HUMANISM does not concern itself with the beliefs or practices of any religion.
The finite cannot try to comprehend the infinite. Humanism embraces everything that is of real value to the human race. It is in a sense the only universal religion. It is the religion of this world because the world is the only one of which we know anything. Humanism is prepared to let the gods look after themselves. It is another name for common sense.
Humanism insists on the right of all to express their thoughts in spite of popes, priests or the gods. Humanism is a religion that can be understood. It has no mysteries, no mummies, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles and no persecutions. If the humanist creed were embraced, sectarian feuds and theological hatred would cease to exist.
Orthodox religions insist that there must be something higher and more noble than humanism, but in fact the human mind can conceive of nothing better, nothing higher, nothing more truly spiritual than goodness, justice, generosity and charity.
HUMANISM concerns itself with every possible human situation. It is not something that should be kept out of our schools. It is important for our politicians, for our President, for all in power, because it is concerned with every problem that affects the rights and happiness of human beings.
Unlike orthodox religionists, humanists want their religion taught to all because it consists of facts. It appeals to the reason of every person and asks every man and woman to think for themselves. It believes that if thought were ever to be suppressed, God would rule over a world of idiots.
Humanism insists that it is our duty to think and question because it is our duty not to be fools.
The more thinkers and doubters there are, the more truth there will be in this world. Progress is impossible if there is any coercion of thought, because coercion reduces the mind to ignominious pulp. Humanism would define real religion as the simple creed of duty, by which all seek their own welfare in their own way, with a loving and fair regard to the welfare and rights of others.
It is not concerned with ghosts and phantoms, with miracles and monstrosities - that is to say with theology in all its forms. The humanists accept whatever they believe to be true and reject all that their reason tells them is false.
They know that nothing is added to the probability of an event because an account of it has been written in some book, whether it claims to be inspired or not.
As people become more educated they become more humanist in their thinking - they become less bigoted. Bigotry in all forms is the provincialism of the mind. The bigoted are not acquainted with the thoughts and beliefs of others. Wherever people think the most one will find humanism being embraced; where people are unable or discouraged to think, bigotry will abound. Bigotry is produced by irrational feeling: humanism by reasoned thinking. Bigotry is a prejudice: humanism is a principle.
Humanists constantly seek the truth and all who do so will be their friends. The eternal search may prove elusive but there is honour in the honest search - let us then be honest; standing beneath the boundless heavens thick with constellations; knowing as we do that each grain of sand, each leaf, every blade of grass asks of every mind the unanswerable question; knowing that the simplest thing defies solution - humanists are prepared to admit the limitations of their minds and have the courage, and candour to say, "I do not know".
Humanists are constantly told by critics that they rely too much on reason and that the supernatural cannot be accounted for by man. Let me ask, by what man? What man must we take as the standard? St Irenaeus or Darwin? Humboldt or Billy Graham? Copernicus or Moses?
If anything we cannot account ford is above nature, then ignorance becomes the test of the supernatural. The man who is mentally honest stops where his knowledge stops. At this point he says he does not know. Such a man is a philosopher. The theologian then steps in, denounces the philosopher as blasphemer and proceeds to explain what is beyond, the horizon of human intellect.
NOBODY wishes to deprive mankind of its faith in God, in Christ, or in the Bible. Nobody could wish to destroy the faith of man in a good, in a just, in a merciful God, or in any truth that any sacred book may contain. But we should face the fact that the very book on which our faith is founded contains much that is ignorant, cruel and obscene - things that could only have been written and proclaimed by barbarians and savages.
If the myth called Jehovah could be banished from the human mind, life and property would be safer, liberty would be surer, homes would be sweeter, life would be more joyous and death less terrible.
It seems to me that the hearts of all Christians ought to rejoice when they become satisfied that all books are merely the work of man, that there is no such state as final perdition, that people's souls are not to suffer everlasting pain, that it is all insanity and ignorance and fear and horror.
I trust that every good and tender soul would delight in the knowledge that there is no Christ who can ever say to any human being - to any father, mother or child - "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels".
One day, the world will emerge from darkness and ignorance and on that day, no civilised person will be able to read the 109th Psalm of David without horror and shuddering.
