Humanist common sense (in the UK)

"Opinion polls and surveys show that humanist beliefs are now very widespread–that this life is the only one we know we have; that science and reason can explain the universe; that morality and meaning are human creations, not divine gifts. Although many people's world views are still fuzzy, with a range of different beliefs and values, many aspects of the humanist approach have become common sense. But there are still not many opportunities for people to encounter explicitly humanist ideas, framed as such. Messages I received from listeners to the podcast often said what a refreshing experience it had been to hear views they shared explained at length, sometimes for the first time in their lives."

— What I Believe: Humanist ideas and philosophies to live by by Andrew Copson

Atomic Whirl

A Version of the Atomic Whirl: Created by the American Atheists in 1963, this symbol represents the idea that scientific inquiry & the scientific method are the best ways to achieve human progress. Has a broken lower loop to represent that all is not known. @atheists.org

NdT on the god of the gaps and “the whole point of science”

https://www.threads.net/@ohgodidontknow/post/DDa1qncpith?xmt=AQGzn-xS57hfn3Er_7fYcnsyOPqY3BPzONCJXGLkhe9esA

The mysterious

"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery-even if mixed with fear-that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms-it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature."

— The World As I See It by Albert Einstein
https://a.co/f80TH0k

the ultimate thanks-giving

"I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure."

When the poetic neurologist Oliver Sacks learned that he was dying, he wrote something almost unbearably beautiful about the measure of living — the ultimate thanks-giving:

https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/oliver-sacks-gratitude

“A humanist is a person…”

A Mandate of Heaven

Hitch's main objection to dogmatic doctrinal religion:

https://www.threads.net/@travismeadors_/post/DC25vmysye3?xmt=AQGzd8Ih28KSYFYSC9z43s5YMLbLaw9HKbYLXQVOQQnNmQ

Humanism

https://www.threads.net/@humanists_uk/post/DCWVNJWI_Qp?xmt=AQGzCSfi3qN0dWfwQrPSHVwqmAu5K3tIOXjZm7SXO-9w4Q

10 Commitments

https://www.threads.net/@divorcingreligion/post/DCTE7vCxWAL?xmt=AQGzUzuqJX0qEZJMet9wATQ1LkrG6wNUGl4CzJB-5T0j3A

Vonnegut

https://www.threads.net/@humanists_uk/post/DCOso05oh3Z?xmt=AQGz8mUJLUXUeejaBs-wsK0zkmtw2EsmkQLDcPx1HngX7A

Ronald Dworkin’s Einstein Lectures

Dworkin's last book explores "cosmic religious feeling" as an expansive sensibility much larger than mere belief in a god. Here he finds what he so often sought in his books, "common ground"—in this instance with atheists, humanists, pluralists, pragmatists… As WJ said, the deepest religious impulse is not directed towards a god. It's a yearning for more life.

"The familiar stark divide between people of religion and without religion is too crude. Many millions of people who count themselves as atheists have convictions and experiences similar to and just as profound as those that believers count as religious. They say that though they do not believe in a "personal" god, they nevertheless believe in a "force" in the universe "greater than we are." They feel an inescapable responsibility to live their lives well, with due respect for the lives of others; they take pride in a life they think well lived and suffer sometimes inconsolable regret at a life they think, in retrospect, wasted. They find the Grand Canyon not just arresting but breathtakingly and eerily wonderful. They are not simply interested in the latest discoveries about vast space but enthralled by them. These are not, for them, just a matter of immediate sensuous and otherwise inexplicable response. They express a conviction that the force and wonder they sense are real, just as real as planets or pain, that moral truth and natural wonder do not simply evoke awe but call for it."

— Religion without God by Ronald Dworkin (2013)

In dog we trust

"Fred was an unbeliever. He worshiped no personal God, no Supreme Being. He certainly did not worship me. If he had suddenly taken to worshiping me, I think I would have felt as queer as God must have felt the other day when a minister in California, pronouncing the invocation for a meeting of Democrats, said, "We believe Adlai Stevenson to be Thy choice for President of the United States. Amen."

