This was the title of a Letter to the Editor published in the Salt Lake Tribune on February 21, 1995. It was a very interesting letter from Jon D. Green of the Humanities Department of Brigham Young University. The purpose of the letter was to encourage support for Public Television, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In the letter, Professor Green refers to himself and others in the Humanities as "humanists." Now this seems to affect some people, because these self-called "humanists" are obviously also "theists." Personally, I will be glad to acknowledge their right to the title, but to differentiate them from other "humanists" (secular, religious, non-theist, naturalistic, etc.) it is perhaps best to call them "Humanities Humanists." I can do this because for many years I also was a "Humanities Humanist." After all, the Humanities are the product of what humankind has done with its human-ness, and cannot be ignored by any thinking person.

Four years ago this month, I was introduced to the Humanist Manifesto and concluded that in the 40 years of being a student of the Humanities, I had become what is called a humanist. For the next several months I processed a change in the content of my belief system. I had to eliminate the cognitive dissonance between what I had learned from the Humanities (including naturalistic evolution) and Mormon doctrines such as theism, sin, guilt, and salvation. These concepts had become less meaningful through the years although I attended church regularly. In this mind altering process, I began to experience the exhilaration of becoming "free" in the sense of no longer being bound by dogma. I had achieved a union between knowledge and belief. It was a truly remarkable experience, this freedom, and I don't want to lose it.

However, I have observed that many non-theist humanists are as dogmatic in their non-theism as theists are in their theism, and I don't want part of either. My humanism remains rooted in the Humanities, and my non-theism is minor, almost forgotten. I have no need to reinforce or re-justify it; I like the freedom from dogmatism of either kind.

Further on in his letter, Professor Green explains his objective in teaching the Humanities. I find his explanation very meaningful. Because of my illness, I am experiencing the winding down of my life, and I look for purpose and meaning. It is not surprising for two "Humanities Humanists" to find our objectives are the same. I want to include his explanation, and finish with the Statements of Belief and Purpose of the Humanists of Utah, which I helped compose. I see no difference between the two. Professor Green writes:

Successful engagement in those things Socrates called "the Good, the True and the Beautiful" will ensure significant enhancement to the life of man, so that, as Thoreau wrote, we can "learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn," and not as he also wrote, to discover when we die "that we have not lived."

--Bob Green