# I Am A Secular Humanist                       Might You Be?



## Lon (Aug 15, 2015)

_Humanism is a progressive lifestance that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity." - American Humanist Association


I came out of the CLOSET  (religious closet) when I retired and became a Secular Humanist
_


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## Warrigal (Aug 15, 2015)

A worthy aspiration. 

Just a couple of question? 
What is the yardstick against which you measure your achievement of ethical personal fulfilment? 
How do you deal with personal moral/ethical failures ?


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## imp (Aug 15, 2015)

I once got conjunctivitis, infection of eyelids, both eyes, extremely uncomfortable, painful, and had trouble seeing properly. I had been exposed at work to a cloud of felt fibers in the air (we made tennisballs), and thought that might have caused it.

Went to a Doctor, he was Jewish (important fact to the story). I asked him if the infection might have been caused by the felt fibers (hence, making it an occupational injury). He replied, "No one can say what caused it. If I said so, I could be called Jesus Christ!"    

I think the Doctor was being honest, and leading an ethical life of personal fulfillment, as Lon suggested.    imp


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## Lon (Aug 15, 2015)

Dame Warrigal said:


> A worthy aspiration.
> 
> Just a couple of question?
> What is the yardstick against which you measure your achievement of ethical personal fulfilment?
> How do you deal with personal moral/ethical failures ?



To Thine own self be true---I make no attempt to measure or judge personal or ethical fulfilment.

I have not had to deal with personal moral/ethical failures.


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## Warrigal (Aug 15, 2015)

Lon said:


> To Thine own self be true---I make no attempt to measure or judge personal or ethical fulfilment.
> 
> I have not had to deal with personal moral/ethical failures.



Lucky you. My feet are made of clay and I have let my own personal standards down on several occasions, resulting in feelings of guilt and low self worth. It's sometimes hard to accept personal fallibility.


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## Shalimar (Aug 15, 2015)

Wow. This therapissed thought that at some point in their lives, everyone had to deal with personal/moral/ethical failures. Who knew?


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## tnthomas (Aug 15, 2015)

Lon said:


> To Thine own self be true-



Even though I've heard this phrase throughout my life, I've not known the meaning, until "googling it" in connection with this thread.    One search result(link) states that:


> "To thine own self be true," says Polonius in _Hamlet_.
> 
> So what does it mean, and what's the problem?
> It's a way of saying that nothing at all matters more to how we  should act than our own esteem. It says that we should stick to our  principles, not assimilate, and that we should do what we believe. It is  certainly beautifully phrased, and invokes ideas with positive  connotations: truth, self-ownership, individuality.
> ...




Does any of the foregoing represent the meaning of your 





Lon said:


> To Thine own self be true-


   proclamation?         I've had some spectacular failures and self-induced disasters in my life, I took the hits and took responsibility, and learned to "not do that $he!t again".    However, I do believe in the adage: 





> what doesn't kill you makes you stronger


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## imp (Aug 15, 2015)

Shalimar said:


> Wow. This therapissed thought that at some point in their lives, everyone had to deal with personal/moral/ethical failures. *Who knew*?



Who knew, that perfection walks among us? "The Shadow" knew!    imp


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## Warrigal (Aug 15, 2015)

I have always taken that passage from Hamlet to be self evident



> This above all: to thine own self be true,
> And it must follow, as the night the day,
> Thou canst not then be false to any man.



To me it means don't lie to yourself, face the truth even when it is uncomfortable, and only then will you be able to be straight with others.


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## AZ Jim (Aug 15, 2015)

I aspire to perfection like the OP.  PS It  is not likely.


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## Warrigal (Aug 16, 2015)

How would you feel about Humanists creating their own secular festivals and gatherings?


I came upon this article accidentally and it is a long and fairly difficult read but this section right at the end might be worth some comments.