I respected this quirk in Fred, this inability to conform to conventional canine standards of religious feeling. And in the miniature democracy that was, and is, our household he lived undisturbed and at peace with his conscience.

I hope my country will never become an uncomfortable place for the unbeliever, as it could easily become if prayer was made one of the requirements of the accredited citizen. My wife, a spiritual but not a prayerful woman, read Mr. Eisenhower's call to prayer in the Tribune and said something I shall never forget. "Maybe it's all right," she said. "But for the first time in my life I'm beginning to feel like an outsider in my own land."

Democracy is itself a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have. And so when I see the first faint shadow of orthodoxy sweep across the sky, feel the first cold whiff of its blinding fog steal in from sea, I tremble all over, as though I had just seen an eagle go by, carrying a baby."

— Essays of E. B. White by E. B. White
https://a.co/6BGuL0j

Of course it was

It was on this day in 1892 that the Pledge of Allegiance was recited en masse for the first time, by more than 2 million students. It had been written just a month earlier by a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy…

https://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-saturday-82c?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Bertrand Russell on the Existence of God & the Afterlife (1959) | Open Culture

https://www.openculture.com/2010/02/bertrand_russell_on_god.html

Natural morality

https://www.threads.net/@prof.donx/post/DAeQLsoxp2N/?xmt=AQGz1jseMopgbEVtq5ZaBkSFmshASMWpzMxUde-JWF6rmw

Maybe, Guv?

...President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina before Helene made landfall. Tennessee governor Bill Lee, a Republican, did not ask for such a declaration until this evening, instead proclaiming September 27 a "voluntary Day of Prayer and Fasting." Observers pointed out that with people stuck on a hospital roof in the midst of catastrophic flooding in his state, maybe an emergency declaration would be more on point... 

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/september-27-2024?r=35ogp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

What it means to be a humanist

Post by @humanists_uk

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Terry Prachett

Post by @humanists_uk

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How Christian Fundamentalism Was Born Again

… David French is a former litigator for Christian conservative causes. He admits that he was a "combatant" in the culture wars; in 2007, he spoke at a conservative convention and identified "far-Left radicals at home and jihadists abroad" as the two greatest threats facing America. Later that year, French deployed to Iraq as a military lawyer. One of his roommates was a liberal Mexican American Army captain, who told French he belonged to "the church of the Hubble telescope," because he believed only in what he could see. The two men spent hours sparring like Darrow and Bryan, debating religion, politics, and other subjects. "We didn't change each other," French says. "He didn't become like me. I didn't become like him. But he was my first friend in Iraq." French says that his roommate helped him begin to see his political opponents as neighbors. Today, he remains anti-abortion, but he's also a prominent Never Trump Republican, and has been outspoken about racial disparities in policing. "Time and again, the more I learned, the more I regretted my previous combativeness," he says. "I was trying hard to win arguments, when I now realize I wasn't even right."

The authors of "The After Party" remind believers that "reconciliation to God inherently leads to reconciliation with others." They encourage Christians to draw on the resources of their faith to model a more relational, less tribal approach to politics. It's a stirring admonition, but Wineapple's observation about the tragedy of the Scopes trial is that both sides failed to see the other. The "self-appointed arbiters of culture" can seem just as contemptuous of faith as they were a century ago, even as their own beliefs become an altar unto themselves. The divide may very well be unbridgeable, but Marsden suggests that both sides keep in mind the wide angle of history and what it reveals––that "cultural conflicts are not simply products of the machinations of the warped minds of one's opponents, but rather reflect deeply embedded cultural patterns." A clear-eyed explanation of fundamentalism's resilience might include a recognition from nonbelievers that there is something wanting in the secular consensus, a lacuna that scientific, technological, and social progress has failed to address. The values of humility and hope could benefit us all. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/05/keeping-the-faith-brenda-wineapple-book-review

Manifest humanIsm

The lifestance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully.

https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto3

https://www.threads.net/@americanhumanist/post/C-YNl8yuPp5/?xmt=AQGzL06T7uMS2pj7BbRgBO5_Sn10CLZzmG-LvlVu7szlYQ

Journeys

In his youth, Josh Kellar was taught to accept a literal interpretation of the Bible. But as he began to question how we know what we know and what constitutes truth, he began his journey away from organized religion and toward humanism. Read the latest installment in our JourneysToHumanism series.

https://thehumanist.com/features/profiles/journeys-to-humanism-a-quest-for-truth-meaning-and-authenticity

"Spirit"

Those of us who believe we have a natural spirit continuous with our physical body (not  a super-added "soul" in the supernatural sense) should probably not call ourselves SBNR's. I prefer humanist/naturalist/pragmatic pluralist, if I must select labels.

