Why I am a Secular HumanistFree Inquiry, Wntr 1997 v18 n1 p18(5)

Why I am a secular humanist. (views of members of the

International Academy of Humanism)(includes related article on
secular humanist Sir Isaiah Berlin) Yelena Bonner; Hermann Bondi;
Taslima Nasrin; Richard Dawkins; Richard Taylor; John Passmorre;
Arthur C. Clarke; Anthony Flew; J.J.C. Smart; Inumati Parikh.
Abstract: Several members of the International Academy of Humanism
presented their views on being secular humanists. Some of them
believed that their professions, family backgrounds and ideals
positively contribute to the values embodied by humanism. They felt
that their views correlate well with issues of faith, double
standards, and religion. Other members of the academy associated
their commitments, ethical conduct and philosophy with various human
life issues and concerns.
The members of the International Academy of Humanism reflect on the
guiding principles of their lives
The International Academy of Humanism was established in 1985 to
recognize distinguished humanists and to disseminate humanistic
ideals and beliefs.
YELENA BONNER
A distinguished defender of human rights. Because of her human
rights advocacy in the former USSR, she was persecuted by the state,
as was her late husband, Andrei Sahkarov, the famous Soviet
dissident and Nobel Peace Laureate.
I was born in 1923 and grew up in a time when the word humanism and
all concepts that accompanied it were scorned and rejected as
bourgeois vocabulary. A common phrase stated that "a communist
cannot be a humanist." Many years later, in a Soviet encyclopedic
dictionary, I read: ". . . Karl Marx called communism 'real
humanism.' Humanism received practical realization in the
achievements of socialism, that pronounced as its principle "All for
the sake of man, for the good of man."
It was both ridiculous and sad to read this in Gorky, where my
husband, Andrei Sakharov, was kept in isolation from the entire
world by the whim and arbitrariness of the authorities, and where I
was sentenced to exile four years later.
My perception of good and evil were shaped and nurtured by my
family, friends, and colleagues. I was 14 years old when my parents
were arrested. My father was shot, and my mother was taken away from
me and my younger brother for eight years of labor camps and another
nine years of internal exile, until the time when the so-called
violations of socialist legality were condemned in my country and my
parents were exonerated, my father posthumously. Such was communist
"humanism."
My family's tragedy did not make me bitter, and I have never held it
against my country, never felt my country was culpable. Rather, it
was perceived as an act of god, especially since the case of my
family was not unique. The same fate had befallen many of my peers friends and schoolmates. All of us were "strange orphans of 1937,"
to use the expression coined by the writer Ilya Ehrenburg. In
reality "strange orphans" in our society existed since 1917, as well

as much later than 1937.

There is no doubt that my family's misfortune left a mark on my
psyche, but to all that was evil there was a counterweight in the
great Russian literature, and particularly, in poetry, which was
fortunately close to my heart from early childhood. Then came World
War II with its blood and suffering, with terrible injustice of
young lives cruelly cut short - lives of strangers and the most dear
ones alike. There was fear. Survival seemed a miracle. A poet's line
fully applies to me: "I put the war past me, but it passed through
me."
After the war I betrayed my first choice of vocation (I had
volunteered to the front after my freshman year of study in Russian
language and literature) and entered medical school. I wanted to do
good not by word but deed, by everyday work. I have never regretted
having become a physician. Even today I relive the sensation of
happiness that accompanies the first cry of a newborn in the
delivery room; or when entering the ward I would hear two or three
dozen babies crying in unison, for feeding time was near. I often
found myself smiling as I walked toward their cries. A crying baby
is an alive baby.
It was in the family with its misfortunes and joys, in friends and
books, in professional life, in the concerns of a woman and a mother
that I developed my own perception of the world and of my place in
it, my ideals. In essence, they are probably close to the values of
humanism.
Translated by Taliana Yakelerich
EDWARD O. WILSON
Emeritus Professor of Entomology at Harvard University and author of
numerous widely acclaimed books including Sociobiology.
I was raised a Southern Baptist in a religious environment that
favored a literal interpretation of the Bible. But it happened that
I also became fascinated by natural history at an early age, and, as
a biology concentrator at the University of Alabama, discovered
evolution. All that I had learned of the living world to that point
fell into place in a wholly new and intellectually compelling way.
It was apparent to me that life is connected not by supernatural
design but by kinship, with species having multiplied out of other
species to create, over hundreds of millions of years, the great
panoply of biodiversity around us today. If a Divine Creator put it
all here several thousand years ago, he also salted Earth from pole
to pole with falsified massive, interlocking evidence to make
scientists believe life evolved autonomously. I realized that
something was terribly wrong in this dissonance. The God depicted in
Holy Scripture is variously benevolent, didactic, loving, angry, and
vengeful, but never tricky.
As time passed, I learned that scientific materialism explains
vastly more of the tangible world, physical and biological, in
precise and useful detail, than the Iron-Age theology and mysticism
bequeathed us by the modern great religions ever dreamed. It offers
an epic view of the origin and meaning of humanity far greater, and
I believe more noble, than conceived by all the prophets of old
combined. Its discoveries suggest that, like it or not, we are

