Humanist Club

By Dave Silvia

LW contributor

The American Humanist Association isn’t a partisan political organization. Humanists believe we should base our actions on evidence, not claims made by leaders and those who support them. The 2020 Presidential Election result was extremely accurate. There are countries where elections are rigged, but the evidence shows that our election result was fair. In 1789, the U.S. Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution as a blueprint for a workable democracy. Except for 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected while the nation was splitting apart, there has always been an orderly transfer of power in the U.S.,which is a pretty good record for any diverse group of people coexisting together for 200 years.

From a Humanist perspective, social justice has been too long and too slow in coming. Past elections have been marred by voter suppression, racial discrimination, eliminating voting places and legal voters having to wait in lines for hours to vote. Also, there have been five times when the election went to a candidate who lost the popular vote.

The America Humanist Association, which advocates for the 22 percent of Americans who are not religious, has an executive director named Roy Speckhardt. Many Humanists in Leisure World and the U.S. may not even know his name because Humanist values are based on science and reason to guide us, not solely the words of a leader. Humanists believe in supporting democracy and resolving social problems without resorting to violence.

Humanists believe that it’s each individual’s moral obligation to determine whether they should follow a leader and what means are necessary to achieve certian goals. Those goals should be based on human need, not on prejudices or religious abstractions.

The Humanist Club is not meeting at this time. It hopes to start meeting regularly as soon as it is safe to do so.