List of secularist organizations

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Conway Hall Humanist Centre, home of the South Place Ethical Society, the oldest freethought community in the world. (Established 1793)

Secularist organizations promote the view that moral standards should be based solely on concern for the good of humanity in the present life, without reference to supernatural concepts, such as God or an afterlife. The term secularism, as coined and promulgated by George Jacob Holyoake, originally referred to such a view.[1] Secularism may also refer to the belief that government should be neutral on matters of religion, and that church and state should be separate. The term is here used in the first sense, though most organizations listed here also support secularism in the second sense.

Secularists, and their organizations, identify themselves by a variety of terms, including agnostic, atheist, bright, freethinker, humanist, nontheist, naturalist, rationalist, or skeptic.[2][3] Despite the use of these various terms, the organizations listed here have secularist goals in common. Note that, while most of these organizations and their members consider themselves irreligious, there are certain exceptions (Ethical Culture, for example).

Contents

List [edit]

International [edit]

Australia [edit]

Belgium [edit]

Brazil [edit]

Canada [edit]

Croatia [edit]

Egypt [edit]

Germany [edit]

Greece [edit]

Iceland [edit]

India [edit]

Indonesia [edit]

Iran [edit]

Ireland [edit]

Italy [edit]

Kuwait [edit]

Malta [edit]

New Zealand [edit]

Norway [edit]

Philippines [edit]

Serbia [edit]

Singapore [edit]

Sweden [edit]

United Kingdom [edit]

[14]

United States [edit]

Freedom From Religion Foundation billboard
  • American Atheists
  • American Humanist Association, The first and largest organization promoting Humanism in the US.[15] The American Humanist Association strives to bring about a progressive society where being good without gods is an accepted way to live life. We are accomplishing this through our defense of civil liberties and secular governance, by our outreach to the growing number of people without traditional religious faith, and through a continued refinement and advancement of the humanist worldview.[16]
  • American Secular Union
  • The Atheist Agenda
  • Atheist Community of Austin (TX)
  • Atheists for Humanity, a 501 c(3) charity non-profit dedicated to raising money for secular charities and the destigmatization of atheists and atheism."[17]
  • Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, "The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty" represents multiple Baptist groups (but not the Southern Baptist Convention) in supporting religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
  • Camp Inquiry This is a place where kids can be themselves. We work toward helping youth confront the challenges of living a non-theistic, skeptical, and secular lifestyle in a world dominated by religious belief and pseudoscience. Grounded on the conviction that kids can begin establishing habits of the good and ethical life early on, Camp Inquiry adopts a three-part focus: The arts and sciences, the skeptical perspective, and ethical character development comprise an integrated approach to this "Age of Discovery." [18]*Camp Quest, "The Secular Summer Camp", is the first residential summer camp in the United States for the children of those who hold a naturalistic world view.[19]
  • Center for Inquiry The mission of the Center for Inquiry is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. The Center for Inquiry holds that evidence-based reasoning, in which humans work together to address common concerns, is critical for modern world civilization. CFI also maintains that values are properly the subject of study and discussion as much as empirical claims. CFI, and its affiliates, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism, also carry out their work through education, publishing, advocacy, and social services, especially through their dozens of regional centers and communities, and programs in many different countries.
  • City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism
  • Council for Secular Humanism is a non-profit educational association and, according to its website, "North America's leading organization for non-religious people." The Council aims to "meet the needs of people who find meaning and value in life without looking to a god." CSH publishes Free Inquiry.
  • DFW Atheists Helping the Homeless is a non-profit homeless outreach organization that hands out personal care items and clothing to the homeless population in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas metropolitan area.
  • Fellowship of Freethought "To create a positive impact on our shared world, our mission is to provide a community that values and promotes a freethinking life unencumbered by the biases of tradition, dogma, and authority and that encourages people to live a reason and evidence-based life characterized by close fellowship, ethical contemplation, critical thinking, community service, and the appreciation of scientific knowledge and understanding of the universe and our place in it."[20]
  • Fellowship of Humanity
  • First Humanist Society of New York
  • Free Congregation of Sauk County, a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship - Freethought in Religion since 1852. We are a Free Thought congregation with origins in the German Freie Gemeinden (‘free congregations’ or ‘free societies’). When liberal reform efforts, both political and religious, failed in Germany after 1848, German liberals immigrated to the United States where they founded numerous free thought societies and congregations, most of them in the northeast and upper mid-west. Ours is the last remaining Free Congregation in North America.
  • Freedom From Religion Foundation, according to its website, is the "largest group of atheists and agnostics in North America." The Foundation represents the interests of freethinkers, with an emphasis on gender equality and reproductive rights, and the separation of church and state. It publishes Freethought Today, "the only freethought newspaper in North America."
  • Hispanic American Freethinkers
  • The Humanist Institute
  • The Humanist Association of San Diego The oldest continually-running Humanist organization in San Diego County, the Humanist Association promotes Secular and Ethical Humanism through discussions, lectures, book clubs, political and social action, and social events. We also have services for secular celebrations available. This organization's members (i.e., Phil Paulson) were pivotal in the Mt Soledad Cross Case.
  • The Humanist Fellowship of San Diego One of the more active of the several Humanist organizations in San Diego, with meetings held all over the County.
  • The Humanist Institute
  • The Secularity, Home of The Piedmont Triad Freethought Association (North Carolina)[21]
  • Institute for Humanist Studies
  • Internet Infidels is a "a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and promoting a naturalistic worldview on the Internet."
  • Kahal Am, Society for Humanistic Judaism, linked with the Humanist Fellowship of San Diego in San Diego Coalition of Reason
  • Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers
  • Metroplex Atheists is a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to informing our members and the public about the intellectual validity and the individual and social values of atheism. We also seek to protect the constitutional rights of atheists and the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state.[22]
  • North Texas Church of Freethought
  • Rational Response Squad
  • The Reason Project
  • Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
  • The San Diego New Atheists and Agnostics is the largest and most active secular organization in San Diego, Ca."[23]
  • Secular Coalition for America
  • Secular Student Alliance
  • Secular Woman The mission of Secular Woman is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women.
  • Secular Alliance at Indiana University A student organization at Indiana University Bloomington promoting science and secular values on campus.
  • United Coalition of Reason
  • National Atheist PartyThe National Atheist Party seeks to politically represent U.S. atheists and all who share the goal of a secular government by gathering the political strength of secularists nationwide while being guided by the values of secular humanism and evidenced-based reasoning.