alone. We must measure and judge ourselves, and we will decide our
own destiny.
Why then, am I a humanist? Let me give the answer in terms of Blaise
Pascal's Wager. The seventeenth-century French philosopher said, in
effect, live well but accept religious faith. "If I lost," he wrote.
"I would have lost little: If I won I would have gained eternal
life." Given what we now know of the real world, I would turn the
Wager around as follows: if fear and hope and reason dictate that
you must accept the faith, do so, but treat this world as if there
is none other.
SIR HERMANN BONDI
Fellow of the Royal Society and past Master of Churchill College,
Cambridge University.
I grew up in Vienna in a nonbelieving Jewish family. But whereas my
father liked the forms of the Jewish religion as a social cement
(and indeed we kept the household such that we could entertain our
numerous Orthodox relatives), I acquired from my mother an intense
dislike of the narrowness and exclusivity of the religion. Ethical
principles were very strong at home. I soon became clear to me that
a moral outlook was at least as strong among nonbelievers. I
similarly acquired a strong dislike of the alternative religion, the
Catholic Church (in Austria dominant and very reactionary). So I was
set early on the path of nonbelief, with strong ethical principles,
and soon was ready to declare my attitude. But it was only later
that I joined others with a similar outlook in humanist
organizations.
My opinion now is that arguments about the existence or nonexistence
of an undefined "God" are quite pointless. What divides us from
those who believe in one of the faiths claiming universal validity
(such as Christianity or Islam) is their firm trust in an alleged
revelation. It is this absolute reliance on a sacred text that is
the basis of the terrible crimes committed in the name of religion
(and of other absolutist faiths such as Nazism or doctrinaire
communism). It is also worth pointing out the appalling arrogance of
viewing one's own religion as "right" and all others as "wrong." The
multiplicity of mutually contradictory faiths needs pointing out
again and again.
Thus I regard humanism not as yet another exclusive faith, but as a
determination to stress those issues on which we are all more or
less agreed and to relegate to the backburner faiths that divide us.
Thus I am a firm secularist, favoring a society and educational
system in which those of any religion and of none can feel
comfortable as long as they are not aggressive or separatist.
TASLIMA NASRIN
A physician-turned-human-rights-activist and author of the dissident
novel Shame. She is exiled from her native Bangladesh.
I was born in a Muslim family. I was forced by mother to read the
Koran every morning, to pray namaz, and to fast during Ramadan.
While I was growing up, I was taken by my mother to a pit, a
religious cult leader respected by Muslims. He had his own group,
who believed in a genie and superstitions. The pit declared that

women who laughed in front of men and went out of the house had been
taken over by the genie and they were brutally beaten by the pit so
that the genie would leave. He gave a scary description of hell.
Whoever visited him gave money.
The pir was surrounded by young women who massaged his body and
served him whatever he needed. One day, in my presence, he declared
that keyamout, the destruction day of the Earth, was coming soon,
and that there was no need for women to marry. They should sacrifice
their lives for Allah.
I was' horrified to see all the torture he did to get rid of the
genie and to listen to the description of hell and waiting for
keyamout. But it did not come.
The pir used to treat sick people by uttering sura and beating them.
Water was declared holy and said to cure sick people. The sick
became sicker after drinking the water. I was also treated by a pit,
but I was not cured until my physician father treated me with
scientific medicine.
I was encouraged by my father to get a secular education. I learned
about the big bang, evolution, and the solar system and became
suspicious about Allah's six-day adventure to make the whole
universe, the Adam and Eve story, and stories of suns moving around
the Earth and mountains like nails to balance the Earth so that the
Earth would not fall down. My mother asked me not to ask any
questions about Allah and to have blind faith in Allah. I could not
be blind.
Then I studied the Koran instead of reading it without knowing the
meaning. I found it total bull-shit. The Koran, believed by
millions, supported slavery and inequalities among people - in other
countries the equality of women had been established as a human
right and the moon had already been won by men. Men had the right to
marry four times, divorce, have sex with female slaves, and beat
their wives. Women were to hide their bodies because the female body
is simply a sexual object. Women were not allowed to divorce their
husbands, enjoy inheritance, or have their testimony in court
considered as seriously as men's. I found that Allah prescribed
Muslims to hate non-Muslims and kill apostates.
With my own conscience I found religion ridiculous because it stops
freethought, reason, and rationality. My father told me to believe
nothing without reason. I did that. I could not believe religion and
I became an atheist. I started writing against religion and all the
religious superstitions. I was attacked, verbally, physically. The
outrage of the religious people was so big that I had to leave my
country.
I lived in one of the poorest countries in the world. I saw how
poverty was glorified by religion and how the poor are exploited. It
is said the poor are sent to the Earth to prove their strong faith
for Allah in their miserable life. I have not seen any religious
teaching that calls for a cure for poverty. Instead the rich are
supposed to make Allah happy by giving some help (Mother Teresa's
type of help). The poor should remain poor in society, and
opportunists can use them to buy a ticket for heaven.