Are We in the Middle of a Spiritual Awakening?

Americans are moving away from organized religion. Are they replacing it with other forms of spirituality and observance?

...Pew's survey found that "22 percent of U.S. adults fall into the category of spiritual but not religious." Pew found that some of the things that most S.B.N.R.s believe are that "people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body" and "there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we cannot see it." They are also likely to believe that animals and elements of nature like rivers and trees can have "spirits" or "spiritual energies."

...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/opinion/spirituality-religion.html?smid=em-share

On finding meaning in nature

"When it comes to the makings of a meaningful life, the natural world offers a richness and depth that are worthy of celebration. As biological creatures with a secular, humanist perspective, it's all we would ever want." -Tom Krattenmaker.

https://thehumanist.com/features/articles/celebrating-the-worldview-that-embraces-the-natural-world-in-its-finite-imperfect-glory

But he had this in common with Freud

Frederick Crews, Withering Critic of Freud's Legacy, Dies at 91

A literary critic, essayist and author, he was a leading voice among revisionist skeptics who saw Freud as a charlatan and psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience.

"One of his great pleasures in life was skepticism," Professor Pinsky said. "With vivid glee, he told me about recataloging and organizing the library in the summer camp where he was tennis instructor. That athletic, intellectual young man took pleasure in cataloging the Bible under fiction."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/books/frederick-crews-dead.html?pvid=JOSmglOKXSWPRoKC2Y__4izy&smid=em-share

When in Rome (or Riyadh)

Discussing atheism in highly religious countries

Written by Guest author

With the news replete with stories of humanists and freethinkers killed and persecuted for ‘blasphemy’ around the world, Alex Sinclair-Lack asks ‘How candid can I be about my beliefs’? 

...just by opening a dialogue you create a safe space for other people to explore their own doubt or scepticism, but who are unlikely to have had the same freedoms you have had. This is more likely than you might think. According to a 2012 WIN/Gallup poll, 18% of people in the Arab world consider themselves ‘not a religious person’. That is the equivalent of 75 million people. The percentage rises to as high as 33% in Lebanon and perhaps even more surprisingly, 19% in Saudi Arabia. Even if you do not meet these people directly, you may indirectly inspire tolerance towards them. And there is a reasonable chance you will have enough influence on someone to make them consider before jumping to harsh judgement and disownment. Atheists and agnostics within highly religious countries have one hell of a trail to blaze. What I am advocating is recognising your privilege and using it to help their journey run a little smoother.

I’m not supporting walking around the holy land with an ‘I love Richard Dawkins’ t-shirt. I only had this conversation when I was somewhat confident that I was safe. I would not be so brave as to openly discuss it in Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia, where the price of standing up for non-belief has been such a tragic one. In at least thirteen countries, atheism is punishable by death. And in these countries, the bravery and dangers faced by activists fighting to protect their right to non-belief is not to be compared with anything I will ever encounter. Nor would I be naive enough to claim that everyone has the luxury to speak so openly about non-belief. But it is recognition of that privilege that motivates me. I have been lucky enough to grow up in a society where I am free from these dangers; most people are not.

Use your wits and your intuition, when you feel unsafe, keep your views to yourself. Check the Freedom of Thought Report before you visit any religious country and only do what you feel comfortable with. Given an opportunity, atheists who live with the privilege of safety have a responsibility to detoxify the debate for those that don’t. For me, it is a risk worth taking. Some of my most humbling experiences were when Jordanian people were telling me that I had helped them combat their prejudices. All humanists have a small part to play.

