Home
Curriculum-1
Curriculum-2
Curriculum-3
Library
Email:
phungis
@comcast.net
|
|
"If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
~ Psalm 11:3
"Luther blew the roof off the Church,
Calvin tore down its walls,
Socinus dug up the foundation."
~ Epitaph on the gravestone of Faustus Socinus (1539-1604)
We are... Digging Up The Foundation
Sunday Service Scripts
Sunday Children's Message Scripts
Other Lectures/Texts
Quotes
From The Immortal In Man by John H. Dietrich (1920):
"The humanist, not knowing anything about a future world and not caring to speculate about it, devotes all of his time to the service of the world
in which he lives… If there is another life we cannot possibly miss it if we have made the best of this one, and if there is no other life we may
still have the satisfaction that we have not lost this one by throwing it away for another."
"There is an immortality here on earth that is the result of the influence of a man while living. Every one of us is immortal in the sense that he
leaves behind him an influence that is woven into the experience of the (human) race… The liberty which we enjoy is not that which you and I have gained
for ourselves. It has been earned for us by the influence of the intellect, conscience, reason and sacrifice of men (and women) long dead. It comes to
us from the empire of the past."
"This is a though all of us should cherish, on which all of us should ponder. We are the children of the past, and in like manner the parents of the future.
The past holds us in its mighty hands and we cannot break with it; likewise we hold in our hands the future and it cannot escape us."
"And thus we find the dead present with us always. We can no more break away from them than we can stop breathing. And as we recall the distinguished service
of those who are dead and who still converse with us, of those who, though silent, possess the lips that speak with undeniable force, we recall the words of
George Eliot and feel that these revered dead form ‘The choir invisible."
"This, men and women, is the kind of immortality in which the humanist believes… I am more interested in the influence my life may have upon the world than I
am in what happens to me after death… Should not our greatest endeavors be to create heaven here, in the land where our duty lies from day to day?... To labor
without end for excellence – this is that makes life worth the living."
From The Creed of Abner Kneeland (1833):
"I believe in the existence of a universe of suns and planets,
among which there is one sun belonging to our planetary system;
and that other suns, being more remote, are called stars;
but that they are indeed suns to other planetary systems.
I believe that the whole universe is NATURE and that the word NATURE embraces the whole universe...
I believe that there can be no will or intelligence where there is no sense; and no sense where there are no organs of sense;
and hence sense, will and intelligence, (are) the effect, not the cause, of organization.
I believe in all that logically results from these premises, whether good, bad, or indifferent.
Hence, I believe ... that the whole duty of man consists in living as long as he can, and in promoting as much happiness as he can while he lives."
From Tom Flynn in Free Inquiry Magazine (October/November 2010):
"Rather than freeing us from morality, secular humanism frees us to develop a truly relevant morality,
one rooted in the real world and in the physical and social consequences of life as humans live it.
Instead of accepting unverifiable assertions, we can come together with others to forge pragmatic values
whose worth and value can be intersubjectively confirmed. For secular humanists, the obligation to live
morally is in no way diminished; it is as real for us as it is for any believer. But as secular humanists,
we set the terms of what is moral using reason, compassion, common sense, and the wisdom of our species.
Freed from the imperative to be on GodÕs side, we can finally take our own."
From The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin (1995)
"We should be concerned (with the survival of other species) because, special though we are in many ways,
we are merely an accident of history. We did not arrive on Earth as if from outer space, set down amid a wondrous
diversity of life, blessed with a right to do with it as we please. We, like every species with which we share the
world, are a product of many chance events, leading back to that amazing explosion of life forms half a billion years ago,
and beyond that to the origin of life itself. When we understand this intimate connection with the rest of nature in terms
of our origins, an ethical imperative follows: it is our duty to protect, not harm, them. It is our duty, not because we are
the one sentient creature on Earth, which bestows some kind of benevolent superiority on us, but because in a fundamental
sense Homo sapiens is on an equal footing with each and every other species here on Earth. And when we understand the EarthÕs
biota in holistic terms Š that is, operating as an interactive whole that produces a healthy and stable living world Š we come
to see ourselves as part of that whole, not as a privileged species that can exploit it with impunity. The recognition that we
are rooted in life itself and its well-being demands that we respect other species, not trample them in a blind pursuit of our own ends.
And, by this same ethical principle, the fact that one day Homo sapiens will have disappeared from the face of the Earth does not give us
license to do whatever we choose while we are here."
|
|
