Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Humanists held to a higher standard

Recently I was contacted by a graduate student at an ivy-league school back east for an interview about Humanism and Parenting. I agreed and we began the interview (more like a conversation). Within a few minutes, my cell phone lost coverage, not an unusual occurrence at my home. I didn't have the student's phone number, so I hung around waiting for him to call back. He never did; instead, I receive a nasty email haranguing me for my rudeness, implying that I had hung up on him on purpose and accusing me of not meeting the high standards of other Humanists.

It was interesting to me that this student would just assume I had hung up when we were having a pleasant conversation up to that point. However, even more interesting was his assumption that Humanists adhere to a higher standard. I’ve thought this myself before, but it was made abundantly clear with his attitude in the email. It would have been alright, even acceptable, for a Christian (substitute your favorite religion) to hang up on someone if they had called to ask questions about their belief system, but it was completely unacceptable for a Humanist to do such a thing.

This is more evidence and reason why Humanists tend to be even more moral, on average, than the population of religious people, regardless of the religion.