I Am A Humanist
I am a humanist, but not in the sent many English speakers use it.
I am a humaniste in the French sense.
For me humanism is not the rejection of religion.
I am born in the country of Rousseau and Voltaire, and although they distanced themselves from religion, personally they never attacked religion as a whole. They never caricatured religion in it's excesses.
Is religion beyond blame? Absolutely not. Religions are created by humans and humans are flawed. Just as ideologies and politics and many other human creations are flawed.
But we must look beyond this condition of being flawed. We are not a still picture, we are ever changing and evolving. Our flaws will pass, what will remain of us is the trajectory we followed, the choices we made.
Yesterday a Catholic priest was killed in northern France by two youngster, inspired by the ideology of DAESH/ISIS.
Does it mean there is a war between Christians and Muslims? No!!! Absolutely not.
All the heads representing the main faiths in the country immediately condemn the attack and more importantly reminded everyone that we must stand united.
There are those who want to insist on our differences, on what separates us and wants us to forget what unites us.
I am French and I am Catholic, and I believe that my Muslims friends, my atheists friends, my pantheists friends, all and every belief, political opinion, race, origin has a role to play in my country.
And I believe that we don't better ourselves by segregating from those who are different from us.
We grow when we get over our fears, our prejudices and we go to meet them, we speak with them, we listen to them and we make the effort to understand them.
I am a humaniste, I believe that what makes us strong is our diversity and the dialogue that results from it.
Those are the very basis of human rights.
Those are the very basis of democracy.
And those are the very things that extremists of all sides are trying to undermine.
I am a humaniste in the French sense.
For me humanism is not the rejection of religion.
I am born in the country of Rousseau and Voltaire, and although they distanced themselves from religion, personally they never attacked religion as a whole. They never caricatured religion in it's excesses.
Is religion beyond blame? Absolutely not. Religions are created by humans and humans are flawed. Just as ideologies and politics and many other human creations are flawed.
But we must look beyond this condition of being flawed. We are not a still picture, we are ever changing and evolving. Our flaws will pass, what will remain of us is the trajectory we followed, the choices we made.
Yesterday a Catholic priest was killed in northern France by two youngster, inspired by the ideology of DAESH/ISIS.
Does it mean there is a war between Christians and Muslims? No!!! Absolutely not.
All the heads representing the main faiths in the country immediately condemn the attack and more importantly reminded everyone that we must stand united.
There are those who want to insist on our differences, on what separates us and wants us to forget what unites us.
I am French and I am Catholic, and I believe that my Muslims friends, my atheists friends, my pantheists friends, all and every belief, political opinion, race, origin has a role to play in my country.
And I believe that we don't better ourselves by segregating from those who are different from us.
We grow when we get over our fears, our prejudices and we go to meet them, we speak with them, we listen to them and we make the effort to understand them.
I am a humaniste, I believe that what makes us strong is our diversity and the dialogue that results from it.
Those are the very basis of human rights.
Those are the very basis of democracy.
And those are the very things that extremists of all sides are trying to undermine.
