We celebrate humanism as a progressive, rational life stance, a broad path for thought and action. Humanism encompasses transcendentalism, atheism and secularism. It includes those who are agnostic about claims to absolute truth and those who embrace an enlivened ethics to guide life choices, and frames our understanding of existence in terms of evolution rather than creationism.

Furthermore, it recognizes human life is both cognitive and intuitive .Human emotion is now known to have a biological basis. Intuition has been shown to provide a bridge between conscious and unconscious thought in the human brain in a firmly interdependent, productive way. Intuitive knowledge is therefore no less valid than rational knowledge; it is just non-obvious, non-rationally derived knowledge. There is no longer any doubt, scientifically, that humans, in order to be healthy, have to be intuitive as well as logical.

Despite science's failure to illuminate much of the unknown, it is clear that it makes steady inroads into seemingly unfathomable, mysterious territories through application of observable, repeatable techniques. Scientific confirmation of what we know instinctively-- that healthy humans need to be both non-rational and rational--underpins our "faith" in science. It has yielded us vast quantities of empirical knowledge--both of outer, and now inner, worlds, and brought them into commonplace acceptance.

Still, Humanism has been said to be limited in that it fails to stand in awe of life's mysteries. I would rejoin that humanists face mysteries with a deep and natural wonder, with all the full emotional and intellectual appreciation a well-equipped brain could encompass, but ultimately, subject any and all findings to the rigors of scientific, critical analysis, for substantiation, repeatability. It strikes me that the real mysteries that bewilder us demand our utmost vigilance have their roots in human behavior: mutual mistrust, disrespect and mistreatment of our own and other species with whom we share the earth. The real limits of humanism lie in our failure to inspire passionate concern, and action, for human failings.

--Heather Dorrell