The very first historic symbol of Humanism was created by Michelangelo. He carved “the David” out of marble between 1501 and 1504. This statue was commissioned to represent the symbol of the philosophy of the City-State of Florence, Italy, by the Medici family. The Medici were Italian banker statesmen, de facto rulers of the province of the Florentine Republic that elected its own “mayor” to manage their province. Here the people ruled their own lives instead of living under the control of Kings annotated by God through their Priests that generally ruled throughout Europe in those days.
The people of the region controlled by Florence were supported by the Medici family, who were the most powerful and enthusiastic patrons of Renaissance culture in Italy, that brought Western civilization out of the Dark Ages, where the Roman Catholic Church had controlled human existence for over a thousand years, many times burning at the stake those who challenged the beliefs “the Church” required of each of us that had no relationship with reality. They no longer kill their deterrents, but they still rule over one half of the Christian population in the world today. Many of their congregation are looked upon by Control People as merely sheep that provide for all of their wants. Why do people even put up with that existence? Read on and let us find out why together.
This philosophy of life adopted in Florence in the Fifteenth Centaury originated in ancient Greece. Five hundred years prior to the life of Jesus people believed that God created each of us, such as if he were molding each of us from clay, and this God ruled our daily lives — paying particular attention only to me, of course. Leucippus (5th century BCE) did not believe that we were molded of clay. He felt that we were made of indestructible tiny particles.
Democritus was born in 460 BCE. He labeled and described Leucippus particles. He was the first person who believed that everything is composed of “atoms”, which are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible. He reasoned that the world of atoms looks like our universe. Between atoms, there lies empty space; that atoms are indestructible, and have always been and always will be in motion; that there is an infinite number of atoms, and many different kinds of atoms, which differ only in shape and size. This is still very close to the view of our science today. The concept originated from the development of philosophy, not through science, because in those days a scientific method of developing our truths did not effectively exist.
Epicurus (341 to 270 BCE) came along a hundred years later and carried the emancipation of humans from the control of their Gods to a logical conclusion. He felt that we were not each controlled by a “supernatural” God for which there was absolutely no credible evidence to support one even existed. People only believed that he existed because other people told them that he did, and few people in those days ever questioned someone who claimed their own authority. That made no sense, but the public is ignorant on any given subject because most people are sheep.
Epicurus was the first person in recorded history to rise above the ignorant masses to realize that we are each solely responsible for ourselves. Furthermore, he said that he saw no reason to assume that there is any life after our death. Epicurus realized that belief is only a delusion that keeps us from taking responsibility for our own lives. Epicurus recognized those beliefs were merely “control devices” created by Control People (who wanted you to support them) which they felt necessary because most honestly believed that they were doing good by being your Shepherd. Epicurus could not accept such a trite belief. Therefore, Epicurus concluded, that you had better make the very most of this life while you are here on Earth because, if there is not another life hereafter, that is the only way for your own life to mean anything.
Many people today agree with Epicurus. But those today who hold that view have only rediscovered this philosophy in the past one hundred years. Why is that so? It is because this belief conflicts with some Control People who still today want you to believe that a life after death exists and that only they hold your ticket to get there. That notion is just plain silly. But since we were given that belief for our entire life, most people do not question it—because we all want it. Even though there is absolutely no physical evidence justifying that belief. There is no valid doubt that belief is a control device, but those who are sheep cannot see that. Their own scotoma blocks any other belief from being accepted by them. Why is that so?
Since our religious views are woven into us before the age where we have developed the ability to reason, many people cannot escape from that view of our lives because of the fear that the Control People who imposed those beliefs in us may be right. “If I do not believe I will go to hell”. This belief causes one of the strongest social factors controlling the naive public’s existence today. Charles Darwin said that “Hell is the most damnable belief imposed on mankind”. Which view is right, and what difference does that make in how we live our own lives? This issue merits our consideration. Unless you are a sheep, read on.
If Epicurus is right, we will have wasted our own lives if we do not live it to the fullest while we are here. How do we do that? Can we do that and still hold on to our wish for a life hereafter? Of course. But these questions merit further thought for those willing to improve the quality of their own life.
