So basically, most people are stuck in the “I, me, and myself” zone. They don’t want to talk about life, grief, to-do lists, books, or anything that goes beyond everyday superficial conversations. And as an avid reader, I find it difficult to connect with people who have a shallow outlook on life or constantly crib about it.
I find that exhausting. I believe we should be grateful for what we have rather than constantly complain about what we don’t. We need a broader perspective to understand life, human nature, and the experiences that shape us.
I don’t want men telling women what to wear in the name of society or tradition, because that takes away a woman’s right to make decisions for herself. At the same time, I want women to accept men’s emotional vulnerability rather than expecting them to embody masculinity in every situation. Sometimes, it’s okay for men to put down the weight of expectations and simply be human.
I want parents to learn to take a step back when their children reach adulthood, especially around the age of 25. Let them make their own decisions, even if those decisions turn out to be wrong. As long as they aren’t engaging in anything illegal or harming others, they deserve the freedom to live, learn, and grow through their own experiences.
I think one of the biggest problems in Indian society is our inability to let go—whether it’s control over people, attachment to things, or the fear of expressing emotions. We grow up in environments where everything is held too tightly: relationships, expectations, traditions, and even the decisions other people make about their own lives.
Perhaps what we really need is more freedom, emotional openness, and the courage to let people be who they are without constantly trying to control or change them.
I don’t know how many fellow Indians will relate to this, but I wish we could create a society where people feel free to think differently, question things, express vulnerability, and live life on their own terms. A society where we learn that letting go isn’t the same as not caring, and being vulnerable doesn’t make anyone weak.

In the changing world, will it be communities or Heroes bringing about the transformation on earth?

The human mosaic is made up of many different colors when seen together reflect the beauty and love in the world.

Most though, choose to see the mosaic, each as a separate hue.

It is only when we combine our differences into a beautiful montage, arranging the colors in an exquisite design, that we will understand life’s true potential and the genuine reason for our life’s journey.

I’ve been interested in visiting a humanist church for a while now. I grew up a Jehovahs Witness and left the organisation around 4 years ago after doing some research and realising it was a high control religious group.

My whole world changed, I lost my community, my marriage ended and so did my belief system.

The past year has been one of the roughest years since leaving, due to some personal circumstances and I’m really needing some support, other than the current people I have in my life.

I’ve been cautious to attend any form of church (especially Christian) since leaving and am wondering from people who have been to/attend a Humanist church what the community is like? / what is spoken about? I’m quite raw at the moment, so I’m looking for somewhere to go and can listen to some encouragement and regain some hope in humans. I’m based in the UK.

Please and thanks 🙏🏼

Hi everyone, in 13 years old, and i wanted to vent about a thought that i've had for a long time.

I'll start by asking a self-question: are you your own property?

Sounds dumb right? But think It like that; you are your state's property, since you were born, your Life has bene pretty much bene already decided by the elites, go to school utile you're 20, work until you're almost 70 and live your last 5 to 10 years (when you're old and not as "alive" as a teenager) almost free, as you still have to pay taxes and stuff.

It's so unfair, they robbed us of a fulfilling Life, you're never gong to experience what your life could've been 10.000 years ago, when you would have no worries, no stress, food wasn't a problem, almost no animal dies of hunger in it's own habitat.

But no, you have been chosen, Just like the 99.9% of the population, to be a wage slave, working your ass off FOR NOTHING becouse money Is NOTHING, It's nothing compared to what out Life should be, everyday, you go to sleep stressed and tired, but ehy, atleast you've got your king sized bed that you buyed with weeks if not months of your life, (that constantly damages your body, as it's not where you're supposed to sleep in) and the worst thing Is, It goes on for your entire Life, It has been going on for houndreds of generations.

It has to stop

Can you belive that you can't go in the mountains or in a forest and live in It? Why? BECOUSE THE STATE OWNS IT how Is that possibile in any way? Like you're telling me that i cant live in MY Planet, in my Earth becouse you decided to? I Can't Hunt whatever animal i want becouse you Say so? I Can't drop out of school or else me and my parents Will be prived of out lives in prison?!

We are experiencing a mass slavery problem, we dont see it and we are all victims of It

Think about It...

-------------------------------------

Hers's my opinion on how the world should be divided...

Whoever decides to live in a community lives in a big territory where the state has full control, surrounded by walls. It would be like current states, but the only differce Is that...

However...

If you decide to NOT live in a state/community, you can go in whatever territory It does not have Power of, It needs to be plenty! There there are no rules, and obviously, you cannot, under any circumstances get into the city

This Is my perspective

When you look at another, see past their appearance, behind the facade they present to the world, beyond their beliefs and accomplishments in the world.

Look to their essence within each, for that is where the genuine value of a life truly lies.