---

Alex Sinclair-Lack is a writer with an appetite for travel. You can follow his writing and his exploits on Twitter at @alexsinclair.

This I Believe

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Young Women Are Fleeing Organized Religion. This Was Predictable.

They're increasingly identifying as feminist at the same time that some denominations are drawing conservative lines in the sand.

...she couldn't get past the sexism and the limits to her individuality that she associated with being an observant Christian. "I've just kind of been focusing on my individual spirituality, whatever that might mean," she said, "or even just not doing anything spiritual at all."

For a future newsletter, I'm looking to talk to anyone who identifies as "spiritual but not religious." If that describes you, drop me a line here. Jessica Grose, nyt

Self-damning

Hitch on miracles & revelation

"Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation." Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

https://www.threads.net/@williamgpullin/post/C7TDRf3sXAI/?xmt=AQGzuGS4KrZrfeQa0LVA1RRWsJPPBNSGmD0jbhWQh4R2_w

Twain the Epicurean Humanist

thr

Stephen Fry's humanist appeal

compassion and sustainability

"Although I know that a lot of my colleagues consult their religion when they look at policy, that just does not come up for me. Instead, my priorities are based in compassion and sustainability…" Read the latest in our #RepresentationMatters series featuring Elinor Levin, who is a State Representative for Iowa's 89th District.

https://thehumanist.com/features/profiles/representation-matters-state-representative-elinor-levin

It’s gonna take way more than a day

"Saturday, May 4, is the National Day of Reason!

With Christian nationalist influence in Congress, and with the threat to our judiciary looming large, it has never been so important to affirm our commitment to the constitutional wall of separation between religion and government, and to celebrate reason as the guiding principle of our secular democracy. Learn more"

https://www.nationaldayofreason.org/about

Journeys to Humanism

Throughout a childhood spent questioning the nature of biblical tales and the dissolution of a tumultuous first marriage, Andra Miller knew that she still believed in goodness.

Read her story...

==

Journeys to Humanism:
Bringing Out the “Human”
What happens when a Southern Baptist "Golden Child" experiences the world beyond their small town? They become humanist, of course.

"...In my senior year, I took a risk and wrote an essay about my deconstruction for one of my classes. In it, I expressed my frustration toward religion and my desire to have something outside of it in these words: “Can I not take credit for my own successes, my own mind, my own morality? I would take responsibility for my failures as well. I don’t wish to be deprived of all that is human in the name of the divine. I don’t wish to give up the physical, the tangible world around me, for the spiritual one others deem more holy. My flesh and bones are sacred by right of being, and I cannot give them up for what one calls sacred that, from my observation, has no being at all.”

Just a few months later, I discovered humanism. I realized that my new outlook on life completely aligned with humanist values: taking responsibility, acknowledging our potential for good, and seeking answers through reliable methods like science.

I became a humanist before I even discovered it. Honestly, it feels more like humanism discovered me. Although atheism and humanism aren’t the same, my journey to one brought me to the other. My “atheist” label has estranged me from certain groups of people, but my “humanist” label keeps me connected to all people. I’m no longer shut off from the world. I can learn and love freely. I can embrace parts of myself that I had to hide before. Humanism has brought out the “human” in me and let it live in the light."

We all have our own stories of how we came to be humanists, and we want to hear yours! Fill out the form here to be featured in this series.

atheism before the Enlightenment

'Ultimately, the student of atheism remains in a hall of mirrors. Bedazzled by images of doubt and disbelief, we still can't easily tell if our eyes are deceiving us.'

Alexandra Walsham on uncovering evidence of atheism before the Enlightenment:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n08/alexandra-walsham/trickes-of-the-clergye

Religion as Make-Believe

The Fake Fake-News Problem and the Truth About Misinformation | The New Yorker

...Sperber concluded that there are two kinds of beliefs. The first he has called "factual" beliefs. Factual beliefs—such as the belief that chairs exist and that leopards are dangerous—guide behavior and tolerate little inconsistency; you can't believe that leopards do and do not eat livestock. The second category he has called "symbolic" beliefs. These beliefs might feel genuine, but they're cordoned off from action and expectation. We are, in turn, much more accepting of inconsistency when it comes to symbolic beliefs; we can believe, say, that God is all-powerful and good while allowing for the existence of evil and suffering.