I am not telling you that you cannot hold on to that belief for whatever reason is important to you. If it gives you a comfortable crutch, why should anyone tell you that you are wrong? You can hold on to that belief and still make the most of your life while you are here. That is very important so that you will then not have missed living this life, dependent only upon your life hereafter for your reason for your existence. Each of us will arrive at our own conclusions; and no one should really care which path appeals to you. However, those who hang on to that belief, and therefore ignore attempting to make the very most of this life could lose either way. That makes little intelligent sense for many people.
The purpose of this book is to help you gain the most that you can from the only life that we know for certain that we have. Then, if Epicurus is correct you will have gotten the most from life that you can. If the Control People who are influencing your life are correct, you can have the best of both lives. However, if they are not correct, but they are merely controlling you for their own benefit (although many Control People honestly believe, of course, that their belief is best for you), in their more primitive means of creating our “social glue” that allows us to live together, this book will not destroy those beliefs. This book will enlarge your view of the reality in which you live. And, hopefully, you will not have missed truly living the only life we really do know for sure exists, if the Control People you accept are not correct.
The philosophy of Humanism expressed by Epicurus was soon forgotten until it was immortalized in an epic poem by Titus Lucretius Carus, who was a Roman poet and philosopher, living around 100 BCE. His only known written work is the 2,000-word didactic philosophical poem, De Rerum Natura, about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which is usually translated into English as “On the Nature of Things”. If it had not been for Lucretius, we might not have known of Epicurus philosophy even today. If so, what a waste of our life today might be the result. We, too, could still be living in the Dark Ages, fearing for our very lives if we disagreed with the Control People within “the Church” that still dominates the lives of billions of people today. That is the life best described by George Orwell in his book, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Lucretius’ poem lay dormant in a monastery until it was discovered by Peggio Bracciolini, a friend of Cosmos Medici from the region of the City-State of Florence in northern Italy. He asked a
member of the Medici family that served as secretary to the pope in the very early part of the Fifteenth century who translated Lucretius’ poem from Greek into Latin.
The Medici family read and adopted Epicureanism as the philosophical approach to life for those living in their region of influence surrounding Florence, Italy. Since this was very early in the 1400’s, the Epicurean Humanistic philosophy had lain dormant for over fifteen hundred years.
The prevalent Western cultural belief of that day was controlled by the Roman Catholic Church, as it had been for well over one-thousand years. The Epicurean view of life was a significant contrast to the current “cultural meme”. Adopting this view of life by those living in the Chianti region of Italy is what initiated the Renaissance period that brought our Western civilization out of the Dark Ages caused by the dominating strict control of the Roman Catholic Church that had prevailed for more than a millennium dictating what we each must believe, under the Church’s threat of death for those that denied their control of what you believed. Today you are merely told that if you do not believe you are going to hell, but they do not help you get there like they did by burning disbelievers at the stake before the Renaissance.
The Epicurean philosophy first recognized man, instead of a God, as the center of “the nature of things”. For Michelangelo “The David” was the first representation of man conquering life instead of his life being controlled by a God. Those who adopted the Epicurean Philosophy of life lived the life of a Humanist, free of external control of their life for about two centuries before the cultural meme, created by the Church, again overtook control of the public beliefs, and ignorance and blind faith again caused the public to predominantly exclusively accept the historic traditional cultural belief that “God ruled man”. And the Church spoke for God. Priests were back in control of the life of each person in Western civilization, although many of their Control People were now labeled “Protestants”.
I have often wondered when I have visited the Vatican how many Catholic’s of today might feel, knowing that Michelangelo, the architect that designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and provided the beautiful art decorating the ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel, was a Humanist?
Leonardo de Vinci also lived within the realm of the Florentine Republic and painted The Last Supper that everyone knows today, was also a Humanist. There are many Humanists in their heart that exist within all religions still today. Leonardo became one of the most famous artists, scientists and forward thinkers of his day. His work is still revered today.
Thanks to the freedom to challenge the Church that brought about the Renaissance that produced the religious Protestant Reformation, which then prevailed in many regions of Europe after Martin Luther published his 95 complaints on the door of a Catholic Church in Germany. But that only changed who ruled the religion that ruled the people. They were still being told by Control People what they must believe. For Protestants, they were still within the Christian faith, with just a different view and order of service.
Many people even today recognize that the masses of the public are ignorant on almost any given subject. Our own society determines what most people must believe. The Humanist philosophy of life did not have enough momentum to overcome the publicly accepted meme of Christianity that, after thousands of years of growth, now had acquired an independent life of its own. That makes religion a “meme”. We will learn in this essay what the effect of a meme truly has upon our beliefs.
