Fellowship of Reason
Encyclopedia
Moral community
A moral community is a group of people drawn together by a common interest in living according to a particular moral philosophy.Moral communities are typically associated with a religion and advocate that religion's conception of a good life. The congregation of a church, synagogue, or mosque is a...
based in Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Its founder, Martin L. Cowen III, calls himself a "non-theist", and says that although he does not believe in God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
or other things supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
, he nonetheless thinks that churches serve a useful function by providing "moral communities." Wishing to have a moral community that is not theistic (although not officially opposed to theism) he founded that organization.
Fellowship of Reason is also the title of Cowen's book.
The purpose of the organization is to provide a social context in which participants may find it easier to achieve personal flourishing, meaning in life, and happiness. This is done through adult education, philosophical discussion, the recognition of personal accomplishments, the promotion of purposeful living and personal reflection, and the celebration of cherished values and important life events.
Their philosophical stance, a form of eudaimonism, has a number of influences, notably Ayn Rand's
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
philosophy of Objectivism
Objectivism (Ayn Rand)
Objectivism is a philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand . Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception...
, David Norton's
David L. Norton
David Lloyd Norton was an American philosopher. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, March 27, 1930, to Cecil V. Norton and Ruth Essick Norton. He was the brother of Douglas C. Norton of Norton's Fine Art in St...
life stages, Abraham Maslow's
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
writings on self-actualization, Joseph Campbell's
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
study of myth
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, and the ideas of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and the Stoics
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
regarding eudaimonia
Eudaimonia
Eudaimonia or eudaemonia , sometimes Anglicized as eudemonia , is a Greek word commonly translated as happiness or welfare; however, "human flourishing" has been proposed as a more accurate translation...
as the ultimate aim of life. They advocate human relations based on reason and goodwill.
Six essential activities of the organization
Participants in the Fellowship of Reason practice "FROLEC":- Fellowship: They gain greater awareness of themselves through friendships with others of similar values.
- Reflection: They take time to quietly reflect on the challenges of their lives in order to improve their ability to meet them.
- Orientation: They remind themselves of their chosen values and principles regularly.
- Learning: They discuss philosophy and literature to learn to live more wisely.
- Enjoyment of Art: They enjoy art as a means of gaining emotional fuel.
- Celebration: They participate in ceremonies that symbolically mark significant life events or uphold important values.