Positions that order life without appeal to God or revelation: atheism, agnosticism, humanism, and the freethought that produced them.
The secular worldviews are not the absence of a position but positions of their own, with histories, institutions, and internal disagreements. This tree models their main streams as first-class entities.
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Atheism
The position that no god exists, held as denial, as default, or as the conclusion of argument, from the Charvaka school to the new atheism.
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Humanism
The position that human welfare and reason are enough: the good life built on evidence and compassion, without appeal to the supernatural.
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Secularism
The ordering of the public square without religious establishment, from Holyoake's coinage to the constitutional arrangements of the modern states.
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Freethought
The refusal to take belief on authority, the oldest of the secular streams, running from Epicurus and Lucretius to Paine and the lecture halls.
Secular and Non-Theistic Worldviews across the site
History of Worldviews (26) · Dictionaries and Lexicons (13) · Religious Art Entries (1) · Calendar Events (10)
Sources
Primary
- David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).
Secondary
- Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (2007).