http://www.usanap.org

See also [edit]

  1. Side note: America is also a secular nation, and all branches of government could be considered secular.

References [edit]

  1. ^ "Secularism". Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition. Oxford University Press, 1989.
  2. ^ The Secular Coalition for America, which has been identified by Brights.net as representing the interests of "secularist organizations", describes its constituency as "nontheistic Americans", including those who go by the labels "atheist, humanist, freethinker, agnostic, skeptic, bright, ignostic, materialist, and naturalist, among others." Who does the Secular Coalition for America represent? at the Secular Coalition for America website (Accessed 5 April 2008)
  3. ^ Some less common secularist labels include: apatheist, godless (in the non-pejorative, literal sense), ignostic, infidel (or unbeliever), heathen, materialist, or realist.
  4. ^ Atheist Alliance International website, 2008 (Accessed 9 April 2008)
  5. ^ The Movement, The Brights' Network, 2008 (Accessed 9 April 2008)
  6. ^ Presentation, European Humanist Federation website, 2006 (Accessed 10 April 2008)
  7. ^ Laïque (French): "secular"
  8. ^ About IHEU, IHEU website (Accessed 5 April 2008)
  9. ^ Croatian irreligious association Protagora
  10. ^ The Norwegian Humanist Association, Human-Etisk Forbund website (English version), 2011 (Accessed 5 February 2011)
  11. ^ Membership, Human-Etisk Forbund website (English version), 2004 (Accessed 9 April 2008)
  12. ^ Humanist Society (Singapore)
  13. ^ Leicester Secular Society website (Accessed 5 April 2008)
  14. ^ South Place Ethical Society website (Accessed 5 April 2008)
  15. ^ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the American Humanist Association, American Humanist Association website, 2005 (Accessed 8 April 2005)
  16. ^ [1]
  17. ^ [2]
  18. ^ Camp Inquiry Web site
  19. ^ "Camp Quest is the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States for the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural world view." Camp Quest website (Accessed 5 April 2008)
  20. ^ http://fellowshipoffreethought.org/
  21. ^ http://thesecularity.com
  22. ^ [3]
  23. ^ Find Us, SDNA, 2010

External links [edit]

  • Organizations lists at the Secular Web.
  • [4] Youth Association of Kuwait official website.
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