Humanist Canada’s ‘Why Humanism Now?’ Beyond the Fundraising Campaign

A few months ago, Humanist Canada launched its fall fundraising campaign, encouraging our community and friends to donate in order to help promote its key message, deliver its mission, and provide all Humanists in Canada with services, ceremonies and meaningful events. The fundraising campaign, along with donations, encouraged each of us to express the reasons why Humanism matters to them. And why now.

This question can cause one to pause, and ask; Why Humanism? Why not ‘mere’ Atheism, Agnosticism, free thought or critical thinking. Yes! Humanism encompasses all these, and its defense and representation of all non-religious people, a quarter of the planet’s population, is unapologetic, whether all of them identify as Humanists or not.

And that’s the whole point! Humanism is organized, it is about the unity around a nucleus of certain ethics and defending them. It is an organized, ethical non-theistic view, which promotes several commitments to live a fulfilling, prosperous and ethical life.

As such, one cannot equate Humanism with all Atheistic philosophies, or with all Atheists, which would include Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, whose Atheism and materialism didn’t inspire ethics, democratic values, nor empathy. It also finds itself generally at odds with Ayn Rand’s objectivism, which sees no virtue in selflessness or economic degrowth in favor of climate, and with the nationalism of Douglas Murray and his likes.

Humanism isn’t a doctrine, and Humanist organizations are not religious institutions, our Pastoral care isn’t provided by priests, our celebrations aren’t officiated by ordained monks and our charities aren’t faith-based in the traditional sense, despite the name of the legal category they are registered under!

While we seek solace in non-religious care, community in our events and gatherings, ethics in our lectures and actions, we base them first and foremost on our human reason, social needs, and empathy, products of millions of years of evolution, and independent of particular doctrines and belief systems. And yes, we yearn for reason, democracy, climate justice, community, as much as a Jew yearns for Zion, a Muslim for Mecca and a Hindu for the Char Dham! The difference being that, these tendencies are first and foremost human, and extend even to other primates, mammals and beyond! The fact that every belief system aims to satisfy them suggests an evolutionary common basis underneath.

When our forefathers and foremothers, to borrow that term figuratively, met at that first World Humanist Congress in 1952, and wrote the founding document of our international movement, institutionalizing a global network of Humanists who were isolated before, they aimed to provide the world with “a third way”, beyond the dogmas of both religions and the last century’s vile dictatorships and oppressive systems. In their own words, Humanism “is not a new sect, but the outcome of a long tradition that has inspired many of the world’s thinkers and creative artists and given rise to science itself.”

The term itself, then, is an anachronism. As Andrew Copson, former Head of Humanists International and one of its current Ambassadors puts it in The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism, “humanism is quite different from religions and a great many non‐religious philosophies, which begin at a particular point in time and whose names originate at or soon after the genesis of the ideology itself.”

This long tradition needs to continue, as the world isn’t only losing its moral compass and commitments, but also the beauty of every moment, the curiosity in looking for truth, and the capacity to see a fellow human as such, despite differences and conflicts.

Like our ancestors, who suggested Humanism as a third way after two horrific world wars and amidst a cold war, in our times, as uncertainty reigns, conflicts proliferate, an old world order shakes, and the climate system collapses, the 2022 Amsterdam Declaration comes as a guiding tool in a world without a compass, relevant to its era and adepts. In this context, the Declaration notes in its fourth cornerstone of the modern Humanist movement, that the latter is a valid response to “the widespread demand for a source of meaning and purpose to stand as an alternative to dogmatic religion, authoritarian nationalism, tribal sectarianism, and selfish nihilism”.

This is crucial in a world of uncertainty, where different belief systems not only exist, but compete, and where religious and nationalist dogma held as true for centuries are being shaken constantly, due to globalization, polarization and the Internet.

In the last issue of the Humanist Perspectives Magazine, entitled Can Humanism Transform a World in Peril, Simon Parcher argues in his editorial “Humanism is a Beacon of Hope in Troubled Times” that Humanism must provide responses to three main current challenges “fascism, climate change denial, and artificial intelligence”, to which we can add emerging multipolarity, by offering “a unifying vision: a world governed by reason, compassion, and respect for human dignity.”

This is indeed true, but requires a lot of investment. While the value of individual action is undeniable, these are global challenges that not only transcend communities and groups, but also all states and actors. No one is singularly responsible for all these challenges, nor is each person able to solve them through their own means. If we really strive to have a voice in the rapidly changing panorama of our globe we must coordinate action. In a previous blog post, we’ve already suggested some recommendations to strengthen Humanist voices and actions in facing the climate emergency. The latter crisis, like all the

abovementioned challenges we are facing, have no metaphysical remedy, nor a magical solution. It needs deep dedication, stable funding, reliance on the motivation of our youth and the experience of our elderly through volunteering, donations, and community engagement.

We declared solemnly in 2023 that “Democracy is a universal fundamental value that is essential to the realization of humanist principles worldwide”, making us ethically bound to defend it against erosion, nationalism, intolerance, authoritarianism and theocracy. All being tendencies that are actively working to destroy democracy, not only in young Latin American, African and Asian democracies, but also traditional ones like Canada, the US, the UK and Europe. In this context it is always important to remember that in the UK alone, half of anti-rights groups increased their expenditure to 33%, and that only between 2019 and 2023.

At COP30 in Belém, petrostates, most of which are authoritarian theocracies, made all they possibly could to hinder any attempt aiming to fasten the much needed energy transition, with experts finding an undeniable link between authoritarianism and reluctance in complying with environmental commitments.

Christian Nationalism is sweeping into the US, boldening the anti-LGBT+, anti-migration and anti-Establishment Clause lobbies, with attempts to frame every criticism as anti-Christian bias.

And this is why Humanism is more important than ever, and needs to be defended and funded more than anytime before, because those who seek to destroy us and all that we stand for are knowledgeable, committed, dedicated, organized, and funded.

We are stronger than we often might think. We showed great adaptability to darker moments of history, and showed unison within our differences. With African Humanism’s Ubuntu, Indian Humanism’s Lokaayata school, American Humanism’s Ten Commitments, and the Islamic World’s Mu’tazilite philosophy, each working as a force for good in its respective context.

Just recently, the Board of Directors of Humanists International, gathering in Canada, being conscious of the challenges affecting our world, issued a Position Statement embracing “Secularism as the Democratic Foundation”, and affirming “its unwavering resolve to be a leading voice and active force in the global effort to defend, protect, and rebuild liberal democracy for the fulfillment of the rights and dignity of every human being.”

With our millennial traditions, our global network, our dedication and commitment, we need to put this affirmation into practice. Meanwhile we must remember that we went through worse situations than this and rest assured that the light our movement spread to the world wouldn’t fade.