This book does not intend to tell you that you must give up your religious beliefs. Your personal religion provides the symbols that you have learned from early childhood before your age of reason that has acquired emotional ties that bind you. Logic cannot easily replace deep felt beliefs we acquire before our age of reason, since those acquired in our early childhood are accepted for emotional reasons, and logic cannot defeat our emotions. You use those symbols to express yourself in ways that you currently have no other better means of addressing. Humanism is an approach for maximizing your life here on Earth. Many people place their religion on top of their philosophy of life. No Humanist should object, if that is important for you.
One point of this essay is whether you can realize what is happening to you that denies you the ability to live your own life because you are willing to be led as a “sheep”, or whether you wish to maintain control over your own life. No one has probably asked that question of you before, but how you answer that question can change your life.
Very few people older than the Millennials do control their own beliefs because of their own “scotomas” and the fact that they have become comfortable in their own limited niche in life. Therefore, many take the stance saying, “do not tell me that I am wrong as I really do not want to believe you.” If you are a content sheep, this book is not for you. Pass this book on to someone who is younger. This book is written for the people who, like Epicurus, believe that everyone should take control of their own life. If you are one of these people, this book will tell you how you too can accomplish that goal so that you can actualize your own existence. Each of us should recognize that we are free to accomplish that goal in our own way.
The Philosophy of Humanism Today
Knowledge of reality requires a higher level of education, and the availability of much of that information was beyond the reach of the masses of the public in the more ancient world who were unable to read until more recent times. Earlier most people who had the ability to read in our earlier history were monks and priests who were working within the Church. The Humanist philosophy was again subverted for a third time, this time for close to five hundred years. In 1492, Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press, making books available to the public, would change the entire religious playing field, but that would only be sometime in the distant future.
The Epicurean philosophy surfaced formally again in the first decade of the 1900’s; initially with a Unitarian minister living west of the Mississippi. Those who early in our history moved west had to be self-reliant to survive. By then, for most people then living east of the Mississippi, cultural civilization had developed to a point that society supported individual existence for most people, including controlling their beliefs. People living east of the Mississippi no longer really needed to think for themselves, if they were willing to accept what society currently believed, because all necessary knowledge for them was laid out in our institutions. The person who moved west had to be more self-sufficient.
The Rev. John Dietrich was the minister of the Unitarian Church in Spokane, Washington. That is about as far west as you can get in America. Dietrich rediscovered the concept that “man is the center of his own human life, and we are not ruled by a “God” who controls our lives, first interpreted in recorded history by Epicurus. Dietrich preached that concept in his sermons for several years before he was called to move on to another congregation in his career, which is typical for the clergy.
Rev. Dietrich next became the minister of the Unitarian Church in Minneapolis. He discussed his thinking with other Unitarian ministers in the Midwest. Rev. Curtis Reese, minister of the First Unitarian Church in Des Moines, Iowa, liked Dietrich’s view of life. Reese’s Unitarian congregation does not meet in the summer months of June, July and August. Before air-conditioning it was too hot in Iowa to want to sit in a church pew on Sundays. Besides many in Iowa were farmers who worked seven days a week during the growing season.
Unlike most other Churches, Unitarian Control People do not worry that they cannot control you if you take a summer break. But you best return to the fold in September. That is because you must think for yourself in a Unitarian Universalist Church. No one gives you an answer to anything that you are expected to accept. Unitarians are collectively presented social issues to consider in their sermons, and each person must think of what is an appropriate response for themselves. “Faith” is not a requirement in that religion. In fact, any requirement for “faith” would generally be looked upon as a hindrance by many Unitarians seeking knowledge.
To rekindle his congregation, Reese’s sermon delivered the first week of September had to be a “barn burner” to recapture the attention of his members. Unitarian members are certainly anything but sheep. Unitarians think for themselves. Reese shared his proposed sermon with Dietrich, who approved, except for the title. He said the title should be something that the congregation would remember. He suggested that Reese might call it something simple, like “Human” or “Humanism”.
