Why I am a Humanist

I found two comments on the British Humanist Association forum which I felt I had to respond to.

1)  We all only live once. Only humanism tells you this, which is why everybody in the world should be humanist.

I have a problem with this: it's a rather dogmatic approach.  It isn't that I believe I only live once because that's what Humanism tells me.  That approach is far too like a religion, and illustrates why some atheists I have met are so ready to denigrate Humanism as just another belief system.

It's actually the other way round.  All the evidence I have seen about who were are, what we are, how our consciousness happens, how much our personality depends on what's going on in the electrical circuits and pharmacology of our brain, it seems inescapable that when our brain stops, we stop.  There doesn't seem to be any magic stuff floating around somewhere inside us that is not dependent on our brain.  So it's clear to me that any kind of survival after death is so much wishful thinking.  We cannot imagine not existing, so we assume that somehow we will continue in some other world which, were it not for that wishful thinking, there would be no reason to think exists.

That much is clear to me.  And because it is clear to me, then one of the reasons I am a Humanist is that this view is the Humanist view too.

2)  This means that humanism must be only about improving the quality of life of all people on this planet, whether they are humanist or not.

Another problem: I cannot see any logical reason why only having one life means that we must be about improving the quality of life for all people.  It is just as rational to say that, for the same reason, I am determined to get the maximum pleasure for myself in any way that appeals to me, and everyone else can go whistle a happy tune.

It so happens that my temperament is to be an ethical person.  That's where it starts.  I then work out my ethical response to the problems that life throws at me - how best I can live, which for me involves maximising the common good.  I think it is probably true that if we all acted that way life would be better, more enjoyable, than if I was a blinkered hedonist, but I can't be sure.  However, it's good enough for me and that's the way I live. 

So another reason I am a Humanist is because I notice that this is the way Humanism presents itself to the world.