THE BARE ESSENTIALS The Five Pillars of Humanism
Preface
Atheism is love because religion is harmful. If you agree that living like an
Atheist and making your own decisions instead of taking orders from a religion
or god is love then you are an Humanist. You can be an agnostic or even a Theist
and still be an Humanist. True Atheism is humanistic, it advocates treating
humankind as God. Since you have to look after yourself instead of depending on
God you have to make friends among other people and even people you don’t like
so that you will feel safe and secure. Belief in God cannot give you any of this
if you don’t love other people. Humanism teaches that we need love not religion.
Humanism should be practised according to the needs of each community. It should
be egalitarian. That is to say, nobody should be dictator or prophet – or tell
anybody what to think – give the evidence and let people make up their own
minds. All are prophets and seek guidance from one another. The goals must be
self-development, sharing of information and fellowship. If some groups want
dogma they may use The Gospel According to Atheism as a standard work to
whatever extent they wish. It is up to each group how they practice Humanism,
they may have it informally or formally. No way is right or wrong. What matters
is that they try to change society starting with themselves.
To say that Atheism is love means that there some principles that must be
adhered to be an Humanist. You will see that there are Five Pillars of Humanism,
five basic principles. They are all sound commonsense. Yet they are nothing more
than what a person who really cared about equality would believe. That’s all
they are.
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