Thus, the first time the Epicurean philosophy was labeled “Humanism”, and that name was made public, was in Curtis Reese’s sermon delivered in the Des Moines First Unitarian Church in 1917, only a little over one hundred years ago. This sermon centered on humans being the central factor in their own life, rather than a supernatural God that there is no real evidence even exits. This philosophy is what was formally defined in the Humanist Manifesto by Lester Mondale, John Dietrich, Curtis Reese and 31 other philosophers and ministers when it was first published in 1933. Thus, this awareness only occurred during the life of some of us who are still alive today. Changing our view of reality takes time. The growth of our ideas accelerates by an algorithm, not linearly.
Dietrich and Reese went on to form the American Humanist Association (“AHA”) in 1941 with its office initially located in Yellow Springs, Ohio, when they appointed that community’s Unitarian minister, the Reverend Edwin Wilson, as the AHA’s first Executive Director. Their purpose was to assure that the Epicurean philosophy not become dormant again as it had been drowned out three times before by an ancient religious meme that had a much stronger voice so that the public could no longer hear the Humanist voice. The AHA became “the mouse that roared”. It may be small, but from its inception, the AHA’s philosophy was mighty. And it spoke the truth about reality.
Truth should ultimately prevail as long as it has an advocate that prevails until that truth becomes its own cultural meme. That is because of the bully vs altruist dichotomy we will discuss later. If the advocate were only an individual their belief will ultimately be drowned out by the cultural memes that proceeded it. That is why the voice of Robert Ingersoll, who was so popular more than a century and a half ago, did not last. The formation of the American Humanist Association was a turning point, if it could only be sustained so that its voice would be heard by future generations.
The AHA initially attracted all sorts intellectual people, including academics, and most scientists. Charles Darwin was a Humanist at a time when the Epicurean philosophy was not publicly recognized. Humanist ranged from Albert Einstein to Dr. Seuss, to Bill Nye, “the Science Guy”. Those people resented being treated as sheep. We are seeing the same thing today from the Millennials and those who are younger here in America. Everyone who accepts the responsibility for their own life realized that It was time that people understood that they were being made into puppets by others who wanted to control them, (“for their own good”, of course.) Many religious Control People felt it was important that they tend their flock for their own survival, which is why those in their flock were frequently told that they must tithe by those dependent upon their gifts to sustain themselves so that they could maintain their church. Ever wonder why in a poor community in Mexico and Central America frequently the only show of wealth is in the Catholic Church?
The path from the Sistine Chapel to St. Peter’s Basilica takes the public through the Vatican museum which is filled with objects of great value while poor people sit against the outside of the wall surrounding the Vatican pleading for “Alms for the Poor” from those lined up to tour the Chapel with no one inside paying any attention to them.
Today, the AHA offices are located in Washington, DC, less than a mile north of the White House. The AHA has formed a Free Thought Caucus in the United States Congress. There are millions of Humanists around the world, all because Dietrich and Reese created the “mouse that roared”, and its voice has been heard. There is still much work for the AHA to do. There are at least 20 million Americans who claim “none” when asked of their religion in any survey. Forty percent of the younger generations primarily Millennials and younger claim they have no religious faith affiliation. Most of those people would recognize that they are Humanists if they only knew that this philosophy of life exists. The goal of the AHA is to make sure that they hear the voice of humanism.
Recognizing that today that it is now finally culturally acceptable for each of us to be responsible for our own lives, we can safely become the center of our own existence without fear of being burned at the stake, or hearing the threat of our being excommunicated, or even worse, being sent to “Hell”, as if most intelligent people today even believe that there is such a place. Today we allow our lives to only be regulated by those Control People who we accept as having valid authority over us in order that we may benefit from living peacefully together in our society.
Today Humanists are not controlled by any external “supernatural” God, and we certainly do not have to account to any Control People, if we do not want to. We reserve the right to challenge all who want to control us unless we understand that they are doing so for our own good, or that our society dictates that we must. Humanists realize that we do not have to accept any cultural “meme” that has little valid root in reality unless we really want to for our own reasons. We can ignore those Control People who claim that Gods rule our lives, and their claim that we must accept their authority since they are our only available interceder to God, and if we do not accept their belief we will suffer the consequences of God’s wrath. We can all become “free at last”, as was so eloquently stated by the Reverend Martin Luther King. But this freedom has been available to us this third time which only occurred during the last century. This concept, from a cultural perspective, is new, but it is growing more rapidly than any religious faith belief today.
