Can a humanist and an atheist really lead a United Nations organization dedicated to religion? Yes, when that organization is the Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief - and when that humanist is Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies. On Thursday, May 25, he was re-elected to a second two-year term.
HNN reports:
Two years ago, Cherry became first humanist to hold the position of president of the United Nations NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief. The president can serve up to two two-year terms. Prior to his appointment as president, he served a two-year term on the committee as secretary.
"Much has changed in the past 25 years. The collapse of Soviet tyranny expanded freedom of conscience across all of Europe and large parts of Asia," Cherry said. "In a changing world order, freedom of religion and belief is emerging as the touchstone for peace and human rights. Intolerance of religion and belief breeds discrimination, conflict and terrorism. It is therefore vital that we increase our efforts to promote a culture of tolerance and respect."
Matt has done a tremendous amount on behalf of humanism and church/state separation over the years. I first met him when he was working with the Council for Secular Humanism and have been impressed with how much he has been doing with the Institute for Humanist Studies. I think it's great that he is able to have a voice at the United Nations and wish him the best of luck over the next two years...
Separation of Church & State:
Communism is an economic system, not a philosophy. One can be very Xian or Jewish or what not AND be communist. That Soviet Russia was anti-religion is mostly due to the need to prevent the church from being a threat to the power of the party.
Todd is quite right, and it is an important difference to stress, as otherwise we risk leaving ourselves open to such criticisms as ‘Stalin/Lenin killed millions of his own people and he was inspired to do so by his atheist (as opposed to communist if the difference is made) views’.
This of course is not the case, and again Todd puts this well above, and I shall not repeat him.
It’s both, although philosophically it’s often just called Marxism or Marxist philosophy.
Ditto with humanism, existentialism, and objectivism.
I don’t think one can be a communist objectivist, though.
Epicurianism–I had to look that one up. Sounds like a philosophy of cooking.
Now that I’ve read a bit about it, though, it doesn’t sound too bad, although I don’t know that I agree with its ascetic tendencies.
Actually, except maybe for communism, I feel much the same about the other poll choices as well. Each has their attractive points, but each also has elements that I disagree with enough that I would not adopt that label in describing myself.
So what does one call a philosophy which is a picking-and-choosing of the best parts from other philosphies?
Also, a quick note on the article itself. I think a humanist atheist is a great choice for the UN CFRB. What better choice than a person who is not beholden to any one particular religion? Whatever religious people think of atheism, at least they can be reasonably sure that he won’t show favoritism toward one religion over others. And as an atheist, Cherry probably has some pretty good prior experience dealing with the defense of unpopular, minority beliefs.