Whether you know it or not, if you are a liberal then you are a humanist. Humanists may be religious or secular, but they all share the belief that humans hold their own destiny in their hands, on all levels from the individual to the global community.
World Humanist Day is celebrated every year on June 21 as a way to spread information about humanism and to celebrate the global community of humanists. In the early 1980s, humanists in several countries including the U.S. and Belgium began celebrating World Humanist Day, but did not have an agreed-upon date. In the early 1990s, the American Humanist Association (AHA) and the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) passed resolutions declaring the solstice, June 21, as World Humanist Day.
For more on humanism, dive in after the jump…
Kenneth Phifer, one of the authors of the original Humanist Manifesto and a minister put it this way:
Humanism teaches us that it is immoral to wait for God to act for us. We must act to stop the wars and the crimes and the brutalities of this and future ages. We have powers of a remarkable kind. We have a high degree of freedom in choosing what we will do. Humanism tells us that whatever the philosophy of the universe may be, ultimately the responsibility for the kind of world in which we live rests with us.
You may not agree with every principle enumerated by the “official” humanist organizations, and that’s ok. I would be happy too discuss any of these principals in greater detail.
From
The Affirmations of Humanism:
We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.
We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence. We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.
We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.
We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.
We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.
We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.
We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.
We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
You may also be interested in my diary about being a Secular Humanist in today’s political climate: I Am The Boogeyman