So I don't accept Allah, His cruel unholiness. I have my own

conscience, which inspired me to support a society based on equality
and rationality. Religion is the cause of fanaticism, bloodshed,
hatred, racism, conflict. Humanism can only make people humane and
make the world livable.
RICHARD DAWKINS
Charles Simionyi Professor of Public Understanding of Science,
Oxford University, and author of The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish
Gene, and Climbing Mount Improbable.
It is said that, while science can answer many of our questions, it
cannot answer all of them. True. But false is the hidden implication
that if science can't answer a question it follows that some other
discipline can.
Certainly science cannot prove what is right or wrong, but nor can
theology. Secular, rationalistic, moral philosophy comes closest by
exposing our inconsistencies and double standards.
But science can answer deep questions popularly regarded as outside
its remit, as well as those that are universally ceded to it. "Why
is there anything rather than nothing?" is often cited as beyond the
reach of science, but physics may one day answer it and if physics
doesn't, nothing will.
"What is the purpose of life?" already has a straightforward
Darwinian answer and is quite different from "What would be a
worthwhile purpose for me to adopt in my own life?" Indeed, my own
philosophy of life begins with an explicit rejection of Darwinism as
a normative principle for living, even while I extol it as the
explanatory principle for life.
This brings me to the aspect of humanism that resonates most
harmoniously for me. We are on our own in the universe. Humanity can
expect no help from outside, so our help, such as it is, must come
from our own resources. As individuals we should make the most of
the short time we have, for it is a privilege to be here. We should
seize the opportunity presented by our good fortune and fill our
brief minds, before we die, with understanding of why, and where, we
exist.
I'd worry about the humanist label if it implied something uniquely
special about being human. Evolution is a gradual process. Humanness
is not an all-or-none quality that you either have or don't have. It
is a complicated mixture of qualities that evolved gradually, which
means that some people have higher doses than others, and some
nonhumans have non-negligible doses as well. Absolutist moral
judgments founded on the "rights" of all humans, as opposed to
nonhumans, therefore seem to me less justifiable than more pragmatic
judgments based, for example, on quantitative assessment of the
ability to suffer.
The atheist label also worries me because it shouldn't be necessary.
Those who don't believe in fairies have no need of a label: the onus
of proof is on those who do. I would with positive conviction call
myself a scientific rationalist, with a humane concern that is

