Human Light

"No matter how powerful a single individual may be, it is impossible for that person to be successful all alone."

“But HumanLight is NOT about what we DON’T believe in. We’re not here today just to negate theism, and we don’t want to criticize anyone’s religious holidays. Instead, this is an occasion to celebrate the values and ideals of humanism – the things we DO believe in." (Can I get another chorus of that, please?)

I had intended to end 2009 by breaking out and meeting fellow humanists at the local HumanLight celebration, but a rather nasty winter storm kept me home. The HumanLight celebration was (unofficially) going to be the tipping point that determined how and if I advanced my interest in the humanist philosophy.

I have had some disappointing reactions to certain aspects of humanism during this past year, but I still believe that humanity is worth understanding, celebrating, and helping. I still believe that there is a need for fellowship among like-minded people, and a need to remind each other of our higher ideals. I believe that there are huge problems in this world that require us to overcome our differences and work together to solve. To the extent that humanism represents that, I want to represent humanism.

I have no idea what went down at the HumanLight celebration. (Heck, I didn't even know that December 23rd was a quasi-official Humanist holiday.) But my imagination loves metaphor, so it fused an old-school Christian holiday tradition - the dipping of one's unlit candle into the lit candle of one's neighbor, and then passing the light on - with a newer Christian song (minus just a line or two that mentions Jesus), to form the symbolic message that we all possess the ability to behave virtuously and compassionately, and that these behaviors represent light in this world. A better world is one where light has increased and darkness has decreased.

Christians and Humanists agree on the need for 'light' in this world: the need for hope, reason, and compassion towards one's fellow man. They simply disagreed about the source of that light. If there is a need to 'be right' about the source of the light, then let us first make sure that there is no shortage of it to be studied.