Since the noun "humanism" can be used in so many different ways, we often add the adjective "naturalistic," to suggest a self-sufficient world-view that doesn't require the intervention of any deity. That's because we haven't been convinced by the arguments for the traditional Western God - an All-Good, All-Powerful Person.

However, some Naturalists, past and present, have attached non-traditional meanings to "God:"

• Epicurus: Gods exist...but are indifferent.
• Spinoza: God is nature...but exhibits no will, no purpose, no design.
• Deists: God began the world...but the world is on its own; scientific laws prevail.

Poetic usages that have been observed:

• God is our higher self.
• God is the spark of goodness in people.
• Gods and Goddesses of old are often used in a playful manner to evoke liberating insights.

While Humanists don't usually use the word, "God," since they can say anything that's important to them without using it, they concede that a poetic or non-traditional usage of the word need not conflict with Naturalism - the claim that any process in the universe can be explained without recourse to non-natural forces.

1. Naturalism is an open investigative project that explores the four working assumptions of modern science. The challenge is to establish the following sequence without resorting to a personal deity or an immortal soul to fill in the gaps:
   
   From as primordial explosion...
   a physical universe,
   From a physical universe...
   a web of planetary life,
   From a web of planetary life...
   the human mind,
   From the human mind...
   art, religion, law, science.
   
   The enterprise is successful so far: a seamless flow of natural causation seems to link everything. The origins of life and mind become clearer each day.
2. While some people imagine that a naturalistic philosophy is a pessimistic one, we relish the challenge of living with the naturalistic and impersonal world-view created by science:
   
   
   • There was a time when I was not, and a time will come when I will cease to be.
   • What will I do with the short interval that constitutes my entire existence?
   • I will write a life story that makes my interval a story of high purpose and significant meaning--a moment of grace, tolerance, exuberance, joy.
   • I am a child of the stars: the planet, my home; all life, my body; the entire human species, past, present, and future...in my awareness.
3. When we naturalists turn our attention to the pressing issues of the day, our judgments are not clouded by non-naturalistic assumptions. Also, we grant that social, economic, and political questions are so complex that people of good will and intelligence can honestly disagree. That said, most naturalistic Humanists accept the following agenda:

Caring about those alive today, we

• Reach out to assist the needy in body and spirit so that those individuals can become truly self-sufficient
• Promote effective support groups for those struggling with addictions
• Fight unwarranted intrusions of the state into matters of privacy, such as abortion and euthanasia
• Root out racism, sexism, homophobia, and stereotypes about disabled persons.

Caring about future generations, we invite serious dialogue between representatives of religion and Humanism in order to:

• Reverse a population-pollution explosion that threatens the web of life on which a future generation will live and move and have its being
• Establish a just and self-sustaining society that can protect the carrying capacity of the only home the human species can ever call its own.

Source: Humanist Community, May 1992.