Today over four Million Americans are connected to, or influenced by, the American Humanist Association in one form or another. That has grown from less than one hundred thousand people only ten years ago. Hopefully, this third time for the evolution of our Humanistic philosophy we will generate enough momentum to also become a cultural meme.
Contrary to the use of the term by youth today, the original concept that originated the use of the term “Memes” was developed by Richard Dawkins in the mid 1980’s. The original use of the term Meme identified those beliefs we humans have that self-replicate and are passed from brain to brain that now have an independent life of their own by the people that are its temporary hosts. Memes self-replicate and evolve to remain acceptable in society. It is interesting that our youth have deviated the use of the word meme into something more innocuous. Do you suppose those who fear the public understanding the original meaning of the meme concept that challenges their “blind faith” beliefs have caused that deviation? Interesting thought, isn’t it?
Perhaps some people with more ancient cultural beliefs who felt threatened, and therefore tried to discourage their sheep from discovering that there are other ways of thinking then their message, have reduced the meaning of memes for those most religiously vulnerable. That is not a coincidence. So, did they do what grade school bullies do on the playground, they started calling some of the most brilliant people in the world who were exposing memes as the reason for our beliefs the equivalent of what happens when one child calls another a bad name creating a self-fulfilling prophecy when others join in the teasing. Instead of using bad names they accomplish the same result by changing the meaning of the word meme in their attempt to make it meaningless. That was brilliant. That worked. Regardless, truth now has a strong voice and it will be heard.
The Humanist philosophy will very soon be viewed as an acceptable, and by our younger generation, the most acceptable, form as a philosophy of life for human beings; and not merely only tentatively tolerated by our current society. Today there are more new people annually identifying with humanism in America than any of the religious faith beliefs of a specific Church. One reason is that Humanists do not require “faith” In order for us to be able to accept humanism. Humanism is based only upon provable knowledge, most often validated by science.
Humanists accept that all knowledge is tentative. The only absolute truth we know for certain today is that someday we are each going to die. All other knowledge is only the best information that is currently available. As more information becomes available a Humanist will modify what we are currently willing to believe in order for that information to become our own acceptable personally held belief, but that too we realize is only temporary until a deeper understanding surfaces.
As late as 1985, Humanists were looked upon as the “Devil Incarnate” by Jerry Falwell, a TV Bible Bigot with 37 television stations covering the United States every Sunday morning. His point was that if you did not believe as he preached, you could not live a good life controlled by God. You were “a sinner”. This is ignorant, and certainly not true, but the masses are ignorant on almost any given subject and everyone wants to believe in something. So, many people blindly accept what they are told by people they look upon as more knowledgeable then they are. “Just send me money”. Television evangelist fed on this need by making you feel good about your having found them.
They will teach you how to be “saved”. Many speak in simplistic language presenting them self as “the authority”. As a TV Evangelist, Falwell alone took $55 million dollars annually from the public in 1984 alone. Other than providing his broadcast, Falwell did little real public good with the income tax free money he acquired. Falwell had to answer to no one for the wealth he acquired, including the IRS. I could not garner the media to overcome the negative image of Humanism that Farwell painted using his 37 television stations across America.
To provide a spokesperson for humanism whose voice would be heard, I asked Dr. Isaac Asimov to become my successor as the President of the American Humanist Association. Dr. Asimov was a renowned author, having published 480 books during his lifetime, ranging from Asimov’s Guide to Science; to Asimov’s Guide to Physics; to Asimov’s Guide to the Bible. The later takes two volumes to cover each chapter of the Bible and to show why it was written. In addition, one-third of his books were science fiction. Even though he was the foremost science fiction writer of his day, Asimov would not fly in an airplane. If he could not travel by car or train he would not leave his Central Park apartment.
Dr. Asimov agreed to serve as my successor because he knew that he could garner the press necessary to overcome Jerry Falwell, and he also realized how Falwell was abusing the public he served. Falwell realized his days of unaccountable wealth would be numbered if he challenged Asimov. Therefore, he shifted his message from using “secular humanism’ as his “scarecrow”, and Instead he used his pulpit to create what he labeled the “Moral Majority” (which is neither) and used his Sunday service to empower his sheep of religious fundamentalists to become politically active. As a result of creating far right political activist, religious fundamentalists have now ruined the Republican Party for mainstream Republicans. My own mother sent five dollars to Falwell that she could not afford to spend. When I asked her why, she said, “he speaks with such authority.”