In a masterly new book, "Religion as Make-Believe" (Harvard), Neil Van Leeuwen, a philosopher at Georgia State University, returns to Sperber's ideas with notable rigor. He analyzes beliefs with a taxonomist's care, classifying different types and identifying the properties that distinguish them. He proposes that humans represent and use factual beliefs differently from symbolic beliefs, which he terms "credences." Factual beliefs are for modelling reality and behaving optimally within it. Because of their function in guiding action, they exhibit features like "involuntariness" (you can't decide to adopt them) and "evidential vulnerability" (they respond to evidence). Symbolic beliefs, meanwhile, largely serve social ends, not epistemic ones, so we can hold them even in the face of contradictory evidence...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/22/dont-believe-what-theyre-telling-you-about-misinformation?_gl=1*5wkxo5*_up*MQ..&gclid=05dc19316ca81fce994f7f12f1af4029&gclsrc=3p.ds

faith in reason

"To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true."

— Bertrand Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization

May 4

Every May 4, nontheists recognize the importance of reason, critical thought, and free inquiry to solve social problems and promote humankind's welfare. Read AHA Staff recommendations for how you can show your support for a national or local Day of Reason. https://bit.ly/443IFvP

If God Is Dead, Your Time Is Everything

Martin Hagglund…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/if-god-is-dead-your-time-is-everything

Daniel Dennett (1942-2024)

Remembering speaking with Dennet in Chicago at the APA February 2020, Told him I appreciated his email correspondence back in the 90s (and then later when I asked if he could arrange a meeting with Dawkins). Sat across the aisle from him listening to Philip Kitcher and Martha Nussbaum at that meeting. 

"...I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence  is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now…" https://www.edge.org/conversation/daniel_c_dennett-thank-goodness

Spirituality from a humanist perspective

Spent a delightful afternoon yesterday at Hattie B's and Bobby's Dairy Dip with Younger Daughter. Might even call it spiritual.

The question of humanist spirituality came up. To me, it means being gratefully aware that I'm alive,  breathing, thinking, enjoying, loving… as Marc reminds us to remind ourselves every morning.

And it means what Andrew Copson said:

A vast literature both popular and academic has investigated and promoted the concept of a materialist and non-theistic spirituality. Five aspects emerge from those various works that also accord with what I personally would describe as a spiritual experience. So, for this humanist at least, spiritual experiences, in no particular order:

1. are positive experiences – and at the more powerful end of experiences in general, causing a surge of feeling; 
2. are fleeting – and we become conscious of them only when they are underway or are over; 
3. are personal and individual experiences – they're subjectively experienced even when they're shared;
4. are not not intellectual or rational experiences – although they occur within ourselves and minds, they're not experiences to which you can ascribe any meaningful analysis (neither are they irrational experiences!). 
5. take you (metaphorically or imaginatively) outside of yourself – you feel as if you are connected to something bigger or more than yourself in some way.

All of that applies, accompanied by deep gratitude for the joy of an ongoing relationship with someone I've known, admired, and will continue to love her whole life. As WJ said, this beloved incarnation too was among "matter's possibilities." It "lends itself to all life's purposes" and delights.  Pragmatism III

And don't underestimate the spirit of ice cream following hot chicken on a perfect spring afternoon.

With a twist

https://www.threads.net/@secularstudents/post/C4ldY7RpyuK/?xmt=AQGzS4EPsZQrPIeTnFjkg65_dfbvAoTPAeUoISINPLSjvQ

Religion is losing influence in public life, 8 in 10 Americans say | Pew Research Center

… Overall, there are widespread signs of unease with religion's trajectory in American life. This dissatisfaction is not just among religious Americans. Rather, many religious and nonreligious Americans say they feel that their religious beliefs put them at odds with mainstream culture, with the people around them and with the other side of the political spectrum...

