My Humanism
Humanism is not only about offering an alternative to organised religion and the church but also about the affirmation of the wonder of the human being. My grandmother used to say to me, ‘..you’re a long time dead’, that encapsulates humanism for me. This life is not a rehearsal, we only get one chance to get it right and our span is really quite short, so let’s worry about the here and now and getting this bit right rather than what comes after. Leave that ’til we get there, if we get there…
However, I am not dogmatic nor exclusive, I would never say ‘there is no god or afterlife’, I just don’t know…This universe is so full of wonder that we should celebrate the fact that we are here now to apprehend its beauty. Humanism sees the essential good in all people and seeks to enhance and advance the good of all. We celebrate ‘the only life of which we can be certain.’
Rationality and science, are tools for the improvement of all humanity.
“To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe – such a great universe, and so great a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible – and eternal, so that come what may to my ‘Soul’, my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part I shall still have some sort of finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me – but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you.”
Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings – 1889 – 1919)
ESKIMO NEBULA
©NASA
‘The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death our existence can have genuine meaning and fulfilment.
However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.’ Stanley Kubrick