The Humanist Affirmations Explored - Affirmation #2 - Part 1
In my prior blog post, I discussed the First Affirmation of Humanism which focuses on the nature of truth and how it is discovered. The Second Aspiration begins to put this into practice by first accepting a somewhat unsettling truth about the world…
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.
One of the key words here is “unguided”. Many of us flinch at the notion that our lives are not part of some grand plan to fulfill an ultimate purpose. It just seems flat-out sad to think that all the beauty and complexity in this world is nothing more than a cosmic accident. Surely, the universe or God had us in mind all along, right? Right!? It appears the answer might be no, and I completely understand why this is upsetting.
Growing up in a very religious, white, middle class, Midwestern family, my world was small, simple, but also amazing! How cool was it that my family was going to heaven (lol!) while most of my friends and their families were probably going to Hell!? God’s presence saturated my world. Sundays? At church. Monday through Friday? At church-school. Saturday? Well, probably watching cartoons. You get the point though. God was the center of my world, and He was going to return soon to take me to Heaven to live with Him.
As my childhood faded, this ever-present “God-feeling” began to dissipate as well and was replaced with a sense that He was hiding. Yes, He was everywhere and in everything but for some reason I could not see him. This started to puzzle me. I would walk through a parking lot and God was not there. I would turn on the TV and God was nowhere to be found. People seemed to care about everything other than God… the most important and powerful being that ever existed! How could that be? Sitting in my bedroom as a young teen, I remember yelling for God to show Himself. I wanted to see Him. I was not afraid! I could handle it! Minutes passed. Nothing. Hours passed. Days. Months. Years. Still nothing. Silence.
Do you share this same weird sense that God has somehow left us or is playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek? Maybe not. Maybe you have seen God. Maybe you believe Him to be as real as anything you have experienced. Maybe you are like my childhood self… completely reassured by the presence of a loving God, closely and carefully guiding you through life and to Heaven one day to live with Him forever. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your perspective), that version of myself no longer exists.
As a Humanist these many years later, I recognize that although believing a loving God is creating and sustaining the world can and does provide great comfort, I accept that such a God probably does not exist and that we are simply put, a “happy accident” of nature. At first blush, this may seem a hard pill to swallow. And, for sure, many people recoil at the thought and find it incomprehensible how a person could keep their sanity with such a view of the world. In my next blog post, I will discuss how a person can not only comprehend it but also find inspiration for living a deeper and richer life. 😊
