Humanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

The lifestance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance.

This document is part of an ongoing effort to manifest in clear and positive terms the conceptual boundaries of Humanism, not what we must believe but a consensus of what we do believe. It is in this sense that we affirm the following:

Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.

Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.

Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the lifestance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty.

Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.

Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature's resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.

Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature's integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.

Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.

From the Humanist Association where the preceding versions can be found.

A Simple Ethic Statement for the Project

Richard Golden offers this as an ethic for our postings.

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

- Aldo Leopold

Imagine - the Next world today

Since the dawn of the rise of science and the ascension of the modern world, humanity has lived in two worlds – both pre-modern and modern.  One world largely lives in the mytho-poetic cosmologies of their tribal pasts, with incremental advances.  The other cosmology continues to emerge from the Copernican and Newtonian cosmologies of the modern age into the indeterminate and subjective world of quantum mechanics and string theory.  With the increase in our scientific prowess has also come a rethinking of our historic cosmologies, many of which no longer make much sense in our postmodern age.  Most First Axial Age religions have made peace with this change, but those who have felt threatened by modernity have responded by becoming Fundamentalists of their supernatural forms of religion. 

In this time of philosophical and religious flux we are experiencing the last gasps of First Axial Age religions and philosophies, many of which have been co-opted by imperial or nationalist concerns.  When whole countries are considered Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist countries there still exists the possibility of religious warfare to preserve, enforce, or expand the primacy of that religious tradition.  With over six billion people on the planet, the chances that such conflicts can spill over into resource battles is increasing every day.

Now that we live in an increasingly global world there is more opportunity to interact with those of multiple faith traditions and cosmologies.  Whereas nation-states have been the moving institutions of the past, multi-national corporations have become the controlling and defining institutions of our age.  In many ways, this shift has brought about a dramatic increase in communication and contact between different cultures and language groups.  In other ways, the corporate influence on western, colonial nation-states has led to an increased military presence of their armed forces around the world to protect their “national interest” of the free flow of resources to their own countries.  This has led some of the aforementioned Fundamentalists to rally themselves against the nations of those corporate interests.   

Never before has the need for a new way of thinking and viewing the world been necessary.  Some have called for an end to all religion to battle such darker impulses in today’s expressions of faith.  Others are calling for a reconsideration – a reformation – of the world’s faith traditions to meet the new world.  Still others are calling for us to begin anew. 

This blog is an invitation to begin anew.  Like those creative religious artists of the First Axial Age, this blog is a meeting place for those who would shape the Second Axial Age.  Where the prophets and sages of the past made a new way of life within the empires of long ago, today we need to create new ways of building human communities of care, compassion, cooperation that instills a sense of our interconnectedness. 

To this end, what resources would you suggest for this enterprise.  What stories, songs, sayings, quotations, and images will inspire us to our fullest common humanity?