Seeing my 7 Pillars post get linked to by the Friendly Atheist made me as excited as my kids were when we finally got a Wii. I was even happier to see the discussion it generated (32 comments last time I checked)!

But some of those comments made me want to clarify a few things:

1. The graphic doesn’t represent all atheists.
2. The graphic doesn’t even represent atheism.
3. What it is, is a simplified and modified representation of the secular humanism worldview this atheist identifies with.

I feel obligated to say this for two reasons. First, because I don’t want atheists thinking I am that presumptuous. Second, because I don’t want everyone else to think I am some sort of spokesman for atheists. I’m not – the pillars post was my first crack at figuring out what I believe are important ideas to help guide my life.

Hesitations aside, writing that post was an important step in my growth as an atheist (and human being!). Why? Because I honestly had never – in my 40 years prior to becoming an atheist – really put a lot of thought into my belief system. And why is that? Because when I was a Christian, the Bible and teachers of the Bible told me what to believe.

And that right there – being able to truly think for myself – is the most unbelievable, joy-filled reward I could imagine for letting go of religion and the supernatural.

It’s a profoundly fantastic thing.
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Unrelated shout to postsimian: The answer to your question is that I’ve been an atheist for about six weeks – I became one right around the 15th of May, 2008. I’m just a baby atheist!

An excellent post from the Atheist Revolution archive made its way onto the reddit atheism what’s hot list this past week.

The post is vjack’s endorsement of the secular humanism worldview (which I like to think of as a belief system), coupled with a suggestion that other atheists follow suit.

The goal in this is to communicate to the world that atheists have more – much more – of a world view than just denying the existence of god(s).

I agree. The crux of the matter is that theists, and many people still figuring out the question of God’s existence, have a hard time imagining what atheists might believe in – if anything. In fact, I think many people are afraid of atheists due to the flawed thinking that, without a religion to guide us, we are likely to be or become amoral/immoral people.

So, to vjack and anyone else who might care to know, I too declare myself a Secular Humanist. It is a beautiful, nuanced, almost intuitive world view that is extremely close to how I try to live my life. For an understanding of this world view, I recommend reading the wikipedia entry for secular humanism, as well as the affirmations and declaration on the Council for Secular Humanism website.

I’d also like to share my “abbreviated belief system” – a little graphic I drew up that captures some of the ideas found in secular humanism (with personal language interpretations/variations) that I most closely identify with. I found the process of distilling my world view down to something simple like this to be very rewarding, and I’d love to see your version.