Antidote

I believe that happiness is possible in the human condition through human actions.

I believe that reason and experiment are a reliable path to truth.

I believe that supernatural and divine explanations of the world are superflous.

I believe that almost all sane human beings, whatever they claim to believe, will spend their lives maximising the happiness of themselves and others. Any controversial claims they make then can be examined, and discussed in a spirit of fraternity.

I believe that intelectual honesty and autonomy must be protected at all costs.

I believe informed democracy, and when possible consensus, is the best form of governement.

I believe in the freedom of thought and expression, on a personal as well as a civil level.

I believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, free inquiry in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.

I beleive in acheiving the most that I can in the one life I have.

The final antidotes to the last post (which won't make sense if you haven't read it):
"It doesn't need to happen again".
Many will disagree with me as to why, but the vast majority of people will never go to the lengths that I talked about before. Most will admit to believeing a contradiction before they admit to believing what their holy boooks say is how I described it. That is as it should be. My last post was unproductive, and couldn't really have had any positive outcome- had I been a more self-controlled person, I'd have deleted it. We might hope that no-one reads that post before this one.

The basics of Humanism aren't something extra. It's what everyone has.

Song in my head: "Imagine" by John Lennon