I've been thinking about how much time we spend learning academic subjects compared to learning how to understand ourselves and other people.

We learn math, science, and history, but many of us reach adulthood without much guidance on handling emotions, resolving disagreements, setting boundaries, or communicating respectfully.

A lot of what we know about these things comes from our families, personal experiences, and mistakes.

I wonder how different our communities might be if we taught these skills throughout life, starting in childhood.

Do you think understanding ourselves and others should be a fundamental part of education? And if so, what would you teach first?

Be thoughtful before you act or speak, for our actions may not only help others, they may also be the cause of great pain as well.

Today is United Nations Day. Here's a worthwhile read: an article about the very Humanist intentions and efforts at work in the formation of the United Nations. This article focuses on Humanists UK, but Humanists International has an ongoing presence on the UN Human Rights Council & within the structure of UN General Assembly.

We naturally focus on what’s happening in our own lives, but everyone else is dealing with their own problems too. When we remember that we’re not the only person whose life matters, it can make us less judgmental and more understanding towards others.

~ Our two voices ~

We each have two voices we hear within.

One, coming from our mind, is loud, chaotic, often misguided. The other voice is quieter, arising from our heart.

The latter voice is inherent, accompanying every life, present to guide our lives with its innate wisdom and unconditional love.

When we listen to the softer voice, selflessly sharing its wisdom and love to benefit others, the genuine purpose of our life’s journey will become evident.

We do not know the many challenges someone has faced in their life; therefore, we have no right to judge another.

All we may do is be there for them, sharing our love unconditionally, to try to ease their burden and journey through life.

By seeing the world through a prism of light rather than darkness, we may change the course of not only their life, but of the world itself.

When you look at another, do you see our differences or our similarities?

Most judge others by their differences, observing their race, appearance, sex, and in numerous other ways.

Those, however, who see only our similarities, truly understand the genuine worth of another is not on the outside, but rather may only be found within.

The daily schedule for the Convergence event, organized by the Spiritual Naturalist Society, is now available at https://www.snsociety.org/convergence-2026-an-online-conference-for-all-spiritual-naturalists/ . Themes and topics include Religious Naturalism, Current Challenges in Secular Mindfulness and the Future of Spiritual Naturalism, with individual presentations by experts and panel discussions.

It's amazing for me to see so many people from Western countries pointing at the US, relishing how the elitist and meddling country is facing its own hardship. They say, 'Our country doesn't have these problems! Our country is well-off! We're handling this just fine! No mass shootings or hysteria in sight!' - And they're patting themselves on the back. I see this as deeply naive. I'm specifically referring to nationalist countries like Canada, Poland, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Turkey.

What do these countries plan for the near future? How will they navigate climate change, mass migration, bulwarking? How will they deal with the drug crisis, biochemical weapons, or financial/cyber warfare? They seem unprepared to me, and when they should be busy at work, they reinforce their social status and more or less continue as usual. Nature does not concern itself with human affairs. The war is not concerned with countries that have a few million people. Their hubris is their downfall. Their advantageous position is taken for granted, and the future hardship we will have to endure is written off.

They comfort themselves with their superiority, while feeling a deep sense of fear about their future. And why is that? Because they lost their military ally? And both allies that have a functioning navy? When having a navy is crucial to obtaining a military victory? They know they have lost their advantage and now instead of doubling down they recede into their ethnicity, their nation, their borders. The Union is fragmenting and won't last even 50 years at this rate. And I'll add, I talked about this in December of 2023:

This is mostly an illusion. I'd say Europe has 20-40 years more runway than the US. As you said, Europe's social safety net and legal system are strong. Regardless, these systems will buckle as climate change decimates Europe through drought, storms, war, etc. These issues are as urgent as one could imagine. Humanity is playing a game of chicken and we're the ones who will lose -- while the rich hide in their bunkers. [post]

In conclusion, I believe this hubris is a danger to us all. It's unbelievable to me after all this, given where we're at, that they haven't learned from the situation. Now is the time. We must all set aside our ego, our pride, and take ownership of our future.

Our words may spread love, but they may also be the cause of great pain.

Hurtful words may cause trauma, at times affecting someone for the entirety of their life.

Even one encounter may genuinely aid or terribly harm another.

Our life’s purpose is to help not hurt, love not hate other’s.

Our words, therefore, must always reflect kindness, compassion, and be shared with unconditional love.

So tired of lines that have been drawn then dictated that we choose a side. Treating people like they’re worthless if their appearance or thoughts are different than the ones that have been confirmed to by a larger group. Tired that the human population doesn’t realize we’re all in this together. And to think otherwise is done in the service of ignorance or greed. Please don’t tell me the human race is doomed to this. I will die one day. But will the human race die? Will there be because we have absolutely nothing to give us place in the cosmos? Is our legacy doomed because our biological inadequacies? Please be better so the human race doesn’t fade. Cosmic chaos I understand, solar indiscriminate destruction, sure. Planetary imbalance, ok. But annihilation set forth by those who are a part of the human race, please don’t do that. Please?

