Since science has so far been unable to verify the existence of anything supernatural, theistic beliefs are not essential or disqualifying to being a Humanist. As long as theistic beliefs are framed without contradicting human rights and scientific views, they are not incompatible with having a humanistic worldview.
While personal theistic beliefs often exist in a spectrum of overlapping views and levels of confidence, most people can be placed within one of four broad categories.
Theism is the belief in supernatural beings or forces that actively intervene in human affairs here on planet earth and played some role in the creation of human beings and the physical world. Theists usually include the idea that there is some form of supernatural afterlife and tend to envision their god or gods having many human-like traits. Theists are convinced an intervening god or gods exist.
Deism is the belief that there is some form of supernatural being or force that was involved in creating either humans or at least part of the physical world. Deists tend to have less confidence as to how human-like their god might be, and don’t necessarily include a belief in an afterlife. Deists are convinced a god or similar supernatural force of some type exists.
Agnosticism is the belief that it is currently unknown whether there are or were intervening supernatural beings or forces, and postulate that we will probably live out our lives on planet earth without being able to verify whether such beings exist or not. Agnostics are neither convinced a god or similar supernatural force of some type exists or that they don’t exist.
Atheism was typically defined as the disbelief that there are any supernatural beings in the traditional sense of a god that have interacted with human beings or were involved in the creation of any part of the physical world we live in. In this traditional usage atheists are convinced that no gods exist.
Many atheists now use the term atheism to mean a “lack of belief in god” which would include agnostics. For clarity this requires using new terms such as “hard atheist” to mean a disbelief in gods and the term “soft atheist” or “agnostic atheist” to replace agnostic. Most agnostics are not on board with this.
The term Humanism is functionally compatible with any of these broad theological views, as the core foundation rests on having a moral compass based on human rights and wellbeing, and knowledge based on science and related evidence-based fields of inquiry.
Points: The theistic views of fundamentalist religions are not entirely compatible with a human rights based morality or science based understanding of the world.
Points: Millions of theistic and deistic people live their lives adhering to a human rights based morality and science based understanding of the world while maintaining their theological identity.