HUU Sermon Archives

Why Humanism?

H. Lee Graham
Date: October 24, 2004

I want to divide this presentation into 3 sections

1. Religion.
2. How I became a Humanist.
3. What do I believe?

RELIGION

HUMANISM is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as part of nature and holds that values – be they religious, ethical, social, or political – have their source in human nature experience, and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny.

“I would define a Humanist as one of those who because of the environment to which he has been exposed, is concerned for the future of mankind.” B.F. Skinner

Now that you know something about the tenets of Humanism and learn that it is much like Unitarian Universalism, I want to provide myself with a disclaimer. I have great respect for what each individual believes and have no thought in mind to change anyone’s beliefs. As we know, each person finds his or her own satisfactory system of belief. So with me. What I hope to describe to you is the process that has brought me to you today.

HOW I BECAME A HUMANIST

Everyone has a story of how we as individuals became what we are today, a journey from infancy molded by the people with whom we grew up and experiences we have had that formulated our thinking and helped develop our system of beliefs.

One of society’s most forceful institutions is that of religion. It permeates all societies from New World to Old World, Western Civilization to African Tribalism, Roman Catholicism to Macumba Spiritualism. It foments war, becomes part of the mores and folkways of cultures, It provides us with martyrs, heroes, scalawags, thieves, devils, visions of heaven and hell, cruelties such as the Inquisition that burned our Servetus at the stake in 1552, do-gooders of all descriptions, and marvelous men and women whose lives we can look to for living peaceful lives ourselves. The extension of our own experiences and thinking may give others insights into their own travels.

“Everyone knows the difference between imagining a thing and belief in its existence. In the acquisition of belief, the object or idea is not only comprehended by the mind but is held to have reality. Belief, is then, the mental state of the function of recognizing reality. What characterizes belief is the advent of an idea inwardly stable, and fills the mind solidly to the exclusion of contrary ideas.”

I was much interested in Rev. Kirk Ballin's service entitled “God” (7/16/2000). As a psychologist I, too, have been interested in the phenomenon known as “God”, because most people will confess that they believe in “God” and I have tried to figure out why. “God” does the most remarkable things. For example: “God solves human problems that the human thinks the human cannot solve, he visits punishment on humans for crimes (sins) we have committed, God takes people whom we love away from us (calls them home), God visits horrible plagues upon us for no reason at all, humans pray to God for assistance, wealth, damnation to their enemies, Food that storms has destroyed, You name it and God has been asked to provide it or, maybe take it away.

We need to review a little bit about the development of a God. Primitive peoples develop Gods that have to do with natural events: erupting volcanoes, lightning and thunder, fire, the sun, moon etc. As man became more sophisticated and learned that these evens were the works of nature, their creativity turned to the supernatural. Just look around the world in your mind and consider the number of Gods that are among us

Over the years a number of people have remarked about my reducing everything to simple terms. Well. I just seem to have the kind of mind that reduces info to its least common denominator. As a therapist this kind of thinking was very necessary in focusing on client’s difficulties. Therefore, in thinking about religion and God, I have tried to reduce them to their simplest terms. Definitions: Religion, a social institution that provides answers to questions to which there may be no answer. God, prayer, angels, devils heaven, hell. These are called mysteries in many churches and become believed as though they were real although not extant. God, someone or something somewhere to whom believers appeal when they cannot work out the answer right away to a pressing problem.

Rubaiyat: Quatrains 25 - 29

So. Over the years I have migrated from Baptist to Congregational to Unitarian to Humanist. From Christ the Savior to maybe, to not really, to not at all. From my own father’s heaven in the sky where angels and souls must be turning and dodging aircraft, missiles and all of the other stuff flying through the sky these days, from his hell down below with devils and pitchforks and sulfurous flames, to each of us making his own heaven and hell right here on earth.

Yes, I have rejected the idea of there being a God in human form and I guess I have been at it for about 40 years. An idea grinding exceedingly slow but exceedingly fine. Of course I am not the only one who has gone this route. Omar Khayyam about 1075 and many scientists right here in this country, and now me 2004.

Sitting in my rocking chair I have tried to visualize the Big Bang as the beginning of this earth. I read just a little while ago that this could have been the result of two galaxies crashing into one another. That seems very reasonable. Astronomers tell us that space is expanding, that there is an unknown something called ‘the negative force’ that prevents gravity from bringing the Big Bang back together again. More reasonable than a God coming from somewhere to create this little world. Remember, please that persons 5000 years ago didn’t have the amount of knowledge that we have today, so why limit ourselves to their knowledge. That is Creationism. We now have Science

Some months ago, a letter to the editor appeared in the Shenandoah Journal defending Creationism. I am very willing to let the writer believe what he wants to believe but I also thought I ought to direct his thinking a little bit. I suggested he had started to far along in the creation story. Man is one of the last items on the agenda, so I suggested that we go back to Genesis 1 – 1 and of course we find that the writer of Genesis says there was nothing but a void, emptiness. After I pointed this out, I asked the writer of the Journal article “If there was nothing: then where did this God come from?” I have never received an answer from him; however, the usual answer is that God was just there. This of course is one of the mysteries that explains exactly where God came from.