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/03/15/8-in-10-americans-say-religion-is-losing-influence-in-public-life/

Colbert and Simon of faith, gratitude, happiness, sublimity

 This interview is "incredible"-meaning delightful. 

I don't agree, I do think happiness (not sublimity) is the more profound "goal"… but I respect Stephen's thoughtful (if slightly manic) reflections here. And his experience, and his pain and suffering. And I share his gratitude. I just don't think I owe it to a god.

But as Montaigne said, "Que sais-je"… I don't know, and neither do you. Believe what you will.

Paul's a Yankee fan and a scorekeeper, and his gratitude is unconditional. He and I are co-congregants in the Church of Baseball. Time to cue up Graceland...

Ripples: Terry Pratchett

'No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away... The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence.' The great humanist author Terry Pratchett. He was our patron and is sorely missed. He died #OnThisDay 2015. GNU Terry Pratchett.

https://www.threads.net/@humanists_uk/post/C4ajxc3I9ur/?xmt=AQGzKkiKd2K0_NxXdYXJBmuxbTDFt3-Xw8wBpkH7flo3kg

Be gone

https://www.threads.net/@mayba_6/post/C4YWlnAgzhS/?xmt=AQGzn6uYZTKLP8qYyRU5XAiC_yp-UDMTsUiILuQ-74Fybg

Got it

"He gets us" doesn't get it:

https://open.substack.com/pub/johnpavlovitz/p/everyone-gets-jesusexcept-american?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

This is us (on the cosmic calendar)

I don't want this story (ours or Harvey's) to end. But of course, time will march on – with or without us. Eventually without, no doubt. As Russell says, we must in the meantime turn our attention to other things.

"…In the closing second of the cosmic year there's industrialisation, fascism, the combustion engine, Augusto Pinochet, Nikola Tesla, Frida Kahlo, Malala Yousafzai, Alexander Hamilton, Viv Richards, Lucky Luciano, Ada Lovelace, crowdfunding, the split atom, Pluto, surrealism, plastic, Einstein, FloJo, Sitting Bull, Beatrix Potter, Indira Gandhi, Niels Bohr, Calamity Jane, Bob Dylan, Random Access Memory, soccer, pebble-dash, unfriending, the Russo-Japanese War, Coco Chanel, antibiotics, the Burj Khalifa, Billie Holiday, Golda Meir, Igor Stravinsky, pizza, Thermos flasks, the Cuban Missile Crisis, thirty summer Olympics and twenty-four winter, Katsushika Hokusai, Bashar Assad, Lady Gaga, Erik Satie, Muhammad Ali, the deep state, the world wars, flying, cyberspace, steel, transistors, Kosovo, teabags, W. B. Yeats, dark matter, jeans, the stock exchange, the Arab Spring, Virginia Woolf, Alberto Giacometti, Usain Bolt, Johnny Cash, birth control, frozen food, the sprung mattress, the Higgs boson, the moving image, chess. Except of course the universe doesn't end at the stroke of midnight. Time moves on…"

— Orbital by Samantha Harvey
https://a.co/5Rz69NL

Ontological Airbnb

"...I don’t desire a personal God. (When I went to Jewish services with my wife and read the translations of the prayers, the relentless praise made me cringe.) What I want is not a superhero dad but for the universe to make sense, for it to meet what Hegel called our “absolute need” to be at home in the world. I can see why Baddiel might frame this need in filial terms, as a desire for God the Parent. But those who didn’t feel at home at home may crave a more impersonal consolation: a rational proof, or truth, or narrative that salves our ontological homelessness.

We may also be more modest in our hopes. I’m as terrified of death as anyone, but I have no dreams of immortality. I cannot think that justice will be done in some divine tribunal, that everything has happened for good reason in the best of all possible worlds. My hopes are more precarious, more painful, more provisional: that we will bend the arc of future history towards justice—an ontological Airbnb..."

Kieran Setiya
https://open.substack.com/pub/ksetiya/p/ontological-airbnb?r=35ogp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Declaration of Modern Humanism

Humanist beliefs and values are as old as civilization and have a history in most societies around the world. Modern humanism is the culmination of these long traditions of reasoning about meaning and ethics, the source of inspiration for many of the world’s great thinkers, artists, and humanitarians, and is interwoven with the rise of modern science.

