I know not everyone will agree with my beliefs or find this suitable for them, but I have been, as of the last 4+ or so years, engaged in a lot of reading and reflection on religion and science and so on to try and figure out where I stand. The following is  a work in progress and is the current culmination a personal creed for me:
- I hold that the world’s religions have organically developed and evolved based on the political values and sociocultural conditions of their times. Religion is a method of perpetuating cultural history, mythology, and morality as has been determined by their relative and distinct histories.
- I hold that there are many parallels between the world’s religions’ morality that when distilled down to its essence they reflect humanism at its core. Religion and Humanism is about humans and the relations between us as individuals, and humanity as a collective and interdependent society.
- I hold that the potential wisdom from the world’s religions can inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life, and provide an impetus for the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. I also hold and accept that each individual’s journey towards spiritual growth is personal and unique, and worthy of respect, inquiry; as well as being a potential place where I may learn and grow in my own journey.
- I hold that I should neither accept nor reject ideas proposed as truth without recourse to knowledge, reason, ethics, and justice. I shall build my opinions and knowledge of the world on the basis of facts, scientific inquiry, and logical principles, independent of the intellectually limiting effects of authority, conventional wisdom, popular culture, sectarianism, tradition, urban legends, and all other dogmatic principles.
- I hold the interdependent web of humanity of which we are ALL a part of imbues all humans with inherent worth and are all deserving of life, dignity, right of conscience, justice, equality, compassion, and a pursuit of happiness. This interdependence of humanity with itself necessitates a noble goal of the world community to work towards peace, unity, liberty, equality and justice for all.
- I hold that the interdependent web of ALL existence implores finding a balance and innate understanding for the nature’s laws and how we impact it is vitally important so we can maintain an ecological balance and preservation to prevent damage and promote flourishing plants and animals on earth and where ever we migrate to as a species.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Informed Resources
There are many books and articles that have really affected and informed my beliefs. Some are as follows and this is not at all an inclusive list:
Books from Amazon
- Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray (1994)
- Case for God, The (Karen Armstrong)
- Divine Sex: Liberating Sex from Religious Tradition (2006)
- Evolution of God, The (Robert Wright)
- Faiths of the Founding Fathers
- Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
- God on Trial: Landmark Cases from America’s Religious Battlefields
- Myth of Monogamy, The
- Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
- Solomon’s Builders
- Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters
Other Important Sources
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The (UDHR) by the UN
- Free Congregation of Sauk County – a Unitarian Universalist and Freethought Congregation (my church)
- Linguistics
- Esperanto
- Role Playing Games
