[1] It can connote an integrated perspective on reality as a whole and how to assign valuations, thus being a concept similar or equivalent to that of a worldview; with the latter word (derived from the German Weltanschauung) being generally a more common and comprehensive term.
[5] 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 by other organisations (see also his comments quoted below on its provenance).
(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).The British Humanist Association, drawing in part on jurisprudence related to the term "religion or belief" in the European Convention on Human Rights, has put forward a more analytical definition: A collective belief that attains a sufficient level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance and that relates the nature of life and the world to morality, values and/or the way its believers should live.A life stance may be distinguished from general support of a cause by capitalization of the first letter.
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.
The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.
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.
[2]Bill Cooke comments: Harry Stopes-Roe's contribution is significant because it makes clear humanism's value as a legitimate system of belief, without it being a pseudo-religion.