As a global humanist movement, we seek to make all people aware of these essentials of the humanist worldview:

1. Humanists strive to be ethical

We accept that morality is inherent to the human condition, grounded in the ability of living things to suffer and flourish, motivated by the benefits of helping and not harming, enabled by reason and compassion, and needing no source outside of humanity.

We affirm the worth and dignity of the individual and the right of every human to the greatest possible freedom and fullest possible development compatible with the rights of others. To these ends we support peace, democracy, the rule of law, and universal legal human rights.

We reject all forms of racism and prejudice and the injustices that arise from them. We seek instead to promote the flourishing and fellowship of humanity in all its diversity and individuality.

We hold that personal liberty must be combined with a responsibility to society. A free person has duties to others, and we feel a duty of care to all of humanity, including future generations, and beyond this to all sentient beings.

We recognise that we are part of nature and accept our responsibility for the impact we have on the rest of the natural world.

2. Humanists strive to be rational

We are convinced that the solutions to the world’s problems lie in human reason, and action. We advocate the application of science and free inquiry to these problems, remembering that while science provides the means, human values must define the ends. We seek to use science and technology to enhance human well-being, and never callously or destructively.

3. Humanists strive for fulfillment in their lives

We value all sources of individual joy and fulfillment that harm no other, and we believe that personal development through the cultivation of creative and ethical living is a lifelong undertaking.

We therefore treasure artistic creativity and imagination and recognise the transforming power of literature, music, and the visual and performing arts. We cherish the beauty of the natural world and its potential to bring wonder, awe, and tranquility. We appreciate individual and communal exertion in physical activity, and the scope it offers for comradeship and achievement. We esteem the quest for knowledge, and the humility, wisdom, and insight it bestows.

4. Humanism meets the widespread demand for a source of meaning and purpose to stand as an alternative to dogmatic religion, authoritarian nationalism, tribal sectarianism, and selfish nihilism

Though we believe that a commitment to human well-being is ageless, our particular opinions are not based on revelations fixed for all time. Humanists recognise that no one is infallible or omniscient, and that knowledge of the world and of humankind can be won only through a continuing process of observation, learning, and rethinking.

For these reasons, we seek neither to avoid scrutiny nor to impose our view on all humanity. On the contrary, we are committed to the unfettered expression and exchange of ideas, and seek to cooperate with people of different beliefs who share our values, all in the cause of building a better world.

We are confident that humanity has the potential to solve the problems that confront us, through free inquiry, science, sympathy, and imagination in the furtherance of peace and human flourishing.

We call upon all who share these convictions to join us in this inspiring endeavor.

(also known as ‘The Amsterdam Declaration’), declared by the 2022 General Assembly of Humanists International, replacing The Amsterdam Declaration of 2002.

Suggested academic reference

'Declaration of Modern Humanism', Humanists International, General Assembly, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 2022

Nones plateaued?

https://substack.com/@friendlyatheist/note/c-48000328?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Is "better" the word?

Or reconciled? Accepting? At peace? Happier, maybe? Less charitably: happily deluded?

In any event, it's good to see a positive spotlight on humanism on the front page of the Sunday Times.

An Atheist Chaplain and a Death Row Inmate’s Final Hours

Devin Moss spent a year ministering to convicted killer Phillip Hancock. Together, they wrestled with one question: How to face death without God.
--

“It’s well known that people that really believe, that really have faith, die better,” he said. “How can we help people die better that don’t have supernatural faith?” nyt

As noted recently, Andrew Copson, and before him Corliss Lamont, have some ideas on this front. 

So has Professor Dennett. 

 

"People make a mistake in thinking that spirituality [necessarily] 

has anything to do with religion, immateriality, or the supernatural."

The humanist chaplain should consider the words as well of my late great mentor John Lachs in Stoic Pragmatism, about not counting on winning the supernatural afterlife lottery. "I am prepared to be surprised to learn that we have a supernatural destiny, just as I am prepared to be surprised at seeing my neighbor win the lottery. But I don't consider buying tickets an investment."

