Humanism: My Journey

Following my Welcome to Humanism blog, some reflections on my personal journey to humanism – perhaps this basic concern for others is where many of us start, end up, or both (what do you think?) – may be of interest.

I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy many travel opportunities in my life, having lived in South Africa, briefly in Israel, then England for four years, and now Australia for almost two decades. Yet for some time now my focus has been on continuing a different and – very likely – far more important sort of journey.

This journey involves ruminating, communicating and deepening an appreciation for the shared humanity in all of us with its many positive cultural, social and religious expressions. Of course some human actions cause harm to others, so humanism does require clearly defined moral standards.

My journey within humanism is one I had the good fortune to start some three decades ago thanks to family influences, engaging teachers and friends at school, and challenging tertiary studies in several countries.

Living through Apartheid’s final years in South Africa gave me a truly complex initiation to a range of difficult social issues related to ethnicity (or ‘race’), cultural and language groups, disparate opportunities, and poverty.

Being one of just a handful of Jews in a small-town Methodist school taught me the necessity for religious ‘tolerance’ (or better acceptance) as being treated with disdain or ‘targeted’ for conversion by some devout Christians was both unappealing personally and not, I felt,  the right way to respond to religious difference. I will explore the importance of religious pluralism in later posts.

Thanks to my parents, brother and sister, I was exposed to secular, traditional, religious ideas and later philosophical education, from which I began to learn about culture, history, language, ethnicity and respect for human dignity.

Hence, like numerous friends, teachers, and others communicating openly and honestly in the blogosphere or elsewhere, I have many ideas and hopefully some productive insights to share about meaning and purpose in life, human difference, and particularly the common humanity that binds us all in this world.

What has been your journey to humanism, religion or other world views?

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Humanism: Welcome

Welcome to my blog as ‘OzHumanist’ – viva Australian humanism viva!

Humanism is about discovering, respecting and celebrating what each of us share as human beings, irrespective of cultural, ethnic, familial, gender, genetic, philosophical, religious or other differences.

So, given this working definition, I am going to assume that you – like me – will endorse this view of humanism and may further choose to self-identity as a (socially and politically active) humanist as I’ve done in recent years.

This IS a blog so comments, dissenting views, questions or rejoinders are of course welcome contributions below.

In essence, humanism recognises the inherent dignity and value of all human beings, attaching primary importance to human interests – rather than various spiritual or supernatural matters on which people will disagree. Humanism can thus happily coexist with most religious beliefs, and being a religious humanist is not only possible but actually desirable, likely or even necessary.

One of my passions in recent years, indeed for several decades, has been seeking common ground between religious and secular views, which can often reach similar conclusions based on quite different reasoning and metaphysical assumptions regarding creation or the powers operating in world history say.

In fact, humanism remains agnostic, indeed sanguine or untroubled, about the existence of God or related supernatural questions. This is so as the practical focus of this philosophical outlook – which is not religious and not not religious, to paraphrase the Dao – is to promote the needs and welfare of all people through the use of reason and universal moral principles.

Are you a self-identifying humanist yet?

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