Round Table
1. What would you answer if someone asked you “What is a humanist?”
BR: My son describes a humanist as someone who believes in humanity and human nature – allowing for freedom of thought and action and by living with your own conscience. SP: “An ethical atheist”. Which can be expanded to the longer answer along the lines of, “for me, living the one life I think I have to the full, without superstition, god/s or doctrine; with intellectual rigour, joy, compassion, and mutual respect; and treading as lightly on the planet as possible.” MD: Someone who engenders their actions with positive virtues of the human character and is motivated to do so purely for the good of humankind, independent of a dogmatic moral code imposed by a spiritual faith system. TS: My definition of humanism is “a happy non-believer who wants to do good things.” CL: A person who is non-religious, not anti-religious. A person that believes that people are equal and shouldn’t judge one another according to their values. A good person that doesn’t need a religion to do good. As a humanist celebrant I am pleased that I can offer people an alternative to religious ceremonies, that celebrate their lives and the love and joy in their lives – rather than anything else. Anon, 15: Someone who doesn’t believe in a deity but respects the right of others to do so. Anon, 12: Someone who believes we have one life and do not believe in any god. Anon, 8: The same as above, but the dust from your body passes your life
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being to tell them right from wrong; if I had more time, I would use my favourite definition that I often include in weddings – “Humanists espouse secularism in our public life, freedom and human rights at home and globally, science and reason in our quest to know the universe and humanity in our treatment of ourselves and others.”
“We are happy to attend religious ceremonies, but find a lot of what they say irrelevant. Sometimes it’s sad when you’re told at a funeral nothing but that you are going to hell.”
on to nature… a bit like the Lion King. Anon, 19: A person who lives by the rule of ‘Treat others as you would treat yourself’ without the need for a deity or something to worship. EA: I generally explain it as a perspective that values living and humanity without the need for religion. LY: Humanists believe in many similar things to those from the main religions – when it comes to moral and ethical issues for example. We too believe in doing good in our lives, for those we love and the wider community and planet. However, where we disagree is that we don’t believe there is a higher power involved – we are masters of our own lives and fates. We believe in humanity. MJ: Someone who lives a good life without needing a supernatural
2. Do you (or will you) talk to your children about humanism? Do you (or will you) discuss religion with them? If so, how do you approach these concepts?
MJ: From an early age, I told my son Matthew (now almost 20) that I did not believe in a god, but that his Gran and Grandpa and most of his uncles and cousins did, that some people believed in one god, some in many and some in none, and that he could make up his own mind when he was older; but that the most important thing was to be kind to other people and treat them as he would want to be treated. Anon Mum: As they come up… leave it to them to ask questions mostly or comment on something in newspaper or on TV or something someone has said or done at school. BR: Religion is part of all of our lives, and every day we see it on television with topical debates or by wars being waged, one of the important things that came through was that my family were allowed to make up their own minds – I came to humanism late in life and that was purely because as a child, a teenager and then as a wife and mother I wanted to be seen as doing the right things. Interestingly enough, it was my children that
www.humanism-scotland.org.uk
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