Humanist Contemplatives focus on self improvement, introspection, and pursuing eudaimonia (the flourishing, good life). Some may meditate or engage in other contemplative practices. They seek to experience the profound in the arts and explore new ideas and traditional inspirations on spirituality in a naturalistic context. They strive to be virtuous and compassionate in character.This website is an effort to outline some of the more important concepts, values, and perspectives of the contemplative approach to Humanism. No effort is made here to initiate a separate branch of Humanism. Rather, it is hoped that all of Humanism will be reminded not to lose site of the individual practice of living life as a Humanist, in the midst of the sometimes more social, publishing, or political activity of many Humanist organizations. Humanist Contemplatives are encouraged to work to promote the compassionate, ethical, and personal side of Humanism in all existing Humanist branches, organizations, and communities.
The menu to the right provides a more detailed overview. The Humanist Contemplative is perhaps the most concise and complete encapsulation of the thoughts on which this website is built.
In the Central Themes section, I begin with The Noble Conspectus - a general declaration of the attitude with which we should approach our diverse world. Freethought and Compassion points out the necessary element of Compassion as an integral part of the freethought tradition. After that, a few articles are presented which, overall, show the relationship between modern complexity studies, Buddhism, Taoism, and Stoicism - essentially alluding to the often overlooked link between the sciences and a naturalistic spirituality.Supporting Thoughts contains a number of entries, many of them from past blogs. These articles further elaborate upon these concepts, as do the sections on other authors, links, and suggested reading.
Please feel free to take some time to explore the concepts presented here for consideration. Both Humanists and non-Humanists should find the approach quite different from the way many discuss Humanism.
Lastly, be sure to check out the Humanist Contemplative Blog, which is a journal of sorts about my further studies and practices along these line.
with Compassion :)
-DT Strain
