I Like Trees

The Humanist Creed

I stand before you as an independent agent, autonomous and responsible for myself and my actions. Every thinking being is a world, unique and alive, and I am responsible for the maintenance of the world that I contain. Each of us is whole, unique, and possessed of limitless potential and our own quirks and limitations, and are responsible for the choices we make and the people we become.

I believe that what we do next is what matters most, and recognize that every action, inaction, and breath of becoming is a choice. I will not interfere with the choices of others unless they are causing real harm.

As humans, we are each whole and alive, and as people we are a society responsible for each individual’s environment. I will work for us as individuals, and for my own happiness and health, and for the happiness and health of individuals around me. I will work for the health and wholeness of our larger society so that we are free of the limitations which would impede that personal work. I take responsibility for all of my actions, and will fight unjust laws in ways that do not undermine social order or the rights and well-being of others. I will obey just laws and support the process of peoples’ self-government.

I will take issue with no one’s faith, nor with the matters of their heart, but only with the work of their hands, and I will not impose my own beliefs or feelings upon others as truth.

I  accept my own weaknesses and failures as opportunities for strength. I will not deny my fear, but I will not allow it to stop me from acting.  I will work to become earnest and honest in all my dealings, and truthful and kind in all my speech.

I will bring my entire self to bear on whatever work my hands might find, and will never be too proud for any honest work.

I consider enmity impractical, and anger to be a statement of need, and will seek solutions that consider the needs of everyone involved.

I will work to be someone who does not damage or destroy another except in self-defense, and I will not seek vengeance. I will consider justice that which heals all parties involved in the harm done. I will seek to mend where I have harmed, to work for reconciliation in all cases, and to forgive where I am able and try to earn forgiveness where I have wronged.

I will try to understand the material universe and encourage others in understanding, and I will support the ethical use of science and the teaching of scientific method. I will evaluate scientific claims through examination of scientific proofs, and will strive to be reasonable in my rejection of unproven theories. I will respect the rights of others to disagree with my conclusions, and examine all scientific counterclaims. I will respect the difference between the scientifically provable and matters of faith or feeling, and will not try to use either type of truth to attack the other.

I will protect and love and value all thinking beings, and delight in the experience of our mutual existence. I will do all that I can to improve that existence, and myself, through my work in it. I will consider as my own any work which comes my way that might improve our mutual condition, and will consider as my family the whole of human existence, bound together as one people, in one world, with one accord, whether others are upholding that accord or not. We are here together, each of us alone and as part of the world. I stand before you as a world, part of the larger world we all create, acknowledging this to be my place in it.