his God was a fearful God. Smiting people and nations almost randomly. Consigning people throughout history to hell for thinking incorrectly. At the time it didn’t seem plausible. I reasoned that if my parents had told me that Christmas presents came from Santa Claus, Easter eggs came from the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy left money for baby teeth, why should I believe this stuff about God? Still, that hell stuff bothered me and the shear anger of God worried me. Maybe my doubts endangered my soul. I lived in fear of that terrible God. Fortunately for me I was exposed to the Methodist God when I was in high school. At the time in the 1960s, the Methodist God was a pretty nice guy who seemed to actually like real people instead of only hyper-controlling people. What a relief! Eventually I came to an understanding that there probably wasn’t a God. I felt safer in a world without a capricious God.
So, moving on with my childhood, when I was 11 years old I and my younger brothers went to live with my grandparents on the family farm in Northern Oklahoma. On the farm we all had chores. My main chore was to walk out in the pasture to collect the dairy cattle for their evening milking. Usually it was really quite enjoyable. My grandfather had found me an English Shepherd farm dog to help herd the cattle, and together we set out late each afternoon to bring in the cattle. Most evenings when it wasn’t raining or freezing it was very pleasant to walk out in the pasture with my dog. Often I found myself whistling a tune as I would watch the natural world around us while my dog, Skippy, would romp and play in the tall grass. In May there really were waves in the wheat that did smell sweet when the wind came right behind the rain. Birds, butterflies, rabbits, possums, tadpoles, snakes, and crawdads were all there from time to time. On these walks it was not uncommon to see meadowlarks. Meadowlarks are the state bird of Kansas but they were very common and probably still are very common in Northern Oklahoma. One of the interesting things about meadowlarks is that if you got too close to a nest, the meadowlark sitting on the nest would flutter up into the air, fly off in the distance, and act as if it had a broken wing. The bird would flutter off maybe 50 feet away and settle in the grass still fluttering. If my dog or I approached the fluttering bird in its new position, the bird would flutter up into the air and descend another 50 feet away from the nest, thus drawing us away from its babies. By the way, this animal altruism has been much studied by ethologists concerned with why one animal would put its life in danger for another animal.
Now the cattle that my grandfather raised and I was to bring in each evening were Guernseys. I really loved the Guernseys. They are a medium size breed, larger than Jerseys but much smaller than Holsteins. They are usually even tempered. They are easy to tame. Several of them were basically pets. They were easy to bring in. Often they would organize themselves into a long line following each other as they peacefully walked to the barn. Although Guernseys are usually even tempered, friendly creatures, there were exceptions. One of those exceptions was a large, old cow named Mickey. Mickey had a bad attitude. When being milked, she often had to wear kickers to hold her feet in place. She used her tail to punish the person doing the milking. She didn’t cooperate with her fellow cows. She was unpleasant.
One afternoon when my dog and I were out in the field to bring in the cattle, we found Mickey standing beside a newborn calf. My experience with mother Guernseys and newborn calves was that the mothers were anxious with me around their baby, but not really upset, maybe like a human mother who is not too sure that Little Johnny should hold the baby yet. Usually dealing with Guernsey mothers and babies was a touching , endearing experience. So there was Mickey and her baby. As I approached the little calf, Mickey lowered her head and charged me. I had picked up a long stick in the pasture as I came through the field, and I hit Mickey over the head with it to drive her off. The thin stick broke, and Mickey continued towards me as I stumbled backwards. My dog barked and jumped at her face, and Mickey pulled back. I was able to gain control of the situation then, but it had certainly been a close call.
So here we have two stories of animals protecting their young. Can we say they are acting ethically? If we define ethics as a system of moral principles, and if we define morality as the rules of right conduct, as does the dictionary on my phone, we can say that protecting the young is right conduct and, therefore, ethical. You might wonder where cows and meadowlarks get their moral principles. We’ll look at that in a minute.
One more story that will transition into my talk. My grandmother’s father, my great-grandfather Marvin Munger, was born in 1863 in Missouri. He had begun his professional life reading the law under the tutelage of a practicing attorney. One evening he was enraptured at a Baptist camp meeting and decided to become a Baptist minister. I’m not sure how he studied to become a minister, but he did accumulate a large collection of theology books. Over the years some of his books passed on to my grandmother and then passed on to me. One of his books is of particular interest. It was published in 1888 and is titled “What the world believes” (Hagar, 1888). The book lists 13 authors and one editor. It is about 750 pages long and includes descriptions of most of the religions of the world. (Or religions recognized by American Protestants at the time.) It devotes several pages to Unitarians and to Universalist. Among its acknowledgments are Unitarian and Universalist leaders of the day. Chapter 63 in the book is titled “Unitarian Congregationalist.
