A person's life stance or lifestance is his or her relation with what he or she accepts as of ultimate importance, the presuppositions and theory of this, and the commitments and practice of working it out in living.

Contents 1 Origins of the phrase "life stance" 2 Definition 3 Orthography 4 Spectrum 4.1 Religious life stances 4.2 Non-religious life stances 4.2.1 Humanism 5 Values and purposes 5.1 Instrumental values 6 Valuation of life stances 7 Declaration 8 See also 9 References 10 Bibliography

[edit] Origins of the phrase "life stance"

Life stance is a neologism apparently coined by humanists interested in educational matters, and developed originally in that context by Harry Stopes-Roe of the Rationalist Press Association and British Humanist Association ^[1]. It was originally used in the context of debates over the controversial ^[2]content of the City of Birmingham's Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education, 1975. That document referred to "non-religious stances for living". According to Barnes:

It was the first syllabus to abandon the aim of Christian nurture and to embrace a multi-faith, phenomenological model of religious education; and it was also the first syllabus to require a systematic study of non-religious ‘stances for living’, such as Humanism, and for such study to begin in the primary school. ^[3]

In the late 1980s, Harry Stopes-Roe initiated a successful campaign for the adoption of the term by the International Humanist and Ethical Union and other organisations (see also his comments quoted below on its provenance) ^[4]. It was not an uncontroversial proposal among humanists. ^[5]

The term was introduced as part of an attempt to establish a clear identity for Humanism, in order to gain recognition and respect ^[6].

According to Stopes-Roe:

"Life stance" is an expression that has been current in Britain for more than ten years and is now gaining acceptance worldwide, to describe what is good in both Humanism and religion - without being encumbered by what is bad in religion. ^[7]

[edit] Definition

Harry Stopes-Roe, who fought for the term's acceptance by the Humanist movement, defined "life stance" as follows:

"Life stance" - The style and content of an individual's or a community's relationship with that which is of ultimate importance; the presuppositions and commitments of this, and the consequences for living which flow from it. (Each individual or community hopes that it has come to a good and well-founded relationship, but the word is usually used without implying that this really is so.) ^[8]

Another suggested definition of life stance is:

a life stance is a set of interlinked, articulated system of beliefs about life, human nature and our existence connected to norms and values that are derived out of this views [sic]^[9]

[edit] Orthography

A life stance may be distinguished from general support to a cause by capitalization of the first letter. For instance, the life stance of Humanism is distinguished from humanism generally.^[10] Many life stances may contain humanism to a greater or lesser extent as instrumental value in order to fulfill their own chosen intrinsic value(s). However, Humanism regards it as having intrinsic value.

Not all life stances use this orthography.

[edit] Spectrum

The term was intended to be a shared label encompassing both religions and alternatives to religion, without discrimination in favour of either ^[8].

A life stance differs from a worldview or a belief system in that the term life stance emphasizes a focus on what is of ultimate importance. Life stance differs from eupraxsophy in that the latter typically implies a strictly non-theistic outlook, whereas a life stance can be theistic or non-theistic, supernaturalistic or naturalistic.

[edit] Religious life stances

A religion is a set of beliefs and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and/or moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, and law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.

In the frame of European religious thought,^[11] religions present a common quality, the "hallmark of patriarchal religious thought": the division of the world in two comprehensive domains, one sacred, the other profane.^[12] Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, tradition, philosophy, rituals, and scriptures are often traditionally associated with the core belief. Religion is also often described as a "way of life".

[edit] Non-religious life stances

Alternatives to religion include life stances based on atheism, agnosticism, deism, skepticism, freethought, secular humanism or general secularism.

[edit] Humanism

Humanism is an example of life stance which may be considered to be religious (usually in a non-theistic, ethical sense) or non-religious or anti-religious. One of Stopes-Roe's reasons for advocating the adoption of "life stance" as a label for the Humanist movement, was his hope that it would end the arguments between the different sides as to how best to characterise their position (note that Stopes-Roe uses the term "god-religious" to distinguish theists from non-theists in what follows):

Humanists are divided into two camps... according to how they respond to the word "religion". Do they... respond negatively or positively? The ferocity of the antipathy on the one hand, and the power of the concern on the other, that is generated by this word quite obliterates reasoned discussion of many substantial and important questions on how we should develop Humanism. Likewise, our discussions with the god-religious are confused and frustrated. We need a new term for the idea and ideal of religion, opened out so that it is not discriminatory. Let this be "life stance". Could we, perhaps, bury the hatchet of "religion" and work together? ^[8]

Bill Cooke comments:

Harry Stopes-Roe's contribution is significant because it make clear humanism's value as a legitimate system of belief, without it being a pseudo-religion. ^[13]

[edit] Values and purposes

Different life stances differ in what they hold as intrinsic values and purposes in life.