> Knowing how I feel, my wife gave me Dawkins’s The God Delusion for Christmas when it came out in 2006, but it soon found its way to the bedside table where it languishes still (like a hotel-room Gideon’s Bible?). A marker indicates that I got as far as page seventy-eight.
> 
> I have not felt the urge to attend the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, a Christmas-time theatrical event hosted by the comedian Robin Ince, and organized by New Humanist magazine. Nor the Sunday Assembly, ‘a godless congregation that celebrates life’, a strange initiative apparently desperate to keep all the non-liturgical bits of church services – the getting together, enjoying a singalong, hearing some words to make you think, everything, in fact, except actual belief in a god.
> 
> The Sunday Assembly’s slogan is warm and vague: ‘live better, help often, wonder more’. Of course, it sounds a bit religious. But the sentiments are secular, too. Who does not want to live better? And why should the religious have the monopoly when it comes to being charitable (a monopoly some believers are keen to retain, to judge by recent reports of atheists being barred from helping in food banks)? What about ‘wonder more’? What is wonder? Is it admiration of the intricacy and complexity of nature, and the potential for it to be understood; or is it throwing in the towel, admitting there are things that cannot be understood at which we can only wonder? What bothers me most, though, is the air of superiority hanging about the slogan. I can imagine that people who self-consciously go around living better, helping often and wondering more might be just as self-righteous as the worst sort of Christian moralist.



The writer is an Englishman, an atheist and an academic writer.



> _Excerpted from “In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: The Life and Afterlife of the 17th Century’s Most Inquiring Mind” by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. Published by W.W. Norton & Co. Copyright © 2015 by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved._
> 
> Hugh Aldersey-Williams is the author of "Anatomies," "Periodic Tales" and "The Most Beautiful Molecule," which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in Norfolk, England.



The full excerpt can be read here: http://www.salon.com/2015/08/15/ric...hteousness_and_militant_belief_and_disbelief/


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## Ameriscot (Aug 16, 2015)

A fellow volunteer in Uganda was a humanist.  She went to meetings and goes to them back home in England as well.  I'm fine with what anyone believes.  But for me, I'm unlabeled.  I'm interested in different beliefs, mostly in Buddhism and Paganism which are very different.  So I don't label myself anything. I'm open.


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## Shalimar (Aug 16, 2015)

Annie, I'm open too.


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## oldman (Aug 16, 2015)

I am a Christian. I find peace through meditation and prayer. If I make a mistake, I learn from it and move on. At one time (early in my career), I would beat myself up over making an error, like when I would be in the simulator and forget to do something simple. (Just nerves, I guess.) I asked the psychologist why I do that. She said because I care a lot about my work. After I thought about what she had said, I agreed.


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## oldman (Aug 16, 2015)

Ameriscot said:


> A fellow volunteer in Uganda was a humanist.  She went to meetings and goes to them back home in England as well.  I'm fine with what anyone believes.  But for me, I'm unlabeled.  I'm interested in different beliefs, mostly in Buddhism and Paganism which are very different.  So I don't label myself anything. I'm open.



I may have the wrong idea, but from all of your posts that I have read, I do not see you as being a Pagan. Just saying.


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## Warrigal (Aug 16, 2015)

Oldman, there's a big difference in being interested is something and making an enduring commitment to it.


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## Ameriscot (Aug 16, 2015)

oldman said:


> I may have the wrong idea, but from all of your posts that I have read, I do not see you as being a Pagan. Just saying.



How would one determine my religion or lack of from what I post?

I didn't say I was a pagan, I said I'm interested in it.  During most of the 90's I considered myself pagan, but not any more.


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## oldman (Aug 16, 2015)

*"How would one determine my religion or lack of from what I post?"

*Because I made a mistake. I learned from it and now I will move on. Sorry for the confusion.


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## QuickSilver (Aug 16, 2015)

AZ Jim said:


> I aspire to perfection like the OP.  PS It  is not likely.



Yes.. me too... and most times the only person we are able to fool is our self.