To quote some of the chapter:
Unitarianism takes its name from its distinguishing tenet, the strict personal unity of God, which Unitarians hold in opposition to the doctrine which teaches that God exists in three persons. They believe in only one supreme, self-existent God, the Father, who exists as one person, one being, infinite in his attributes, and the only proper object of the highest love and adoration. They regard Jesus Christ as a person distinct from God, and dependent on God, from whom he derived his being and power…. While agreeing in the doctrine of the subordination of Christ to God they differ very much in their views of the nature of Christ and of his precise relation to God. Some regard him as simply a man, distinguished for his goodness and spiritual endowments, the son of Joseph and Mary, others as the son of the Virgin Mary by supernatural generation, others as the highest representation of humanity,…[ and here I add that there were other beliefs ] (Hagar, 1888, p. 566)
The book goes on to describe the history of the development of Unitarianism in the Early Christian era and during the European Reformation and then it comes to Unitarianism in the United States and it says, During the first fifteen years of the present century the drift of thought [in} most of the Congregational churches in Boston and in the eastern part of Massachusetts was towards liberal Christianity, as Unitarianism was then called. In 1805 a controversy arose of considerable violence between the Orthodox and Liberal Congregationalists. … But there was no open division in the churches …till 1815…. Since that time the separation between the Orthodox and Unitarian churches has been complete …(p. 570)
Before moving on, let me summarize two points I derived from this book. First, organized Unitarianism in the US resulted from a controversy in the Congregational Church. We will shortly see how controversies continue to be involved in US Unitarianism. Secondly, Unitarianism of the 1880s would be recognized today as an example of Christian Humanism which focused on the humanity of Jesus and his social teachings. Christian Humanism is a large constituent of American and European Christianity, although it is only tangentially related to my presentation. What I want to focus on his how Humanism evolved within the Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist movement.
William Murry, a leading UU Humanist, writes that Humanism “…can be seen as having three interwoven strands: a scientific curiosity about the origins of the universe; a commitment to human happiness and the common good; and a sense of skepticism … about the supernatural.” ( Murry, 2017, p. 3) He writes that, “Explicit Unitarian Universalist Humanism began during World War 1, when two Unitarian ministers, John Dietrich and Curtis Reese, began to preach and teach a religion without God. Reese called it a religion of democracy and Dietrich called it Humanism. They advocated social change as well as freedom of belief. Conservatives in the Unitarian movement fought their views, and in the 1920s, a serious controversy took place between the Humanists and the theist … However, since Unitarianism had no creed, Dietrich and Reese prevailed, and religious Humanism became a significant part of the Unitarian movement. Also in the 1920s, a number of ministerial students at the University of Chicago and the Unitarian affiliate, Meadville Theological School, embraced the new ideas of religious Humanism. …. In 1933, the students organized the new humanist fellowship and decided there ought to be a statement summarizing the beliefs of religious Humanism. They asked University of Michigan philosopher and Unitarian layman Roy Wood Sellars to draft such a statement, which was published in 1933 as ”The Humanist Manifesto”. It was signed by 34 of the day’s leading philosophers and Unitarian ministers including John Dewey, as well as Dietrich and Reese (p. 5-6). I think it is important to note the first Humanist Manifesto was Unitarian document.
The Humanist Manifesto is a document of 5 pages that list 15 statements that identified Humanism. The goal was to identify the characteristics of a religion based on Humanist principles that could accomplish the benefits of religion without the use of supernaturalism. The manifesto began with principles based on the characteristics of nature. The universe exists on its own and was not created. Humans are a part of nature. There is no distinction between mind and body. Several principles described the characteristics of religion. Religions are produced by societies’ cultures, not from divine inspiration. The time has passed to rely on religions based on deities. There should be no distinction between the sacred and the secular. The goal of religion is the realization of human development in the here and now. Instead of focusing on worship and prayer, the humanist expresses religion through “heightened personal life and cooperative effort”. Humanists face the crises of life through “social and mental hygiene” which means to accept realistically the crises of life within a context of social support. The manifesto ended with several general principles. Religion must work to increase the joy of living. Religions must be redesigned so that they focus on human institutions to aid in the fulfillment of human life, not on the glorification of deities at the expense of humans. An economic order that is based on cooperation and the equitable distribution of resources is needed. Everyone should have the conditions for a good life, not just the few (AHA, 1933).
The Humanist Manifesto was a product of its times. Unitarian Humanism emerged during the First World War. It was the first war of worldwide terror and suffering that made people wonder if benevolent gods were watching out for us. Also, the discoveries of science provided explanations that indicated that religious explanations were not needed. The 1930s were a time of economic difficulty for many when the old ways weren’t working. Under these conditions an optimistic Humanism emerged. Subsequent decades indicated that such optimism might be misplaced.
