Humanism is advancing the human story

Being Human Church

Humanism enjoys a variety of definitions

• an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters (Google definition)
• a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition.
• a democratic and ethical life stance that affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. Humanism stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethics based on human and other natural values in a spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. Humanism is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality

To us, Humanism isn’t just about preserving or maximizing human life. To be humanist is to advance human meaning.

Meaning, in this case, isn’t how we define something. Instead, meaning is about the creation of something meaningful – something that advances humanity.

Said another way, Humanism is advancing the human story.

Humans are social creatures and we understand our place in the universe through the stories we tell ourselves and each other. Throughout the course of human history, we’ve created an epic story comprised of all human achievement, failure, suffering, and joy. We add to this story through our contributions to our communities and the world. The goal, then, is to continue adding to this story and to keep the story going forward into the future.

Unfortunately, there are forces in the world that may eventually end humanity’s story. These forces aren’t some manifestation of evil or villainous society – it’s simple entropy. Entropy is the tendency of any system to revert to chaos. Human society is an extremely complex social system built on top of a biological system that is also amazingly complex. Therefore, these systems require extraordinary amounts of energy to maintain stability.

Our systems developed and took advantage of the tremendous resources available in our environment. Today, though, our resources are depleting. While we may not run out of food or energy tomorrow, we will eventually outstrip the ability of our planet to provide for us.

Today, many pursue short-sighted goals (finite game) at the expense of long-term sustainability (infinite game). One of the reasons for this is because it has worked within our systems – at least until now. We have been able to ignore the long-term consequences because of our resource abundance.

We must now make the transition to play the infinite game – the alternative is the end of the human story.

While some may think that humanity will end one day, we reject this assertion as given. To be truly humanist, is to try to advance the human story forever. We cannot know what is beyond the horizon of infinity, so all we can do is plan for success as far as we can see.

Who know what secrets we will unlock in the future?