don@uofm-cv.UUCP (Donald C. Winsor) (04/09/84)
[EAT IT]
Since attacks on humanists and claims that humanism is a
negative point of view seem popular in this newsgroup, I
would like to present the positive side of humanism. The
following is from a pamphlet written by Kenneth W. Phifer,
the minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of
Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a a personal friend of mine. The
views expressed are very similar to my own, and Ken presents
them much better than I could. I am reproducing the text in
its entirety.
Don Winsor
Ann Arbor, Michigan
============================================================
The Faith of a Humanist
I am a humanist.
I agree with Protagoras that "the human is the measure
of all things" and with Sophocles that of all the many
wonders of the world there is "none so wonderful as the
human."
I see with Shakespeare what a piece of work is the
human being:
How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in
form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action
how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!
the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!
I am at one with the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 in its
assertion that the purpose and practice of humanism is to
(a) affirm life rather than deny it;
(b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee
from it;
(c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a
satisfactory life for all, not merely the few.
I believe, in the words of the Secular Humanist
Declaration, that "human beings are responsible for their
own destinies."
I rejoice in the humanism of a George Santayana, who
once described a humanist as a "person saturated by the
humanities" and humanism as "an accomplishment, not a
doctrine."
I hold with the conviction of humanism that the
scientific method is the best means we have discovered for
advancing truth.
I have faith in that part of humanism which sees the
human being as the highest form of life, an end not a means,
the creator of moral values, the maker of history.
The humanism I embrace is materialistic.
Materialistic humanism asserts that matter comes before
spirit, that soul is part of body, that the stuff of which
this world is composed is the necessary context for the
ideas and ideals that enrich human life.
Spirit enlivens matter, but where there is no matter
there can be no spirit. In every infant we stand before the
mystery of this process. From the combining of egg and
sperm to zygote to fetus to baby and then through childhood
into maturity, a human being begins as simple matter and
proceeds to develop personality, uniqueness, a spiritual
dimension. Until the male matter and female matter come
together there is nothing, no thing. When they do, a
process of growth unfolds that leads to ... a Mother Theresa
or an Albert Einstein, or a you or me.
The humanism I embrace is naturalistic.
The natural world is the only world there is. The
universe is indeed "one song," not a melody in two parts.
Human beings, as well as bears and bees, waves and winds,
steroids and stars, proceed from, and are always a part of,
and return unto nature, our truest home.
Nature is unified, its parts connected, its laws
regular, its mechanisms open to human understanding. At the
infinite extensions of the macroscopic and the microscopic
we find a harmony of nature, not two kinds of reality. The
rules by which gravity functions or relativity operates or
elements combine are true everywhere in the universe and do
not contradict one another.
Nature is a miracle - in its magnificent story of a Big
Bang which launched the universe, in the tale of the origins
of life on this planet in the sludge and slime of primeval
waters, in the saga of the evolution of the human race from
living in the treetops to flying machines above them. The
true meaning of "super nature" is not as a term for another
whole realm of reality but as a description of the one
reality that exists.
The humanism I embrace is religious.
Religion is a human enterprise. It is the human race
that has created religions out of that unique self-awareness
that drives us to ask questions about our origins and our
destiny. It is the human race that has invented religious
communities in order to share the burden of our aloneness as
individuals. It is the human race that is concerned with
ethical values. We want to know what is good and what is
evil, what is right and what is wrong, what is helpful and
what is harmful. We desire to increase the measure of the
good and the true and the beautiful in the lives of all
people.
Albert Schweitzer, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance
speech, remarked that "humanism in all its implicity is the
only genuine spirituality." He spoke not of a humanism that
worships humanity but a humanism that seeks, without creedal
test or ritual requirement, to treasure each human being as
a center of meaning and value. The adventure of religion is
not in the discovery of Eternal Truth or Absolute Meaning -
arenas in which human beings do not and cannot deal - but in
our individual and communal search for and creation of
meanings and values that dignify and enhance life.
The humanism I embrace is rational.