Better to invest in smelling the roses, loving life, being grateful for the time we've got.

And staying out of prison.

An Atheist Chaplain and a Death Row Inmate’s Final Hours

Devin Moss spent a year ministering to convicted killer Phillip Hancock. Together, they wrestled with one question: How to face death without God.
--

...The gray Oklahoma skies opened into a drizzle. Moss wondered what he had to offer Hancock in these final hours, when ordinary wisdom seemed to fail and prayers, in this case, were irrelevant. Heaven, hell, salvation: He had talked about it all with Hancock, but neither of them really believed in anything but people. What humans were capable of doing, for themselves and to one another. Both men were atheists.

There is an adage that says there are no atheists in foxholes — even skeptics will pray when facing death. But Hancock, in the time leading up to his execution, only became more insistent about his nonbelief. He and his chaplain were both confident that there was no God who might grant last-minute salvation, if only they produced a desperate prayer. They had only one another...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/us/an-atheist-chaplain-and-a-death-row-inmates-final-hours.html?smid=em-share

Problematic

https://www.threads.net/@secularstudents/post/C2F7jSmuFaR/

Good question

"What unfolds when intentional spaces are cultivated to explore the essence of humanity?" That's just one of many questions that course instructor and Humanist Chaplain at Tufts University Anthony Cruz Pantojas asks students in a new course exploring the utility and significance of humanism. https://thehumanist.com/news/secularism/a-course-on-humanism-for-everyday-life

https://www.threads.net/@americanhumanist/post/C2GIguQAxGR/

How the Poet Christian Wiman Keeps His Faith | The New Yorker

A poet whose religiosity (which "begins at the point where atheists suppose that it must be at an end") is complicated, possibly incoherent, but still fascinating from a humanist perspective. His story would have made the cut for James's Gifford Lectures.

"...During his years at Poetry, Wiman came to feel alienated from contemporary poetry and what he regarded as its self-obsessed confessionalism. Before he learned he had cancer, he'd been planning to resign from the magazine—he and Chapman, in thrall to the mythology of another pair of poet partners, Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon, living and writing in pastoral bliss in New Hampshire, hoped to leave Chicago for Tennessee and make Fairfield into their own Eagle Pond Farm. But Wiman's cancer treatments can cost more than a million dollars a year; handcuffed by health care, they stayed put. Then, in 2010, Wiman was invited to give a lecture at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, on the campus of the Yale Divinity School. He was so taken by his conversations with the students, the way they talked so straightforwardly about their faith and their fears and what he considers life's ultimate concerns, that when he got home he wrote a letter to Yale angling for a job.

Wiman became a senior lecturer in religion and literature, and Chapman became a lecturer in English. He is now the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts. One Friday morning this fall, at nine-thirty on the nose, he arrived in a seminar room on the Sterling Quadrangle for his course "Poetry and Faith" holding up a stack of handouts like Perseus holding the head of Medusa. He'd woken that morning full of fever and pain and nausea—something that still happens to him every few weeks, most often from colds and viruses his weakened immune system can't fight off—and had considered cancelling the class, but he wanted to clear up something he'd said the previous week, about Philip Larkin's "Aubade." Wiman had told his students that the poem spoke the truth to him as a Christian, which shocked some of them, since it famously describes religion as "that vast moth-eaten musical brocade / Created to pretend we never die."

For Wiman, the poem's theological power comes from its confrontation with "a kind of absolute nothingness." His handout contained a few quotations clarifying the point. The first was from the German theologian H. J. Iwand: "Our faith begins at the point where atheists suppose that it must be at an end. Our faith begins with the bleakness and power which is the night of the cross, abandonment, temptation, and doubt about everything that exists!" The second was from a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer not long before he was murdered by the Nazis: "We cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur" (as if there were no God). Before Wiman could finish with the handout, a student tried to slip in late. Wiman reminded his class of the punishment for tardiness—memorizing a sonnet—then turned to that week's readings, which were about love..."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/11/a-poets-faith