Secular Humanism

Secular Humanism is a god free movement, a world view, that is occurring in a slow and erratic fashion here and there. It is a positive movement, having found ways of saying there is no god, no life after death, in positive ways. We believe in science and there is no room for any supernatural beliefs in this system. It does not or has not yet dealt with personal philosophy, like the Stoics do, with there multitude of thinking exercises, so both Stoic and Humanism is possible. One is world view, the other inward looking. In the areas these two overlap, ethics v virtues, there is much compatibility. The language is only a dull pointer to the meanings, required actions and beliefs.

Secular humanism looks at the positives of moving forward after we have cleared the garbage thinking. It may be necessary to pass through freethinking and atheism to come out the other side and start to look forward again. Freethinkers bash religion, and atheist say there is no god, which is correct, but we (I) cannot stop there. Religion bashing is pointless. I need to move on, having deeply realized that there is no point in trying to change old fixed minds, they will soon die off. It is the youth that we need to influence, and that can be accomplished by others. There is an need for understanding, and statement of the belief system in a clearer manner than has occurred so far. It is a vast expanse of material, and differing opinions, not of the materials, but of the priority.

The first (1932) Manifesto was called religious humanism, but eliminated god and conscious existence after death. It outlined 15 or 17 points - depending on the version, translation from Dutch or whatever. Other versions have as few as 10, and with some of those points there is disagreement, or no clear direction as how to achieve the desired effect. Non violence cannot work in the police/criminal element not in the military. and both are needed in the foreseeable future. The insurance industry is dependent on the criminals also. Tribalism is the larger application of attachment, which holds families together, yet is the foundation of Nationalism, which in turn, is the cause of tension in the world. It all needs a bit of work to rationalize all the components.

We all have our strong suits, and areas that we just are not interested in. Stay out of our areas of disinterest. Those are just problem areas that we do not need to be involved in. We do not need to care about may people, places, things. Religious idiots can rot in their hells. The Prime Directive applies.

Some Humanists are endeavoring to provide rituals like commemoration of birth, weddings, funerals. Well, for ritual I do not care. It is just not important to me. But we are all free to choose. It is up to the individual.  Other Alternatives Thursday Night group can rise again.

On human variation: (copied from the net) By the 1970s, it had become clear that
1) most human differences were cultural;
(2) what was not cultural was principally polymorphic – that is to say, found in diverse groups of people at different frequencies;
(3) what was not cultural or polymorphic was principally clinal – that is to say, gradually variable over geography; and
(4) what was left – the component of human diversity that was not cultural, polymorphic, or clinal – was very small.

So as a species, we are similar. And in the end we all die anyway.