Tenets for Humanity

Tenets for Humanity

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Plus: How Humanistic Values Can and Should Unite Humanistic Atheists and Theists

A Guide to the Origins and Nature of the Universe, Earth, Life, and Humanity

“All humans (excluding sociopaths and psychopaths) have the capacity for empathy, compassion, kindness and helping others; this is a part of humanism, as well as being a part of religious faiths, and it is what unites us.  We can all be humanistic, regardless of faith or philosophy.”

~ From the Introduction

“More than anything else, the future of civilization depends on the way the two most powerful forces in history, science and religion, settle into relationship with each other.”

~ Alfred North Whitehead

Updates & Brief Intro

Hello and welcome to the online preview for my book, Tenets for Humanity (TfH or TfHBook). I am publishing the book serially on Vella on Amazon, but you can check out selected parts of the Preface and Introduction here at no charge. 

Many truths are not eternal, knowledge changes, and teachings should be updated to reflect that. For example, we used to think (and many, perhaps even most people, still do) that our universe started with a singularity – this is no longer the prevailing thinking. See the Cosmology section for a deeper discussion of this. Also, the human family tree just keeps growing! We keep finding new species of humans that have existed (we’re not the only ones that have been around, folks) – sometimes even with a tenure on Earth overlapping our own. Personally, I find this incredibly fascinating. Therefore, I plan to update the book with a new edition about every five years.

I will also be publishing an audiobook version (once the complete book series is completed, on Vella) for those who would prefer to listen rather than read.

This book is a reference for the Origins and Nature of the Universe, Earth, Life, and Humanity and for the Values, Principles, and Tenets of Humanistic Atheism.

Each section of the book will note Tenets within the text and then list them at the end of the section. There will be an Appendix at the end that lists the core, Fundamental Tenets of Humanistic Atheism.

Tenet: A belief or principle held to be true according to present knowledge. Tenets are strongly held, but subject to change when new information warrants it.

Excerpts:

Fundamental Tenet 2 – “Learn and teach principles and tools for sound thinking, including skepticism, critical thinking, reliance on evidence, logic and reason, and the scientific method.”

From Fundamental Tenet 4 – “Divine, supernatural and paranormal beings, entities and events do not exist and have never existed …”

From Fundamental Tenet 13 – “It is incumbent upon us to teach what we have learned to the next generations, while respecting their right to decide what they believe …”

Fundamental Tenet 14 – “Treat others with fairness and respect for their individual dignity and for their rights to personal security, liberty, and property. All people have a right to seek not to be harmed and a responsibility to seek not to harm other people. Murder, mutilation, slavery and human trafficking, rape, assault, libel, all forms of theft, and bigotry (dehumanizing, harming, discriminating against, condemning, blaming, punishing, etc., whole groups of people by race, gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.) are all offences and harms against people, are condemned and should be prohibited.”

From the Introduction: “… this book is not intended to sway any religious person to this way of thinking or to bash religion. We will be honest about what a rationalistic, naturalistic view of the world tells us, and some people may find some of the things thus said to be offensive to their sensibilities. While this is not the intention, it is unavoidable. It would be intellectually dishonest (and unfair to the atheist readers) to omit content because it might offend non-atheists. That said, humanism calls for a philosophy that is inclusive and stresses our commonalities and our interdependence. There are and always have been many humanistic people of all faiths and philosophies that seek to work together to improve the world and ourselves. This book is for all of us.”

Happy reading! 

Here’s a tip for you: TfHBook.com will get you here, too.

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Frontispiece “Baby and the Universe” by J4P4N on openclipart.org