8/6/2019 A Plea for Secular Humanism

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Gabrielle Rose

2011 by Gabrielle Rose

A Plea for Secular Humanism - for the Sake of our Humanity

Violence, hatred, intolerance, bigotry, racism, injury and murder......these are increasingly the

legacy of our dominant theologies. Please at least consider that there is another path, secularhumanism, which embodies morality, ethics and compassion but which rejects theism and the

notion that gods and supernatural entities are responsible for our actions.

We live in an era wherein people praise gods for sports victories and material gains, claiming theintercession of a personal savior on their behalf. Where are these voices now, to wonder about

the absence of such gods when Anders Breivik murdered 76 people? Why aren't those who thankgods for their vacations, their promotions, their good health, demanding an account from these

phantasmagoria to explain why 11 million East Africans face starvation even as 34% ofAmericans are obese?

We're crippled by what has become a superstitious dependency on imaginary beings; beings in

whom we childishly accord a chauvinistic posture, a Santa Claus for grown-ups who brings "ourside" the very best, but only if we believe, we believe. . . .We purport that these gods love

everyone -- but what kind of heavenly father fattens the calves of some of his offspring, while heleaves his others to starve. Would you treat your own children like this? Would you?

Such deities are a spectre of our own making; a creation which has evolved the monster of

aggressive bias, an ultratheism that asserts its own, ugly hegemony over reason, tolerance,compassion and love. We claim that these "fanatics" don't represent our thinking, our faith -- yet

we fail to acknowledge that it is our own "free grace" theology that spawns unilateralfundamentalisms, which inevitably take the form of religiously inspired acts of terrorism.

Such terroristic malevolence is hardly new; how else to explain the bloody Crusades, the

Inquisition, the burning of witches, the annihilation of native peoples, the complacency wecontinue to project in the face of genocides past and present?

Without taking responsibility for our own actions, without admitting our own liability in a

fanaticism born of puerile convictions that gods protect us while allowing others to perish, wedeny our ability to accomplish wonders of our own agency. We have capacious powers of

reasoning, we are capable of tremendous acts of compassion, we are moved by love andmotivated by social relationships. We can realize our endowments as gifts of our humanity, not

as behaviors we garner from imaginary creators who represent our interests first and foremost.As humanists, we can at last lay aside the swords of holy vengeance and seek to solve our

differences nonviolently, to finally acknowledge thatthe other who thinks differently fromourselves perceives us, too, as other and that within the gulf that distances one from another

lies a terrain that awaits our united stewardship towards a landscape of unprecedented potentialfor abundance, consideration and beneficence.