LIVING HUMANISM
Your Guide to
Living a Humanist Life
Welcome to the
Living Humanism website.
Humanists, as the name Humanism suggests, base our approach to living around our core human character and identity. We aim to enhance well-being and reduce and prevent pain and suffering for ourselves and all others as far as we can. We choose our actions based in reason and rationality and based in our emotions, passions, needs and instincts.
This site provides some potential guidelines about living a Humanist life and what living a Humanist life means in terms of how we live and what we do in our lives. Based in the Living Humanism guides, these pages set out broad principles underpinning Humanist living, and provide ideas and guidance tied to our more specific everyday actions and decisions, through the means of more detailed principles for living. The site also provides a forum for discussion about Humanist Living.
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The guidance for Humanist living at this site involves two fundamental core principles for Humanist living, namely:
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Act to support and promote your own well-being and the well-being of all others.
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Act to reduce and prevent pain and suffering for yourself and all others.​
​Through these core principles we arrive at a further 50 subsidiary principles that include statements promoting good Humanist conduct such as:
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behave with honesty and integrity
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use your emotions and instincts linked to evidence, reason and rationality in order to support and decide your beliefs and actions
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promote cooperation and avoid aggressive violence
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aim to enjoy material well-being but don’t be greedy
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take care of the non-human world
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work to ensure your own independence, freedom and autonomy, and the independence, freedom and autonomy of others
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take responsibility for your personal actions
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take care of your health, both physical and mental, and support the physical and mental health of all others
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pursue justice
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never pursue revenge
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show and give kindness
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care for all others and for ourselves
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explore, seeking adventure and be open-minded
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support democratic values, openness, inclusion and transparency
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avoid harsh bitterness and regret
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promote and support human rights
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More is said about each of these principles on the Principles part of this website.
For more information about Humanism and Living a Humanist life, just explore the site, read the blog, sign up for the Quarterly newsletter and contribute your ideas and thoughts to the discussion pages (under the communications menu item). You can also buy the Living Humanism guides in paperback or as an e-book here (or - part 2) through any major book outlets.