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left alone. They do not want God and religion rammed in their face, as is typically the case in most of the world. They do tend to get a bit testy when things go too far, as when their children are forced to recite prayers at school. But they do not - repeat not - conduct Crusades, Inquisitions, or pogroms. They do not declare jihads or fatwas (by the way, I am totally in agreement with those Muslims who define jihad as "inner striving"). Secular humanists do not torture or kill believers simply for believing.

No, it is religious believers who perpetrate violence. Anger and violence are important and powerful tools for enforcing religious conformity.

Who's immoral?

That's why it's especially ironic that the God-believer's first - and cheapest - shot at secular humanists is to accuse them of amorality or immorality.

To fundamentalists, secular people are...well, the devil. Atheists have no God, therefore no morality. I've heard this charge repeated over and over, and I am really tired of it.

I recently read it again, from someone who should know better but is cognitively incapable of knowing better, namely an Orthodox rabbi writing a column in the Providence Journal (Avi Shafran, "The vast indignity of atheism," 6/28/06). He repeated the cliche which is untrue at best and libelous at worst that dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong are products of atheism.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Tyrants deify themselves and the state. They have nothing to do with secular humanism.

For way too long, secular humanists have been vilified as lacking in morality or lacking a basis for morality. Nothing could be further from the truth. You do not need God in order to be good, and in fact some very God-fearing people are, as we all know, very bad.

Humanistic and Ahumanistic religion

What's so important about "a-theism" anyway? Since humans are the only beings who practice religion, why not classify religions as humanistic/ahumanistic? Isn't that just as important a division, if not more so, than theistic/atheistic?

Some regions, such as Buddhism, are inherently atheistic or nontheistic. Buddhism is humanistic as well. Likewise, Secular Humanistic Judaism is both nontheistic and humanistic.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are mixed. They are theistic and humanistic when they promote humanistic values, such as tolerance, nonviolence, charity, courage, compassion, honesty, and the value and autonomy of human beings.

But they are decidedly ahumanistic when they practice

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