For instance, the purpose in Humanism is, in the broadest sense, personality, determined by humans, completely without supernatural influence. For Judaism, on the other hand, it is to serve God^[14] and to prepare for the world to come^[15] "Olam Haba".^[16]

What is held as intrinsic value and purpose may differ substantially between individuals regarding themselves as belonging to the same life stance. However, the table below summarizes what is generally accepted as being the main intrinsic values and purposes of various life stances.

Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (April 2008)

Life stance and other views	Main intrinsic value	Main purpose	Main manifesto
rational Deontologism	virtue or duty
Eudaemonism or utilitarianism	happiness
Hedonism	pleasure
Humanism	Multiple[17] mainly humanism, human flourishing	Enhancing personality (in the broadest sense), determined by humans, completely without supernatural influence	Humanist Manifesto
Kantism	good will	act from duty in accordance with the universal moral law that the autonomous human being freely gives itself	Kant bibliography
Nihilism	None	None	None
Buddhism	Three marks of existence	To help sentient beings end their suffering with Karma and Dharma methods.	The Four Noble Truths
Christianity	The Glory of God	Accept the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as payment for sin and receive salvation, Thus glorifying God as the author of your salvation.	The Bible with the New testament interpreting the Old testament
Judaism	Revealed Truth	Serve God[14] in this world and to prepare for the world to come[15] "Olam Haba".[16]	Torah

[edit] Instrumental values

When having determined what has/have instrinsic value, then there may be an approximation of the instrumental value, and therefore also the whole value, of objects. Such approximations contribute to actions and lifestyle.

[edit] Valuation of life stances

Distinguished from what various life stances hold as of intrinsic value, there is also a variation to how people externally value different life stances, especially concerning ones which are not fully followed personally.

Some^[18] hold that all life stances have the same value.

This valuation may, however, may be on a theory-level and a practice-level. The theory of life stances may be viewed as being of equal value. At the same time, the practice of working it out in living may not. For instance, even the most evil and destructive life stances may be regarded as having equal value when only considering their theory, but, all in all, being of less value when considering also the practice of working them out in living.

[edit] Declaration

A public declaration of principles and intentions of a life stance may be called a manifesto. However, manifestos relating to religious belief are rather referred to as credo, or a holy script if considered to be sacred or of central importance to the religious tradition.