directed toward a target that is both wider and narrower than

humanity. Wider because it includes other species and potentially
other planets. Narrower because it admits that not all humans are
equal.
RICHARD TAYLOR
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Rochester, and
author of Metaphysics.
I am interested in humanism, not as a creed or set of beliefs, but
simply as social policy and a way of treating people. Essentially,
it is a way of making the conditions of life less burdensome, the
relationships between people more fulfilling, and promoting harmony
rather than friction. People fare best when they look not to moral
rules and principles, not to priests and churches, and not to
creeds, but to the actual results of what they do.
Three things have guided me to this approach to life. The first is
the wisdom of Socrates, especially as it was developed by the Stoic
philosophers of Antiquity and then by such modern Stoics as Henry
David Thoreau. They all taught us that we should look first to our
own nobility as rational human beings and pay little attention to
such things as wealth or power. The second was the philosophy of
Arthur Schopenhauer, who located all ethical conduct in our capacity
for compassion, not only for other human beings, but for all things
that feel pain. And the third was the extraordinary achievements of
Joseph Fletcher, whom it was one of my great blessings to know as a
friend.
JOHN PASSMORE
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University
and President of the Australian Academy of Science. His book Memoirs
of a Semidetached Australian details his evolution from Roman
Catholicism.
I rebelled as a young boy against the view that the whole of
humanity suffers because a single person was disobedient. This I saw
as tyranny of the first order. If there was no salvation outside the
Roman Catholic Church, I also argued, how could an omnipotent God
allow our aborigines to remain unsaved for thousands of years, when
they knew nothing of the Church? Later, under the influence of my
university philosophy teacher I developed metaphysical arguments
against religion.
Critics of humanism sometimes suggest that we make a god of man. But
I am willing to admit that there is no deed so dreadful that we can
safely say "no human being could do that" and no belief so absurd
that we can safely say "no human being could believe that." But on
the other side I point to the marvelous achievements of human beings
in science and art and acts of courage, love, and self-sacrifice.
I call myself a pessimistic humanist because I do not regard human
beings or their societies as being perfectible but a humanist I
nonetheless am. And I reflect on the fact that the worst terrorists
of the dreadful century I have lived through have felt justified by
their belief that they are acting in the interests of some
superhuman entity, whether it be God, or History, or the State.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Well-known science-fiction writer, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey,
and respected futurist.
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the

hijacking of morality by religion. However valuable - even necessary

- that may have been in enforcing good behavior on primitive
peoples, their association is now counterproductive. Yet at the very
moment when they should be decoupled, sanctimonious nitwits are
calling for a return to morals based on superstition. Virtually all
civilized societies would give a passing grade of at least 60% to
the Ten Commandments (modern translation: "suggested guidelines").
They have nothing to do with any specific faith.
ANTONY FLEW
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Reading University in the United
Kingdom. His books include The Logic of Mortality and Atheistic
Humanism.
My father, like his father before him, was a Methodist minister. At
the age of 13, I was sent to the excellent boarding school founded
by John Wesley for the education of the sons of his itinerant
preachers. I originally rejected the Christian faith - a rejection
that occasioned distress to all concerned-during my middle teens. I
rejected it then simply and solely because I had come to believe
that it could not be true: the belief that the universe is created
and sustained by a being both omnipotent and benevolent seemed to
me, as it still seems, manifestly incompatible with innumerable,
all-too familiar facts. Now - 60 years on - I am more inclined to
argue on Humean lines that there is no good evidencing reason for
making positive assertions about the putative Cause of the Universe.
J. J. C. SMART
Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University. He
recently defended atheism in a debate with J. J. Haldane in the book
Atheism and Theism.
My parents were Scots, but I was born and grew up in Cambridge. We
were Presbyterians, and I went to a Methodist school. However, on
moving to Glasgow, where my father became Regius Professor of
Astronomy, my mother, who in Cambridge had some hankering for the
Anglican church, became a Scottish Episcopalian and in this was
followed by my brothers and then by my father. Last of all I became
an Anglican at Oxford.
Nevertheless, I felt uneasy in my churchgoing because I increasingly
found it hard to reconcile it with my scientific and philosophical
beliefs. I comforted myself with Wittgensteinian double-talk, of
which I now feel thoroughly ashamed. For emotional reasons,
connected with my affection for my parents, I was a reluctant
atheist, but giving up religion brought peace of mind because
intellectual conflict was resolved.
INDUMATI PARIKH
Physician and President of the Indian Radical Humanist Association.
In our society woman is on the lowest rung of the social ladder. She
does not have freedom to assert herself in fact, she hardly knows
what freedom is. So it is the case with most of our poor ignorant
men. I thought helping women to be free was more important and would
have a lasting effect on the community. In a society fragmented by
religion and castes, I thought humanism was the only ideology that
would cut across boundaries and help men and women to understand

their basic humanness. Being more of an activist than a philosopher,

I put my energy to helping women, children, and men at the lowest
end of society. I might be one of the few who have worked at
developing humanism through work at grassroots level.
Sir Isaiah Berlin, Secular Humanist
When Isaiah Berlin died at 88 on November 5, 1997, the International
Academy of Humanism lost one of its most distinguished members - and
the world was deprived of a great mind both humane and fecund. The
least of his achievements was that he had received 23 honorary
doctorates, numerous academic awards, the Order of Merit, and
knighthood. The greatest was that he was a philosopher and historian
of ideas who spent his life promoting and refining humanist ideals:
liberty, social pluralism, critical thought, and the dignity of
human beings. Along the way, he attained a passionate life filled
with the delights of the intellect, of music, of good conversation,
and of friends.
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