Perhaps we ought to look at a little history. Back to the Bible, which gives a pretty good account of the times, and think about Abraham. Abraham grew up among multiple Gods - Moses gives us this clew when the tablets of the ten commandments say “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” Other being the key word. It does not say, “Thou shalt have no other Gods.” and as he thought about it he came to the conclusion that there was one God over all the others. Well, why not. That’s the way Tribes were organized. He taught his two sons that this was so – Give me a child until he is five and he will be mine for life. Today, we call this operant conditioning - Isaac grew up to be the beginnings of Judaism and then Christianity, while Esau grew up to found Islam. Therefore, The God of Judaism and Christianity and Islam originally came out of Abraham’s head. As with any idea, ideas change their content as more info is added to them so why not with Isaac and Esau. Their God was the God of Abraham. Jews, Christians and Mohammedans still look to the God of Abraham except that the Muslims and Christians have added much to the original idea (the Koran and New Testament) but who the God of Creationism was we still don’t know.

Deep in the psyche of each of us there is a need for someone or something to which we can turn for help. Sometimes our needs seem to be so great that no mortal can devise a plan to remediate or eradicate them. Ergo, we turn to the mystic, the all powerful, the savior and leave it in those hands for fulfillment, when all the time the solution to our problems may be in our own hands. By and large, as the saying goes, ‘Time solves all problems’. But, actually, this is the result of the psychological conditioning process that has assailed us throughout our lives. Every infant is born with a clear mind – not Hobbs tabular rossa, wax tablet – but without much if any learning. Parents and society take over and teach - condition – the child to be a member of the society in which it is being raised. Somehow, many in this building have managed to look at their beliefs and have come to question their validity.

But, you say. We have heard of miracles that have caused problems to be solved. I have no solution for miracles. Miracles of healing can be justly laid to instances of recorded spontaneous healing of the body through development of concentration of the mind and at other times the cause is totally unknown. We have very little knowledge of the power of the mind at this point in human existence. Maybe the Chinese have a better idea about this with Chi Gong and acupuncture as they are not held back in their thinking because everything needs to be tested with statistics.

I have great respect for the Christian Scientist. There is much to learn from them about how to live a life free from illness and pain; however, I have known both successful and unsuccessful Christian Scientists. Bill was a successful Christian Scientist Practitioner. I never knew him to be angry or without a smile. He died in his sleep. Peace of mind evidently is basic to good health. Yet, I knew Doris who died early simply because she would not regulate herself with medication. Doris could not understand why Bill could live free of illness and she was burdened with her affliction. We are beginning to learn about genes and heredity. Both of these persons had great belief that Christian Science would work for them. Definition: Belief is the power of the mind to discern a positive, fix on that positive, internalize that positive in the mind. It has the power to regulate the human body psychosomatically and somatopsychicly.

We really haven’t learned how to do this to any great extent yet, but it’s coming. I am sure you will have read or heard about prayer being a newly found medical treatment. Let me run this by you. Prayer, in the Christian sense, is appeal to a higher power commonly called God. But what is it really? There is a power in the mind. Everyone knows how cell phones work We can reach around the world on very small amounts of electricity When the brain is active we know that small discharges of electricity are sent out because we can measure them with the electro-encephalograph. This idea is investigated in a proposal I wrote many years ago in attempting to discover why some children could not learn how to read. We know that identical twins often mirror each other in thought and feelings of wellness when miles apart. Who is to say that these two person’s brains are not on the same wavelength and that their brain waves do not travel to one another. Who is to say that prayer is not this similar transmission of brain waves and that prayer succeeds when the brainwaves match those of another person and does not succeed when the waves do not match? Perhaps the subject of this poem is an incident of this nature. (Somalia). Prayer to some supernatural power? I think not. We have a lot to learn.

Ideas about the soul are many, but no one has ever come back to describe the event. This is another of the mysteries. Yet, looking at the idea through the eyes of the life of peoples throughout the ages, life has been hard, and who wouldn’t want to go to a place where everything would be beautiful and easy. As my dad told me “Become a Jehovah's Witness and when you die you can come sit under my fig tree with me.” I don’t think so.

Rubaiyat 64.

SO WHAT DO I BELIEVE

I Believe I am my brother’s keeper.

I believe in accepting individuals as they are.

I believe in allowing others to develop their own particular beliefs. I resist all forms of dogmatic brain-washing.

I believe in trying to emulate the lives of great men such as Jesus (without the holy aura given him) i.e. how to love your fellow man; Gandhi for his peaceful resistance and simplicity; Jefferson for his mental application and development.

I believe there is a spiritual essence much like the Indians Manito who is the essence of life. I do not believe in a human-like God. Do I have a God? Yes, I suppose I do.

“God”

Standing silent on the shore

Looking out to sea

Only the fog’s gray wall was there

As I knew it had to be,

And I thought about the “God” word.

Nothingness, my mind told me.

But to stand apart from Humankind,

A stranger on the shore

Thinking back through the millenia

To the man First Woman bore,

I heard a whisper from out the fog,

“There is a ‘Spirit of the Universe’

That resides in every human mind”

And knowing not what else to call it,

‘God’ was the word he had to find.

May we be reminded of our highest aspirations and inspired to bring our gifts of love and service to the altar of humanity. May we know once again that we are not isolated human beings but connected to the Universe, to this community and to each other.

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