Beginning with Protagoras and Socrates, continuing
through Lucretius and Epictetus, Erasmus and Bacon, into our
own time with Dewey and Einstein, the life of the mind has
been respected by the humanist. As Lester Mondale phrased
it, "scholarship coupled with education has remained to a
greater or lesser degree the perennial mark of the
humanist." In the complex age in which we live nothing could
be of more importance.
Humanism recognizes the importance of the non-rational
aspects of human life. Passion and enthusiasm, joy and love
are integral to our living. But only as these are guided by
reason even as reason is tempered by them can we avoid the
dangers of mere prejudice and irrationality. It takes more
than good will or good luck to build a good society.
I am a humanist because humanism does not rely on
tradition, a special book or person, "what I'm feeling right
now," or the most recent revelation of the latest deity. It
relies on reason, thought, the human mind as the best means
we have of discovering truth and promoting justice.
The humanism I embrace is responsible.
Humanity has conceived countless numbers and kinds of
divine forces, imagined innumerable and picturesque heavens
and hells, devised all manner of schemes whereby gods
intervene on behalf of men and women who call on them in the
proper way. How many messiahs there have been to usher in
paradise!
Yet the world goes on. The face of the planet is
scarred with pain and sorrow. That is part of the tale of
human and natural history. I see no evidence of a deity at
work trying to ease that suffering. I look at the Holocaust
and I see one and one half million children who were
deliberately murdered by the Nazis and I say that if there
is a god anywhere surely that god would have stopped that
terrible carnage.
Humanism teaches us that it is immoral to wait for God
to act for us. We must act to stop the wars and the crimes
and the brutality of this and future ages. We have powers
of a remarkable kind. We have a high degree of freedom in
choosing what we will do. Humanism tells us that whatever
our philosophy of the universe may be, ultimately the
responsibility for the kind of world in which we live rests
with us.
Humanism points to the deeds of those women and men who
have chosen the good. Humanism lifts up the courageous work
of a Margaret Sanger or a Betty Friedan, the significant
contributions of a Marie Curie or a Jonas Salk, the
persistent efforts of a Maggie Kuhn or a Linus Pauling, and
says to each of us, you see what can be done. Go and do
what you can. If each of us really did the best we could
do, it would be a very different and a much better world
than it is. I believe that that is what humanism urges on
us - to stop looking for help from out there and get busy
with the task at hand.
The humanism I embrace is inclusive.
It is the only perspective because I am a human being.
I cannot see things as an ant or an angel might, much less a
god, but solely from the vantage point of a human person.
So many people so easily forget this limitation and speak
glibly as though they really did know what the view from the
godhead is. Such a splendid picture has not been vouchsafed
to me nor do I believe it has been granted to anyone else.
We all see reality from the humanist perspective.
Humanism is also the broadest possible perspective for
us in the sense that any other definition of our position
limits us and excludes others. A humanist approach is the
broadest possible term of inclusion I know. Language and
understanding that is universal and planet-wide and that
embraces, not erases, all cultures and religious
expressions, all races and sexes and every other kind of
difference is essential for human survival and prosperity.
How impressive it is to read the sermons of humanist
preachers like John Dietrich and see that "man and women" is
the phrase used where others in the early years of this
century - and many still today! - were using "man." How
refreshing to read humanists of the Unitarian and
Universalist and other religions of a hundred years ago and
see the respect with which they were treating all the varied
world religions, while Christian writers were describing
them as stages on the way to Christianity.
The day may come when we can adopt an even wider
identification. For now the struggle is to understand and
appreciate how very much alike we are in our anxieties and
our hopes. We need to find ways of celebrating those
qualities that make each of us individually and the varied
groups of which we are a part unique and valuable without
harming others as we do so. Humanism is the best
perspective from which to view and to work on this task.
Ultimately, of course, the name does not matter. Some
will choose to call themselves theists or atheists, fideists
or deists, or maybe just "ists." What matters is that we
join with each other in seeking to do justice and to love
mercy, walking humbly with one another in full respect of
the preciousness and worth of every human life.
That is the faith of a humanist.
That is the faith by which I try to live my life.