The Human Faith Project of J. Calvin Chatlos

[BerntRostrom]

The Human Faith Project of J. Calvin Chatlos

I came upon this text in North American Council for Humanism (NACH)
at url http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol13/chatlos.html

their mag Humanism Today

Have any of you read it? I reacted badly against him using the religious word "faith". Trust or confidence maybe had been words more easy to accept?

Let see how he make use of the word faith, he seem to define faith this way:


To act with Faith is to empower, even when we do not know what the response will be.

It is acting to open life's possibilities by empowering the worth and dignity of others and ourselves and opening to Creative Forces as described.

Thus, "Our faith is in the capacity and responsibility of human beings to act in their personal relationships and in the larger community to help create a better world."

We then began to practice this skill, as we recognized now how Faith is like riding a bicycle.


I remember I have taken up this b4 for many years ago. Not sure of if it was here or at yahoogroups humanism or atheist groups?

I used IIDB search but nothing came up.

so let us start anew. Is his approach something to support?

Apart from that most of us don't like the word faith. Read his text and tell me if you could support it or see problems with it?

Bernt living in remotely UpNorth Sweden Northern Europe. Basically the end of the world :) I'm the only active atheist in this small town of 15 thousand inhabs. The otehr two lurk and don't reveal themselves oepely :) Very shy people around here huh? Hudiksvall that is. come out and make yourself known atheists in upnorth Sweden!

[Eudaimonist]

I reacted badly against him using the religious word "faith". Trust or confidence maybe had been words more easy to accept?

I agree. Those would have been better words.

In secular writings, the word "faith" is overwhelmingly taken to mean: "to believe something in the absence of evidence, or in spite of evidence to the contrary". This meaning is very difficult for the secular person to ignore.

I have to wonder what his motive is for using the word "faith".

He concludes by saying:

Furthermore, these experiences [of "Unity" with others] provided an expanded empathy and compassion for the Humanism of various religious traditions. We recognized how these Creative Forces are important parts of most traditional religions with their experience and source often expressed by the word "God." Our process and distinctions were similar to that of Christianity with an emphasis in love that is embodied in Jesus Christ as the sacrifice of God's love and in the winning combination of Faith (God the Father), Love (God the Son), and Truth (God the Holy Spirit or Word). Some members even experienced a conversion similar to that of the born-again Christian, or what William James speaks of as the twice-born. [...] We recognized how the power of religious fervor and religious wars of Fundamentalists are perverted attempts to empower through Unity to unleash the Creative Forces, except that these acts actually involve the confusion of "empowerment" with "power as domination", which is ultimately damaging to human worth and dignity.

Beginning with Faith and making a commitment to the worth and dignity of every person, we had experienced a transformational Faith Process which led to distinguishing the experiences discussed, and developed an openness to the Creative Forces of Love, Truth, and Faith. These insights and principles can provide a foundation for all of Humanism. This writing is an invitation for people within and without Humanism to unite with this universal commitment to the worth and dignity of every person; to practice and strengthen these distinctions until we can empower all religions, businesses, and governments to meaningfully adopt this as their commitment. This would truly lead to a Unity of the human spirit, expressed diversely through the traditions of Humanism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and the many others.

It seems that he may be trying to find some deep commonality between humanism and religions in order to find a basis for harmony between them. Perhaps using traditionally religious words is part of this attempt.

Bernt wrote:
Bernt living in remotely UpNorth Sweden Northern Europe. Basically the end of the world :) I'm the only active atheist in this small town of 15 thousand inhabs. The otehr two lurk and don't reveal themselves oepely :) Very shy people around here huh? Hudiksvall that is. come out and make yourself known atheists in upnorth Sweden!

Living at the edge of the world as well. Sundsvall atheists are invited to speak up too. :)

[BerntRostrom]

Maybe he grew up with Unitarian Universalism roots? or Ethical Society?

We have neither of them here in remote Sweden. Not even Freethinkers as an organized body, We ahve had them too around 1890 to 1920 maybe. But now all of them are Humanists who see themselves as Freethinkers.

One of our neighbours. Findland have a lot of Freethinkers but bad rumour says all of them are Communists hiding their true identity. Hope it is a bad bad rumour. The language barrier make them to be far far away. Not even found a text in english explaining their views on a lot of things.

Now faith has exactly the connotations you give. confidence is a bit better.

Trust could sound too religious.

What si obvious is that despite there is some 5000 active atheists in this forum you and me are the only one carign about teh fringe parts of atheism?

Most atheists are like me some 20 years ago. Hating Christians and other religions was my main motivator. I think hate is a poor motivator.

Being angry is ok but hating seem an overreaction. At least I did overreact between 1963 to 1983 in my days of militant atheism.

what we need now is to build something that makes us strong politically.

any sugestions?

Bernt

[Eudaimonist]

Trust could sound too religious.