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## Rocky (Aug 16, 2015)

_I lost a reply.

Ameriscot, pretty much agree with a touch of Buddhism, a touch of Paganism.  But primarily I describe myself as a Philosophical Taoist.

I believe it was TnThomas who mentioned an old saying, one that I've used as a "mantra" many times over the year ... changed a bit to suit circumstances: "if it isn't going to kill my me or my children, I'm not going to worry myself to death about it".  

And Lon ... "__I have not had to deal with personal moral/ethical failures."  what a saintly life you've led!_


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## QuickSilver (Aug 16, 2015)

Rocky said:


> _I lost a reply.
> 
> Ameriscot, pretty much agree with a touch of Buddhism, a touch of Paganism.  But primarily I describe myself as a Philosophical Taoist.
> 
> ...



Yes Rocky... Lon has certainly let all of us know how perfect he is...   We all strive to be more like him... sadly... we fail.   But it's always good to have a shining example of the goal we should hold.


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## ndynt (Aug 16, 2015)

Rocky said:


> _
> 
> I believe it was TnThomas who mentioned an old saying, one that I've used as a "mantra" many times over the year ... changed a bit to suit circumstances: "if it isn't going to kill my me or my children, I'm not going to worry myself to death about it".
> 
> And Lon ... "__I have not had to deal with personal moral/ethical failures."  what a saintly life you've led!_


A variation of your mantra has brought me through life also.  "What is the worse that can happen....cannot kill my children, take the roof over their heads...Like labor it can not last forever.  This too shall pass."


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## Cookie (Aug 16, 2015)

No label on me either and I don't belong to any organized belief system group.


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## Lon (Aug 16, 2015)

Dame asked: "How would you feel about Humanists creating their own secular festivals and gatherings?"

I am going to attend a picnic today arranged by The Central Valley Humanists. Probably be about 200 folks.


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## Lon (Aug 16, 2015)

Although Humanism is not a religion it is practiced in many different ways by individuals and groups just as traditional religions are.


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## tnthomas (Aug 16, 2015)

Lon said:


> Dame asked: "How would you feel about Humanists creating their own secular festivals and gatherings?"
> 
> I am going to attend a picnic today arranged by The Central Valley Humanists. Probably be about 200 folks.



Lon, have an enjoyable day, it's going to be a warm one- stay in the shade.


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## Debby (Aug 16, 2015)

Dame Warrigal said:


> A worthy aspiration.
> 
> Just a couple of question?
> What is the yardstick against which you measure your achievement of ethical personal fulfilment?
> How do you deal with personal moral/ethical failures ?




Would it be an appropriate yardstick to check your own activities, speech, whatever to see if it is to the benefit of the next guy as well as yourself?  The 'golden rule' for example?

And wouldn't your method of dealing with moral or ethical failures be pretty much the same as yours?  A recognition of that failing and a deep and earnest desire to do better next time.  My recognition = your confession and desire for forgiveness.


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## Debby (Aug 16, 2015)

Ameriscot said:


> A fellow volunteer in Uganda was a humanist.  She went to meetings and goes to them back home in England as well.  I'm fine with what anyone believes.  But for me, I'm unlabeled.  I'm interested in different beliefs, mostly in Buddhism and Paganism which are very different.  So I don't label myself anything. I'm open.




I think 'unlabelled' is suitable for me too.  I'm too open to the possibilities of ideas that I have heard of yet to want to tie myself to any one.  There are aspects of all 'faiths' that benefit me and the world at large to say, and too many have kernels of truth in them to say 'it's only this' or 'only that'.   I think it's also important to factor in the building blocks of this world/reality that scientists have begun to understand.  Like particles and atoms and probability waves and gravity and all the rest of that stuff.


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## QuickSilver (Aug 16, 2015)

My creed is.. Do no harm.   It's nice to do good works but it's not always possible or feasible...  More important IMO is that one does not intentionally harm another living creature.. human or otherwise..


