Humanism Considered

Some relaxing snippits from Wikipedia on Humanism:

The ultimate goal is human flourishing [I like this]; making life better for all humans, and as the most conscious species, also promoting concern for the welfare of other sentient beings. The focus is on doing good and living well in the here and now, and leaving the world a better place for those who come after.

...emphasis upon art and the senses...

...recognize humans as born not with a burden of inherited sin due to their ancestry but with potential for both good and evil which will develop in this life as their characters are formed.

...approve of self, human worth and individual dignity.

The Happy Human is the official symbol of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU).


Small list of notable Humanists:

Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke
Francis Crick
Albert Einstein
Stephen Jay Gould
Linus Pauling
Gene Roddenberry
Salman Rushdie
Carl Sagan
Rod Serling
Bjorn Ulvaeus
Peter Ustinov
Kurt Vonnegut
E. O. Wilson

Quotes on Humanism:

"The Humanist rarely loses the feeling of at-homeness in the universe. The Humanist is conscious of being an earth-child. There is a mystic glow in this sense of belonging. Memories of one's long ancestry still linger in muscle and nerve, in brain and germ cell. On moonlit nights, in the renewal of life in the springtime, before the glory of a sunset, in moments of swift insight, people feel the community of their own physical being with the body of mother earth. Rooted in millions of years of planetary history, the earthling has a secure feeling of being at home, and a consciousness of pride and dignity as a bearer of the heritage of the ages."
--A. Eustace Haydon

Energy conveys to us the idea of motion and activity. Inside a living organism we see a source of power, which by some manner is released in terms of movement.... Life is energy... it is the creator or initiator of movement change, development. We are different from moment to moment because the life principle is at work with us.... The spirit of humanity, like the forces of nature, and like the physical life, is at bottom energy.... Spiritual life, therefore, is just as much a development out of what has gone before in the evolutionary process as physical life is; which means that the origin of spiritual life is from within.
--John Dietrich

The human condition is that we are individuals in relationship, and there are tensions between individuality and relatedness. A humanist spirituality is not one of complete dependence, nor of complete independence -- neither condition can be defended as primary. Rather, a humanist spirituality is one of interdependence.
--Jone Johnson Lewis

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.
--Pearl S. Buck