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.
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Excellent! Very nice set of principles. Thoughtful, practical, relevant. I like how you avoided reductionist thinking (Stephen Weinberg type) which poorly describes human condition.
I am a humanist, but feel that the word atheist is still, unfortunately, necessary. For now.
Genesis 1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was[a] on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day....
...24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[b] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day."
Very nice, I liked and agreed with most of this blog.
It is a shame that the person spewing genisis couldn't appreciate that this blog was ment for thinking adult people. Why do some people insist on limiting the human experience to supersition and imaginary constructs?
Principle number 6 - "The purpose of life is to pursue happiness during our life" is incomplete. How about happiness and meaning instead. Happiness and meaning sometimes overlap but not always. Happiness is a taking and meaning is a giving. As we get older, meaning becomes more important. If someone only pursued happiness, then they will probably end up with a shallow and empty life.
Unfortunately both sides fail in the pursuit of happiness. Religion fails because it constantly hopes of connecting with the divine and peoples lives are spent with that hope empty. And the science refuses to accept that there is a purpose of life and so people spend their lives with temporary pleasures and die unhappy. Animals and plants are lucky because they dont even ask such questions or care about something divine and so they are tied to this world only survival instincts etc. Humans fail when they act like the animals and fail when they live in fantasy. If God does exist then he obviously has no interest in teaching us since there hasn't been such a story since Moses in 3000 years. SO NATURALLY we act like animals. Rule over each other and pass on our survival knowledge to our children so they can have it easier. There is a flaw i this method. We are never satisfied as a whole. Always winners and losers. As long as this atmosphere exists we will never find satisfaction in life. I have no solution. Life is full of temporary pleasures and no happiness is for ever. Our lives are temporary so how can we expect everlasting happiness? Maybe we once existed in an everlasting state of happiness and with no freewill we broke out of it into this temporary world inorder to chooose? Maybe free choice is the best gift and satisfaction that this world has to offer? Try digesting a world without freewill good or bad heaven or hell and you will see how lucky we are
I consider myself a political revolutionary humanists. See the link below for more info.
#humanists
www.ufgop.org
Know what I found-out after our accident and I ascended in a NDE? Yep. There is a God and sHe loves U.S. dearly... yet, we only have a finite existence on this plane of reality and, after we push-up-the-daisies, then we're Divinely Judged on we have accomplished in our lifelong demise. Deal with it, brudda. Im only the prophet withe prophit. Follow us...
trustNjesus, dude.
Meet me Upstairs.
Let's getta Big-Ol beer...
gotta lotta tok about.
Everyday now do something benefitting both humanity AND your fellow earthlings - that gits you brownie-points HawrHawr Cuzz you know what? You and I gotta wanna face the same Jesus... or dont and go on into the clammy, smelly darkness. Satan's waiting and that shit4brains'll judge you without impunity:
Only 2 realms after this lifelong demise, brudda, and 1 of em aint too cool. and WE decide where!! Aint that nice? How God Almighty, creator of the universe and many beyond it, let's us puny, mortal humanity decide on where?
Decide NOW where you wanna be after our death and destruction of the womb's most fragile creatures.
this is so good thank u for helping with my assignment
This helped with my assignment from Ma Chanda. she is strongly catholic and forces her views on us. this will help me show her she is wrong. thanks
So I see the main argument of the whole post was pursuing happiness; just out of interest do any of you guys actually experience happiness right now? Also what about death?
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