One of the better things I accomplished to benefit our society is that I contacted my friend, U.S. Senator, Chuck Grassley, who was then, and is again today, the Senate Finance Committee Chairman. In addition to being a committee chair, this year he has been elected as the U.S. Senate “President Pro-Tem”, making him third in line of succession as President of the United States. I asked that he answer for me why TV Evangelist can even qualify for tax exempt status when they do little good that actually benefits the general public? Senator Grassley pursued that question and those TV “Bible Bigots” who were un-deservedly taking advantage of our tax laws, ceased milking the naive public out of millions of dollars annually that primarily only lined their own pockets.
In contrast to those that are guided from a fundamentalist religious perspective preparing themselves for a life hereafter that now, the philosophy of humanism is all about each person having the uninhibited ability to maximize our own life while we are living on this Earth. Instead of our worrying about an afterlife, most Humanists realize that our only provable immortality comes from each person leaving our Earth a better place because we have been here.
Humanists ignore our being required by Control People to spend the only life we know for sure that we have spending our precious resources seeking a ticket to an afterlife that we have no valid evidence exists. Especially, since it requires serving the dictates of Control People, who not only insist that we each must tithe, but in addition, at least in one prominent faith, its sheep are told that they should spend their families limited resources for elaborate funerals that barely memorialize the meaning of the deceased’s own life. Their ability to extort these “contributions” from a gullible public is because they claim that they are the only ones who can provide us the ticket to assure that we get to Heaven. Therefore, “For a little larger contribution, we can buy out way out of Purgatory.” That makes absolutely no intelligent sense. Yet intelligent people, having those beliefs instilled in them before their age of reason, cannot simply ignore their emotions that compel them to comply. If it were not for the cloudy lens created in us by our cultural society caused by these Control People before our age of reason, we would all see that it truly does not make any good sense.
The problem for most of us living in our society today is that our religious beliefs were imposed upon us before our age of reason. Our early beliefs are reinforced with the emotions we experienced when they were created. We felt safe and loved at the time we acquired those beliefs. Therefore, they became a part of us as a person and we cannot simply ignore them, whether they are true or not. As a result, many intelligent people simply continue in life as they were trained as children rather than take what for them may be viewed as a risk if they deny those beliefs.
Obviously, there are many working within organized religion that provide a lot of good for the people they serve. They are necessary to sustain our society today. Most important for all of us, religion is our “social glue” that maintains our society. Dr. E.O. Wilson, retired Humanist Professor Emeritus of Harvard, pointed out that societies of less than 150 people during the hunter-gather era could exist without any external control of their society—because people knew each other, and the fear of rejection by their friends maintained social control of each members behavior. Once society moved toward a society of agrarian farmers, creating a society dependent upon grown crops and domesticating animals, society increased in size to encompass thousands. To maintain a society that large required social controls that were more sophisticated to serve as our “social glue” that controlled behavior so that we could successfully live together.
The first recorded history tells us that this religiously advanced society using this social glue holding together their society was going strong about 15,000 years ago. They were the people living in Sumer, which was located in Mesopotamia, that recorded their life in writing. Sumerians were one of the first agrarian cultural civilizations. Sumerians had numerous City-States located between the Tigers and Euphrates rivers in an area about the size of Massachusetts in what is now southern Iraq. Their concept of religion evolved to sustain their societies.
Each City-State had its own god. This necessitated creating a class of people to maintain such a society. These Control People were socially empowered as “Priests”. They soon magnified their authority, even to the point of assuming the responsibility to coronet their societies Kings, claiming the Kings power comes from God. Eventually, as in many cultures, they caused the public to believe that the Priests authority was paramount in society, even collectively surpassing the power of the King.
It is now finally time for all humans to have the cultural freedom for those capable of living a life more comfortably that is in tune with more provable reality, that allows those people to be able see a better life that rises above our cultural more traditional religious existence that still prevails in our society today from those religions that demand control, in contrast to those mainstream religions that only intend to provide support. Instead of perpetuating unfounded beliefs that originated in a more primitive age when people lived their life based upon ancient myths that we now know do not exist in reality, at least in the form as the public accepts them today, Humanists find that their philosophy provides all of the necessary social control without the need for threats of damnation, or rewards of an afterlife that no legitimate evidence supports. Such beliefs can only exist by our accepting “blind faith” imposed by Control People. Humanist see no reason for such “blind faith” when a better more responsible life exists without it. Most mainstream Protestant Christian religions agree with that today.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1945 in the West Bank of what previously was Israel when they were written from about 250 BCE through 67 AD. They were being written daily during the entire lifetime of Jesus. When the Romans expelled the Jews out of Israel, their scrolls were hidden in caves. They remained there for almost two thousand years before they were discovered in 1946. Therefore, history has not touched them. The fact that they tell us a story differing from our current religious traditions has many Christians and Jews troubled.