[edit] See also

• Humanism (life stance)
• Meaning of life

[edit] References

1. ^ One "life stance education" see Stopes-Roe (1976), and Stopes-Roe (1983). Compare with the advocacy of "Education in Life Stances" in Cox (1975), on which also see Greer (1985, p.16-17)). For the related "life stance education" offered to non-religious pupils in Finland, see Slotte (2008).
2. ^ See Barnes (2008, p.75), who notes that the controversy reached parliament. Hull (1984, p.111) notes that "an attempt was made in the spring of 1976 to introduce a Private Members Bill into the House of Commons which would have replaced religious education by "Education in Stances for Living" ".
3. ^ Barnes (2008, p.75)
4. ^ Stopes-Roe's advocacy of the term outside the literature of religious education was first published as Stopes-Roe (1987), but the article was in circulation at a Board meeting of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in October 1987 (See Walter 1988a, p.4). The article was reprinted in New Humanist (Stopes Roe 1988a) and Kurtz (1989). Stopes-Roe revisited the subject in Stopes-Roe (1996), and wrote the article on "Life stance" for the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Stopes-Roe 2007). See also the statement "Humanism is eight letters, no more", signed by Harold Blackham, Levi Fragell, Corliss Lamont, Harry Stopes-Roe, and Rob Tielman reprinted online here [1].
5. ^ Stopes-Roe (1988a, p.21) commented that "I have found the degree of opposition to the term "life stance" among Humanists more surprising than than the religionist's objection." See also the overview of the debate between Walter (1988a and 1988b) and Stopes-Roe (1988a and 1988b) in Fowler (1999 p.3-4) [2].
6. ^ See "Humanism is eight letters, no more"
7. ^ Stopes-Roe (1988a, p.19)
8. ^ ^{a b c} Stopes-Roe (1988a, p.21)
9. ^ International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organisation - Exploring your lifestance workshop outline by Gea Meijers
10. ^ Humanism Unmodified By Edd Doerr. Published in the Humanist (November/December 2002)
11. ^ Jack Goody as cited in "Sacred and Profane - Durkheim's Critics". http://science.jrank.org/pages/11183/Sacred-Profane-Durkheim-s-Critics.html. Retrieved 2007-07-10. 
12. ^ Durkheim 1976, p.36
13. ^ Cooke 2003 (p.223)
14. ^ ^{a b} Dan Cohn-Sherbok (2003). Judaism: History, Belief, and Practice. Routledge. p. 512. ISBN 0415236614. 
15. ^ ^{a b} Abraham Joshua Heschel (2005). Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0826408028. 
16. ^ ^{a b} Wilfred Shuchat (2006). The Garden of Eden & the Struggle to Be Human: According to the Midrash Rabbah. Devora Publishing. p. 584. ISBN 1932687319. 
17. ^ Haught, James A.. "Meaning and Nothingness: A personal journey". Free Inquiry magazine (Council for Secular Humanism) 22 (1). http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_22_1. 
18. ^ e.g. World Congress of Ethnic Religions - "Worldwide Congress for equal value and respect of traditional religions." [3]

[edit] Bibliography

• Barnes, L. Philip (2008). "The 2007 Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education: a new direction for statutory religious education in England and Wales", Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 29 (1), April, pp.75-83.
• Cooke, Bill (2003). The Blasphemy Depot: a hundred years of the Rationalist Press Association. London: RPA.
• Cox, E. (1975). "Principles behind Syllabus Making", Learning for Living, Vol. 4 (4), p. 132.
• Fowler, Jeaneane D (1999). Humanism: beliefs and practices, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
• Greer, J.E. (1985). "Edwin Cox and Religious Education", British Journal of Religious Education, Vol. 8 (1), pp. 13—19 [4].
• Hull, John (1984). Studies in Religion and Eduation, London: Falmer.
• Kurtz, Paul et. al. (ed) (1989). Building a world community: humanism in the 21st century‎, Prometheus Books, pp. 166-
• Slotte, Pamela (2008). "Waving the ‘Freedom of Religion or Belief’ Card, or Playing It Safe: Religious Instruction in the Cases of Norway and Finland", Religion and Human Rights Vol. 3 (1), March, pp. 33-69.[5].
• Stopes-Roe, H[arry].V. (1976). "The concept of a 'life stance' in education." Learning for living, Vol. 16 (1), Autumn, pp. 25-28.
• Stopes-Roe, Harry (1983). "Moral Practice and Ultimate Reality", Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 12 (2), pp. 81-91.
• Stopes-Roe, Harry (1987). "Humanism as a life stance", Free Inquiry, Vol. 8 (1), Winter 1987/88, pp. 7-9, 56.
• Stopes-Roe (1988a), "Humanism as a life stance", New Humanist, Vol. 103, (2) October, pp. 19-21.
• Stopes-Roe, Harry (1988b). "Controversy: In defence of a life stance", New Humanist, Vol. 103 (4), December, pp. 8-9.
• Stopes-Roe, Harry (1996). "The Presuppositions of Dialogue: a fair vocabulary." Journal for the Critical Study of Religion, Ethics and Society, Vol. 1 (2), Summer/Fall, pp. 9-15.
• Stopes-Roe, Harry (2007). "Life stance", in Flynn, Tom (ed.). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Amherst, New York: Prometheus, pp. 506-507.
• Walter, Nicolas (1988a). "Rationally speaking: against Humanism as a life stance." New Humanist, Vol. 103 (3), October, p. 4.
• Walter, Nicolas (1988b). "Rationally speaking: what kind of humanists?", New Humanist, Vol. 103 (4), December, p. 4.