The fundamentals of humanism

by | June 4, 2018

Over the past few weeks, British Columbia Humanist Association executive director Ian Bushfield (coincidentally interviewed ) has been using the weekly newsletter to explain the concept of humanism.

[Photo of Ian Bushfield.]

Ian Bushfield

Bushfield goes through the seven fundamentals of the Amsterdam Declaration one-by-one, expanding on them with references to current events to show their continued relevance.

Right now, the atheist community is in a bit of a quagmire. For a number of reasons, it has become a favoured recruiting ground for bigots. That’s not really surprising, because atheism on its own is intellectually vapid and ethically empty – it’s a void that you can pack just about anything into, including ignorance and hate. Atheists embracing humanism is more important now than it has ever been, because humanism provides inoculation against the hate and bigotry lurking at our fringes.

I had originally planned to wait for Bushfield’s series to complete then feature it in Weekly Update, but I decided it deserved its own post with links to each of the instalments. So, here you go:

  1. Humanism is ethical
  2. Humanism is rational
  3. Humanism supports democracy and human rights
  4. Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility
  5. Humanism is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion
  6. Humanism values artistic creativity and imagination
  7. Humanism is a lifestance aiming at the maximum possible fulfilment
  8. Summary: What Humanism can mean and what it commits us to

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