The secular humanist principle

The secular humanist principles

(1) There is no God and no deity, there is only us, the material world, and the ecosystem surrounding us. There is no soul and super nature, everything, including ourselves, are made of materials.

(2) Things happen, not because of God’s wish and design, but because of the underline natural principles and the randomness embedded in those principles.

(3) There is an end to everything, from the Cosmo to our individual life. The values of things are not in their everlasting eternality. The values of things reside in their duration, in the process.

(4) Our value systems and appreciation of things should shift from the infinity and eternality, which do not exist, to the transient moments which happen all around us.

(5) There are three corner stones for our humanist principles: science, which tells us how things work; evolution, which tells us where we came from, and why we are the way we are; happiness principle, which tells us how should we conduct our life.

(6) The purpose of life is to pursue happiness during our life. A good life is a happy and exciting life. The ultimate measure of life’s success is the happiness in our life.

(7) Everyone should have the right and mean to be happy in his/her life, regardless of his/her social status. Feeling happy is the most basic and fundamental human right.

(8) The way to feel happy is to satisfy our needs and desires, to satisfy our human nature. To have things we want to do, and to do the things we want to do, that is how we should pursue our happiness.

(9) While we should have a plan for the future, but what more important is to grasp the present, and to live at the moment. We might not be able to grasp the future due to the randomness of things, but we can always grasp the present.

(10)Things do not have meanings, good or bad, we give them the meaning. If something makes us sad, and we cannot change the thing itself, we should change our own mind. We should follow the YUAN (the natural way of things) and accept our own fate (the random things happened to us). Changing our desire, taking one step back, things will not be as bad as we thought.

(11) Our societal value system, our ethical and moral standard should be built to serve human being, to enhance the human happiness. Our social institutions, and the way of life, including the marriage system, should be constructed to maximize our personal happiness.

(12)Human species is part of the earth ecosystem, it is our responsibility and also to our own benefit to maintain this ecosystem.

(13)Modern human civilization is built on social networking, organization, and labor specialization. This civilization is the basis of many of our happiness. To maintain this civilization and social order, it might be necessary to suppress some of our evolutionarily formed human nature, like violence, hatred, and jealous. This suppression is a sacrifice based on our value choice, it is not a suppression of absolute evil.

(14)There is no sin, no evil, and no absolute good or bad. The merit of one thing and its moral values should be measured by its service to human happiness, while maintaining the earth ecosystem and the necessary social order.

(15) The most valuable things for our human being are: truth, beauty and love. We should promote human love while suppress hatred and jealous. It is the love which brings us the most happiness.

(16) Everyone has the right to conduct his/her own way of life, as long as it does not constitute a direct physical harm to other people. We should accept and tolerant different way of life, view diversity as a merit of a society.

(17) We individuals are always a part of a larger existence. This larger existence, should it be family, community, nation, human species, earth ecosystem, or personal projects and societal endeavors, gives our life a more enduring meaning, and provides a continuity beyond our own existence.

(18) For us individual, there is nothing beyond our own death. We just do not exist there, our existences have a finite range in both space and time. It doesn’t make logic sense to talk about what happen to us after we die. It only makes sense to talk about what happen to us while we are still alive.

(19) The society and the larger existence for which we are part of, will still exist beyond our individual death. As we care about ourselves, we also care about this larger existence, because we are part of it, and it is part of us. Thus, we care about the time after our own death and this care provides a continuity of life.

(20) For us individual, our finite existence is a mixed bless. On the one hand, death makes us sad due to our unfinished endeavors, on the other hand, death is a relief. It is tranquilizing to think no matter how good or bad things are right now, there is always an end. It is also comforting to realize things, experiences and feelings will be continued by other individuals. We should celebrate death as we celebrate the completion of a project, the project of our life. A life is good as long as it is happy, regardless of its length.

(21) To do the best we can do, to accept the results as our fate, to enjoy the moment as we can grasp, and to face death with calm, that is how we should conduct our life as a secular humanist.