research/theoretical frameworks
concepts
Within the discipline of anthropology, the subfield of humanism focuses on reason, logic, and scientific explanations for human existence, being skeptical of purely religious interpretation. Proponents of this approach, such as T. Willliam Hall, in the text Religion, state, “This interpretation of human existence dispenses with belief in the supernatural, considers the good of humanity on earth the supreme ethical goal, and applies the methods of reason and science to solve human problems.” Following this same logic, Miles Richardson, in the Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, adds that humanism “emphasiz(es)scholarly reading, as opposed to divine revelation, as the path to knowledge.” Religion is then a construct of the human mind, not an unknowable fact. [Source: Encyclopedia of Anthropology; Humanism, Religious]
religious humanism
theology