For awhile after leaving faith-church-god, I wasn’t sure what to call myself.  “Ex-Christian,” “Former Minister,” “Atheist,” “Non-Supernaturalist”?  I settled on “Freethinker” since Freethought is an honored secular tradition and primarily positive.  As a Freethinking person, I value both Humanity and Nature, since humans are only a small part of the natural universe.

I became a Humanist Celebrant a few years ago both to continue identifying as “clergy” or a “secular chaplain,” and to conduct life events such as weddings and memorials.  Humanism is a religion, if religion means concern for the human family, equality, justice, ethics and reason.  In Humanism there is a popular saying, “We can be Good without God.”  A person can certainly be good with a belief in God too, but having faith doesn’t necessarily make a person good.

There are some very fine definitions of Humanism (see the American Humanist Association), but in the latest edition of The Humanist magazine this article by Kristin Wintermute included the graphic above and a pretty good outline of the “Ten Commitments” that characterize or summarize the essence of a humanistic worldview and lifestyle.

If you’re interested, I recommend reading that excellent article.

I often wonder if this humanistic perspective is what people are really searching for in their religious traditions and in the Next Step beyond Religion?