Our humanist community should be thinking more about demonstrating the fundamental truth that goodness requires neither God nor the belief in God by organizing together as a community to do good. Less money spent on billboards that just make us feel good about ourselves and more on soup kitchens and organized visits to the sick and dying.
Interpretation
Goodness can exist independent of religious beliefs, and communities should focus on altruistic actions rather than self-congratulatory displays.
This quote by Rebecca Goldstein emphasizes the notion that moral goodness does not necessitate the presence of God or religious faith. Instead, she advocates for humanist communities to actively engage in practical acts of kindness, such as supporting those in need, rather than solely investing in promotional efforts that serve to bolster their own egos. The call to action highlights that true goodness is found in collective efforts to aid others, embodying the principles of empathy and solidarity.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a community service event to inspire participants.
Math . . . music .. . starry nights . . . These are secular ways of achieving transcendence, of feeling lifted into a grand perspective. It's a sense of being awed by existence that almost obliterates the self. Religious people think of it as an essentially religious experience but it's not. It's an essentially human experience.
Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.
I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away... and the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them.
The more you fulfill yourself, the less you will seek God.
Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.
Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.
...in the decline of life shame and grief are of short duration; whether it be that we bear easily what we have borne long; or that, finding ourselves in age less regarded, we less regard others; or, that we look with slight regard upon afflictions to which we know that the hand of death is about to put an end.
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