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## Debby (Aug 16, 2015)

oldman said:


> I may have the wrong idea, but from all of your posts that I have read, I do not see you as being a Pagan. Just saying.




As the following is the definition of paganism from "Paganism International', http://www.paganfederation.org/what-is-paganism/

*The Basics*
Pagans may be trained in particular traditions or they may follow their own inspiration. Paganism is not dogmatic. Pagans pursue their own vision of the Divine as a direct and personal experience.....The many deities of Paganism are a recognition of the diversity of Nature. Some Pagans see the goddesses and gods as a community of individuals much like the diverse human community in this world. Others, such as followers of Isis and Osiris from ancient times onwards, and Wiccan-based Pagans in the modern world, see all the goddesses as one Great Goddess, and all the gods as one Great God, whose harmonious interaction is the secret of the universe. Yet others think there is a supreme divine principle, that “both wants and does not want to be called Zeus”, as Heraclitus wrote in the fifth century BCE, or which is the Great Goddess Mother of All Things, as Isis was to the first century CE novelist Apuleius and the Great Goddess is to many Western Pagans nowadays. Yet others, such as the Emperor Julian, the great restorer of Paganism in Christian antiquity, and many Hindu mystics nowadays, believe in an abstract Supreme Principle, the origin and source of all things. But even these last Pagans recognise that other spiritual beings, although perhaps one in essence with a greater being, are themselves divine, and are not false or partial divinities. Pagans who worship the One are described as henotheists, believers in a supreme divine principle, rather than monotheists, believers in one true deity beside which all other deities are false...."  

Seems like the opening sentence would embrace people like Ameriscot or anyone else outside of the traditional church.  Probably the one guiding principle that all versions of pagans would adhere to would be the concept that we are all connected and if you hurt the next guy, you hurt 'yourself'.  Do you think that would be fair to say?

Interesting to see that there are adherents even in paganism to the 'one god/divine principle,being' understanding.


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## Debby (Aug 16, 2015)

QuickSilver said:


> My creed is.. Do no harm.   It's nice to do good works but it's not always possible or feasible...  More important IMO is that one does not intentionally harm another living creature.. human or otherwise..




'Good works' are nice, but even the ACT of simply doing no harm....or speaking kindly or a loving hug is an action and you could call it 'a good work'.  If you thought something and it led to the tiniest action (a loving hug or a cheery hello or ......), it's a good work.  Just differing degrees of 'good works' I think.


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## Warrigal (Aug 16, 2015)

Debby said:


> Would it be an appropriate yardstick to check your own activities, speech, whatever to see if it is to the benefit of the next guy as well as yourself?  The 'golden rule' for example?
> 
> And wouldn't your method of dealing with moral or ethical failures be pretty much the same as yours?  A recognition of that failing and a deep and earnest desire to do better next time.  My recognition = your confession and desire for forgiveness.



I have found forgiving myself much harder than forgiving others. I have in the past carried my transgressions on my back as dead weights years after the event. Like zombies, they refused to die and stay dead. This was during my younger atheist days and confession was not an option. Nor was doing better next time because each event carried its own shame and regret that could not be wiped away by simply doing something good to balance the ledger. Not having had more than a Sunday School introduction of Christianity I had no experience of confession of sins or of absolution. I probably had an instinctive understanding of atonement but was usually too embarrassed to make such a gesture of remorse. I just bottled it all up inside me.

It wasn't till much later that I understood (and felt) the liberating power of grace. Only then was I able to forgive myself and move on.


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## Butterfly (Aug 16, 2015)

"It wasn't till much later that I understood (and felt) the liberating  power of grace. Only then was I able to forgive myself and move on."

Dame Warrigal -- this is exactly the experience I had.  Quite a change from the fire and brimstone I heard about in Sunday School as a child.


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## mitchezz (Aug 16, 2015)

Being perfect is tiring......I need several naps each day.


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