Overview of Humanianity

Books, websites, media presentations that clarify or are relevant to Humanian values
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ArlissWhiteside
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Overview of Humanianity

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Humanianity: Developing Shared Rational Ethics
An Overview by Arliss Whiteside
Humanianity is a movement developing a widely-shared set of rational ethical beliefs. Widely-shared means developed and agreed to by many persons, and intended to be acceptable to persons from all religions, and no religion. Rational means logically consistent and consistent with all available experience/evidence (essentially developed using the “scientific method”.)
These ethical beliefs are well-written statements of activities that persons should, or should not, do to maximize the quality of life for all persons, now and future. High quality of life includes maximizing joy, contentment, and appreciation, plus minimizing pain, suffering, disability, and early death. To minimize ambiguity and increase clarity, well-written definitions are included of key words and phrases used in these belief statements.
The goal of developing these widely-shared beliefs is to increase the quality of life for everyone, now and future. This increase is expected when many persons accept and often act on the same set of rational ethical beliefs. Benefits are also expected from the clear statement and comprehensiveness of these ethical beliefs. This set of ethical beliefs is expected to be improved and expanded over time, as more persons contribute and more experience accumulates and is incorporated.
Sets of ethical beliefs have traditionally been provided as central activities of religions, with their God wanting persons to follow these beliefs. That is, the worshipped deity, with the clergy, provided the authority behind these beliefs. However, religious ethical beliefs have not always been fully rational and directed at optimizing the quality of life for everyone. Furthermore, not all persons are sufficiently motivated to follow religious ethical beliefs, both religion believers and non-believers. Indeed, many persons have developed personal sets of ethical beliefs, usually incomplete and non-optimal, rejecting most religious beliefs.
The objective of humanianity is a widely-shared set of rational ethical and supporting beliefs that can be supported by (adherents of) all world religions and no religion. Such beliefs are currently being developed by interested persons discussing alternatives and agreeing over the Internet, hopefully by many more persons in the future. This set of agreed-on beliefs is expected to relieve religions of sole responsibility for defining and promoting a set of ethical beliefs. Of course, each religion can define and promote an equivalent set of ethical beliefs, and could define and promote additional ethical beliefs.
A major person behind humanianity is William V. Van Fleet, M.D., a psychiatrist whom I know in Charlotte, NC. Bill wrote most of the material on the referenced web sites, and he thinks of humanianity as being more of a religion than I describe above.
References
http://humanianity.com/humanianity/humbeliefs.php
http://homorationalis.com/homorationalis/hr000.html

wvanfleet
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Re: Overview of Humanianity

Post by wvanfleet »

That is a good summary, Arliss.

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