In 1973 the American Humanist Association took another look at the manifesto. The world had changed since 1933. World War 2 with its millions of deaths including the Russian Front, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave pause to humanists. The issues of racism and nuclear threat worried humanists. The American Humanist Association with the primary authors Paul Kurtz and Edwin Wilson published the Humanist Manifesto ll (AHA, 1973). Among the signators were 9 UU ministers including Raymond Bragg from Kansas City. Another Kansas name was Hans Falck from the Menninger Foundation. Albert Ellis, Hans Eysenck, and B.F. Skinner signed as well. This document was 10 pages long and had 17 principles in 5 categories. Let me summarize each of these categories.
The first category is religion. Religions based on unverifiable deities are misleading and harmful. “Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful.They distract humans from present concerns, from self-actualization, and from rectifying social injustices.”
The second category is Ethics. “We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or idiological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest.”
The third category is the individual. The dignity and freedom of the individual is a central humanist value. The rights of the individual are paramount within the context of social responsibility. “The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized.”
The fourth category is democratic society. “…[T]he individual must experience a full range of civil liberties in all societies.” Participatory democracy is the ideal goal for all structures in society. There should be a separation of church and state. Economic systems should be judged by the …”well being for all individuals and groups, minimizing poverty and hardship, and increasing the sum of human satisfaction.” “The principle of moral equality must be furthered through the elimination of all discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, or national origin.”
The fifth category is World Community. “We look to the development of a system of world law and the world order based upon transnational federal government.” “This world community must renounce the resort to violence and force as a method of solving international disputes.” “The planet Earth must be considered a single ecosystem. Ecological damage, resource depletion, and excessive population growth must be checked by international accord.” “World poverty must cease.” Communication and transportation resources and opportunities should be improved.
In 2003, thirty years after the Humanist Manifesto 2 came out, the American Humanist Association released Humanist Manifesto 3 which they titled, “Humanism and Its Aspirations”(AHA, 2003). The signators included 10 UU ministers, Watson and Crick of DNA discovery fame, along with Kurt Vonnegut, Isaac Asimov, Albert Ellis, and many more. This document is only 2 and a half pages long with 6 principles. Each principle is described by one paragraph. I will read the first sentence of each principle. By the way, you can compare these principles to the Seven UU Principles for some close matches.1
Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.
Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships.
Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness.
We can see that Manifesto 3 is a simpler, more direct statement. It presents a more optimistic and less contentious view than the earlier ones. If you look through the Internet, you can find other Humanist Manifestos, such as a Secular Humanist Manifesto, but the three manifestos that I have summarized are the ones from the American Humanist Association. For our purposes, I think these 3 are sufficient.
Remember my opening stories of the meadowlarks and of old cow Mickey? Would we say they were acting ethically? How could we apply ethical principles from Humanism? Let’s quickly review related principles.
Let’s see, how about the equitable distribution of resources.
Moral values are derived from experience.
Ethics stems from human needs and interests.
Cooperation for the common good.
If we substituted meadowlarks and old cow Mickey for the word “Human”, we could say “Ethics stems from meadowlark or old cow Mickey needs and interests. They certainly had an interest in protecting their young, so I guess we could say they were acting ethically. However, if we step away from my musing back to the human world, we need to keep in mind that nature is amoral. Nature operates without moral principles. It is we humans who develop moral principles from our experience and our observations. Our principles can be based on the observations in nature, like rising sea level will have disastrous consequences upon humans so we should do something about it, but nature itself doesn’t care.
To end with a quick summary, I found religious humanism to be a joyful, liberating system that reveals there are no supernatural bogeymen to worry about. The only things we have to fear are fellow humans who possess self-defeating, anti-human belief systems. Nevertheless, humanist can be optimist. We can take the long view into the future, we can organize, we can work together to change the world.
American Humanist Association, (1933). Humanist Manifesto l, retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto1/
American Humanist Association, (1973). Humanist Manifesto ll, retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto2/
American Humanist Association, (2003). Humanism and its Aspirations: Humanist Manifesto lll, A Successor to the Humanist Moanifesto of 1933. retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto3/
Gibbons, K.L.R., & Murry, W.R. (Eds.), (2017). Humanist Voices in Unitarian Universalism. Boston: Skinner House.
Hagar, G.J. (Ed.), (1888). What the World Believes,… New York: Gay Brothers, 1888.
- 1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
- 2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
- 3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
- 4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
- 5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
- 6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
- 7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
By Charles W. Merrifield