Affirmations

I have been reading a book which my brother Will bought me for Christmas last year. Now that the new deck is finished, I can sit out there with my mp3 player(listening to Richard Shindell, Nick Drake, George Winston or Yanni) and give it a thorough read, even highlighting passages with my yellow magic marker.

The book is "Affirmations(Joyful and Creative Exuberance)" by Paul Kurtz. Kurtz is one of the leading thinkers in the new ethical humanist movement. He is a great force behind a publication which I subscribe to called "Free Inquiry."

As I have discussed with my lay minister Tim, I found the most interesting chapter was the one entitled "Eupraxsophy." Kurtz introduces the term as meaning the love of wisdom and the practice of wisdom. In essence it is love in action without having all the God rules applied. He urges people to have the courage to express a deep sense of ethics in the world without having to lean on out of date spirituality. Eupraxsophy insists that ones beliefs should be based upon reason, critical intelligence and wisdom.

Here are some quotes from the "Eupraxsophy" chapter that I like:

"Eupraxsophy seeks to develop a cosmic perspective which is based on the most reliable findings discovered on the frontiers of science. It recognizes that there are gaps in our current knowledge that still need to be investigated. It is keenly aware of human fallibility about what we do and do not know, yet it boldly applies practical scientific wisdom to life."

Utterly brilliant.....let's read on!

"Humanists do not look upward to a heaven for a promise of divine deliverance. They have their feet firmly planted squarely in nature, yet they ahve the fortitude to employ art, science, reason, sympathy, and education to create a better world for themselves and their fellow human beings."

"From the standpoint of the individual, happiness is achieved not by a passive release from the world, but by the pursuit of an active life of adventure and fulfillment. There are so many opportunities for creative enjoyment that every moment can be viewed as precious; all fit together to make a full and exuberant life."

"The theist often has a degraded view of human beings, who, beset with original sin, are incapable of solving life's problems by themselves and need to look outside of the human realm for divine succor. The(ethical) humanist accepts the fact that the human species has imperfections and limitations and that some things encountered in existence may be beyond redress or repair. The secular humanist is unwilling to bow before either the forces of nature or would-be human masters. Rather, he or she expresses the highest heroic virtues or the Prometean Spirit: audacity, nobility and developed moral sensibilities about the needs of others."

The ethical humanist is definitely in touch with "the fierce urgency of now."

Thanks Will for buying me this book. It has helped to change my world view into a more practical and loving and wise one.