What has become apparent is that one important lesson that the scrolls tell us is that our current religious traditions have been seriously molded over the past two thousand years. Because of well intending Control People, our beliefs today differ from many historic facts the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal. Our current Christian and Jewish faith traditions seem to serve our society today so why should we care? The problem is that this new knowledge has caused many people to question their own faith. Since many of our traditional assumptions regarding our purpose on Earth are not “immutable truths,” upon what authority do we base our very existence? There may be no singular historic truth that guides our lives. We may be here on Earth all alone. The subject of “Why Was I Born?” is a question we must now all answer for ourselves. I wrote a book with that title now available on Kindle and Nook, most of its contents are included in this book.
All of the books of the Old Testament were found in the caves around Qumran where the Scrolls were written, except for the Book of Ester. One book of the Bible had forty-one copies, and they were all different. Which one did God ordain? These Scrolls were being written daily only twelve air miles from Jerusalem. Why is there no mention of Jesus resurrection? You would think and event like that would be noticed. There are many other issues that challenge our current cultural religious traditions. The point is that our religions express our beliefs—our beliefs do not have to be based upon historical facts for us to accept. Religion has become a meme with a life of its own. Meme’s modify themselves to sustain their independent life as they replicate. Just like humans evolve as our genes pass to the next generation, memes evolve to be accepted in their current environment.
Even though many Humanists may still participate within their own religion from their childhood, most do so for family or cultural reasons. Religion fills the security and low social level for most people that has nothing to do with its unifying myth. There is nothing wrong with that. Those Humanists have made an informed decision to do so for their own reasons. Those Humanists that do participate place their religious beliefs on top of the Humanist philosophy. Humanism does not address those issues, nor does humanism fill the needs of those people living primarily on the security or lower-social levels.
To be able to understand and be able to accept humanism, Humanists have to have arrived above the mid-social level. Therefore, humanism does not intend to attack any religion for those that need those beliefs to sustain their own social existence. Humanism’s only beneficial interface with religion as a philosophy is to object when religious zealots who serve as Control People create cultural barriers intended to inhibit anyone from becoming fully human today. Read on, let’s find out what this means. For those people who are not capable of rising above their current life, why should Humanist care?
The philosophy of humanism accepts that all people should be free to live their own life to the fullest existence that they can achieve. There are people in our society that are bound by scotomas that block their ability to live a more fulfilled life and, as a result of their scotomas, they cannot rise to the level of even comprehending that humans can live a better life. Threatening their existence is un-Humanistic behavior. That is why mainstream Humanist have problem with those Atheists that insist that no one should believe in any “God”, let alone accept more primitive god concepts. The same objection exists for religious fundamentalists that insist that everyone must share their belief. Both ends of the religious scale are in effect “bullies”. We will discover, if we read on, that bullying people is not a successful approach to an organized society. It only benefits the bully. We will also learn further on why society does benefit from bullies. It is not their beliefs that Humanist object, it is because of their “in your face” behaviors we object to tolerating, regardless of which end of the spectrum they might be expressing.
Organized humanism supports those people whose goal is to assume responsibility for their own lives, regardless of what their religious faith might be. Humanist religious objections are limited to assuring us that we can live free from those religious Control People who want to take away our ability to think for ourselves. Fortunately, not all leaders in religion today follow the path of those who would deny you that right. Many more clergy today use the symbols of their faith to help you see beyond yourself, instead of insisting that they are the only path to heaven, which only results in an uncomfortable feeling of guilt, if you were raised in their faith and now you feel that you must deny their word. Those Control People that limit your ability to live your own life, Humanists find offensive.
The Epicurean philosophy we know today as “humanism” now has enough strength to become an acceptable meme of its own, available for future generations to come, when hopefully the philosophy of humanism will become an accepted view for all people in the world, available to everyone to consider in the future.