Not in English, for me at least. Trust strikes me as very neutral with respect to religion, whereas faith sounds highly religious.

What si obvious is that despite there is some 5000 active atheists in this forum you and me are the only one carign about teh fringe parts of atheism?

I suppose when religion is weak, as it is in Sweden, atheists are not as motivated to organize. But I doubt that you and I are the only ones in Sweden who care about this. There must be others, but perhaps they don't know how or where to find us.

Most atheists are like me some 20 years ago. Hating Christians and other religions was my main motivator. I think hate is a poor motivator.

Agreed. There are better things to do than spend one's time hating some other group of people, even if one may feel justified.

what we need now is to build something that makes us strong politically.

Why politically? Do you mean starting a political activist group, like something similar to American Atheists? Or do you mean socially?

I'd like to see atheists in Sweden organize to provide for those needs that can be best satisfied through socializing with others. I'm not so interested in starting a political force in Sweden, which may be a fine activity for some people, but is a waste of time for me personally.

[BerntRostrom]

I wanted to suport this :

I'd like to see atheists in Sweden organize to provide for those needs that can be best satisfied through socializing with others.. but not only here but all over the world. They seem to do this in India???

Bernt

[jcchat]

I came across your reaction to my journal article. If you are still on this service, I would love to explain further and discuss. I think it is a valuable approach for secularists.
Calvin Chatlos, MD
New Jersey, USA

[bernie43]

Dear Calvin Chatlos,
thanks indeed for caring to answer. One year ago I felt so bad about only two of us even cared to read your interesting text as related above. I didn't agree with al lof your suggestiosn but found it an interesting project nevertheless.

Yes, both of us are here as far as I know. not sure if Eudaimonist is motivated, and I am motivated to continue taling to you but lack the skill.

But is it not fair to say that then there is only you and me motivated in this Forum? :)

How did your prject work ou for you? Has it grown, inculded many states in US, spread like wildfire with independent interpreters or you have it all in tight control?

Am I the only one not liking the word faith used in use in secular settings?

Trust or confidence is less objectional. Do you trust me to be open to your message. Do feel confidence in telling me how it could work without the word faith. Or do you have blind faith in me beign right that to use the word faith is doomed. :)

Sorry teasing but I am a sloppy thinker. To have faith is to know that you believe in something being not true. that is why I think one should avoid the word faith in a secular group setting.

With all due respect despite me being jokingly disrespectful out of habit.

Bernt Roström usign other handle then one year ago ok!

[bernie43]

Read whole text here http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol13/chatlos.html The Human Faith Project—"Our Commitment is to the Worth and Dignity of Every Person"

J. Calvin Chatlos further down in text
We will describe how human faith is a powerful creative force that can be identified and strengthened through a structured process. This is similar to what is attributed to Corliss Lamont:

‘faith' is a perfectly good Humanist expression.…It is an attitude rather than a belief...a commitment of the heart to one's most significant beliefs. [5]

We started with a general definition of faith:

FAITH—1. unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence 2. unquestioning belief in god, religious tenets, etc. 3. a religion or a system of religious beliefs 4. anything believed 5. complete trust, confidence, or reliance 6. allegiance to some person or thing; loyalty.

From this, we developed a consensus working definition of human faith for participants of the Project:

HUMAN FAITH (consensus definition)—unquestioning belief with complete trust, confidence, loyalty, and reliance on human beings.

To be sure, the words "unquestioning" and "complete" gave our definition an idealistic quality. We realized that in most people the faith-state is temporary and rarely absolute. Throughout our work we viewed faith as having a dual continuum of strength and time. Members of the Human Faith Project agreed to use this consensus definition in their daily lives and identify those experiences of the faith-state as distinguished from those experiences that were not of the faith-state. Reactions to this included attitudes of cynicism, pessimism, contempt, and doubt but also the attitude of enthusiasm, indicating an openness to the possibility of living with faith and highlighting its original etymology related to faith:

ENTHUSIASM = (Gr. enthousiasmos < enthousiazein, to be inspired, be possessed by a god, inspire < enthous, entheos, possessed by a god , en-, in + theos, god)

Maybe that quote from your text would be a good start?

bernt rostrom

[bernie43]

HUMAN FAITH (consensus definition)—unquestioning belief with complete trust, confidence, loyalty, and reliance on human beings.

Remember, me are a native of Sweden and still living here. English is not my language in any useful way. I usually fail to find proper words and grammar is annoyingly bad to most participants here. I also sometimes fail to get what you and others fluent in using english intended.

Take your Human Faith above.

I would translate that to my less abstract english like this.

Our human faith in humans as generally trustable and to have confidence in unless their behavior tell us to not trust their good will to be fair in their dealings with us.

You see how many words I have to use just to get yur intentions?

so Calvin, your turn and all others are encouraged to chime in too.

[bernie43]

soon 24 hours and nobody else chiming in. I guess that tells it all. Faith is not what IIDB people like.
Bernt