Preface The term humanism is very much like the word religion. Both terms encompass a diverse patchwork of beliefs which have some common threads. There are, for example, many different religions—Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, to name a few—and within each of these there are differing points of view; for example, in Christianity there are differences between Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, and other denominations.