Why are you called Humanist?
We believe in humans.
We believe that the human mind is the highest intelligence.
We believe that Heaven must be made by humans and shared fairly.
Is Humanism a religion?
Maybe yes: maybe no. It depends on what you think a religion is.
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights says everyone has the right to their own religion or conviction. Humanism is a conviction.
Humanism does not have a higher power or god, but nor does Buddhism, Confucianism or Scientology and they are usually considered to be religions.
Science is trying to discover new facts all the time. When it disproves something we thought before was a fact, Humanists have to make new decisions based on the real facts. Some people think Humanism is not a religion because Humanism changes. Religions are supposed to stay fixed because a god does not make mistakes when it makes rules. Humanism has no absolute dogma like religions have.
Religious beliefs do change. Christianity used to believe that the sun went around the Earth. It does not believe that now. Christianity is a religion.
Most Humanists do not think Humanism is a religion but they think Humanists should have the same human rights as religious people have.
What do Humanists think happens when you die?
Your body is built of elements e.g. water, carbon, iron. You die when your body no longer works. Then your body goes back to being elements.
Your mind thinks with ideas which are chemical reactions in your brain. There are no memories or ideas without a brain. When your brain dies your mind goes back to how it was before you were born.
Your ideas only remain in other people's brains or in other places where they are recorded.
Just like the beat of a butterfly's wing in Brazil, what you do today effects everything and everybody now and eternally.
You are part of the universe that exists: you cannot become non-existent. You can only change. Changes have effects throughout time.
You are an essential part of the universe and what you do will effect the universe for ever.
2,275 years ago the followers of Epicurus in ancient Greece inscribed their grave stones like this:
"I was not - I have been - I am not - I do not mind."
900 years ago Omar Khayyam in Persia wrote:
"Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears
Today of past regret and future fears -
Tomorrow? - Why, tomorrow I may be
Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years."
What do Humanists believe?
Humanists believe that human problems will only be solved by human beings, and that a scientific approach is the most successful.
Human well being is emotional as well as physical.
Humans have evolved by natural selection from simpler life forms. Human life is dependent on other life forms so we must take care of the whole planet.
