“I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently, without any expectation of reward or punishment after I’m dead.” Kurt Vonnegut

For me Humanism is not just about a negation of God, it’s much more positive.  It is about living the one life we have without relying on fatalism and imaginary forces, about how we deal with life ourselves.

I see Humanism as taking control of my own spirituality and taking responsibility for my own life; not in an isolationist way, but in cooperation with others around me and society as a whole.  Turning the other cheek; thou shalt not steal, etc. are all claimed as tenets of Christianity, but they are pretty good rules to live by and show that Humanism pre-dates Christianity and other organised religions by thousands of years.

Neither a blind, nor naïve, reliance on the inherent goodness of human nature, my understanding of Humanism is nonetheless a view of the world that is essentially optimistic, rooted as it is in who we are and what we see, touch and feel around us.

It is this optimism, this celebration of life that suffuses all my ceremonies, as well as those more unusual ceremonies I conduct from time to time – see tab at the top…

“For some, science doesn’t deliver and they need to fill in the unknown with something imaginary. Yet this is completely unnecessary. Part of the intense wonder and beauty of the universe is its fundamental simplicity.” Professor Brian Cox OBE