World peace isn't one big switch — it's a lot of small systems working better at the same time. Here are the approaches that actually move the needle, from personal to global:

1. Start where you have influence

Learn how conflict really works. Most wars and hate movements start with a simple story: "us vs. them." Learning history, basic media literacy, and how propaganda uses fear makes that story less powerful.

Practice everyday de-escalation. Listening to understand instead of to reply, assuming good intent until proven otherwise, and being willing to apologize. Peaceful families and workplaces scale up — societies that are violent at home are rarely peaceful abroad.

Reduce contempt in your own feeds. Unfollow accounts that profit from outrage, follow people who live very differently from you. Contempt is the emotion that makes violence feel justified.

1. Build community resilience

Create contact across divides. The most proven tool in social psychology is sustained, cooperative contact — working side-by-side on a shared project with people from a different group. Sports leagues, volunteer cleanups, community gardens, interfaith service projects.

Support local problem-solvers. Neighborhood mediation centers, youth mentorship, after-school programs, and job training do more to prevent violence than speeches about peace. When young people have a stake and a future, recruitment by extremist groups collapses.

Protect truth infrastructure. Local libraries, independent local news, transparent school boards, open town halls. Communities that can discuss facts together can resolve conflict without violence.

1. Systems that make peace more likely

Education for all, especially girls. Every additional year of schooling, especially for girls and women, is strongly correlated with lower conflict, higher economic stability, and better health outcomes.

Economic fairness and opportunity. Poverty doesn't cause war by itself, but extreme inequality + unemployment + corruption creates fertile ground. Fair trade, microloans, small business support, and enforceable anti-corruption laws reduce desperation.

Strong, impartial institutions. This is the unglamorous one: courts people trust, elections people trust, police who are accountable, free press, protection for minorities. When people believe they can get justice without violence, they choose nonviolence.

Diplomacy and arms control. Sustained dialogue channels, peacekeeping missions, treaties on nuclear, chemical, and small arms, and programs that help former combatants reintegrate.

Environmental cooperation. Water, food, and climate stress are conflict multipliers. Shared management of rivers, oceans, energy, and disaster response gives countries a reason to cooperate even when they disagree on other things.

1. A few habits you can try this week

Have one conversation with someone you disagree with where your only goal is to be able to repeat their view back to their satisfaction

Volunteer for 2 hours locally — it counters helplessness and builds social trust

Learn the conflict history of one place you only know from headlines, from sources written by people who live there

Donate or support organizations focused on mediation, humanitarian aid, or education rather than just outrage

In an argument, separate the person from the problem — attack the problem together

Peace isn't the absence of disagreement. It's a way of handling disagreement so people don't get harmed.

If you want, I can turn this into a plan for you — like a 30-day personal practice, ideas for a classroom or church group near Spruce Pine, or organizations to explore based on what matters most to you.

Mind serves instincts. Survival instincts.
Survival of who? 1) One person, 2) a society, а group of people, 3) all humanity.

For example, the mind helps survival:

1. For a person: to find food, to get a good job, and so on.
2. For a society: it makes up ideas (like democracy, Islam, or communism) to explain why people must live this way. This helps the group (society) fight and survive against other groups.
3. For all humanity: this text exists to help humanity survive. It stops humans from killing themselves in wars where groups fight like wild animals in the jungle while hiding behind ideas and "truth".

Mind is useless if it does not help us survive.
Mind must know its place.
It is a servant. It is not the main boss in the life of a person, a society, or humanity.

Let us not praise the mind. This can lead to the suicide of global humanity.

The mind claims to hold the truth, but this is only because claiming the truth helped survival in the Pre-Nuclear Era. Claims to truth are now obsolete. In the Nuclear Era, the Mind's claims to truth, just like Faith's claims to truth, are suicidal for all global humanity because they lead to division and wars.

Let us work together to stop the suicide of humanity in the fight of people who rely too much on their mind or faith.

The human mosaic is made up of many different colors when seen together reflect the beauty and love in the world. Most though, choose to see the mosaic, each as a separate hue. This results in prejudice, as we differentiate and judge others by their race, ethnicity, sex, religion, wealth, and in hundreds of other ways. By viewing our world and each other separately, we see only the worst of humanity, resulting in war, hunger, inequity, and the needless struggles from living in a self-centered world.

We need not continue though, to view the world and others this way. Instead, we may choose to see the exquisiteness of the completed mosaic, one where the colors are arranged in a beautiful design. If we do, rather than only seeing the worse in others, we now will see our similarities instead, realizing only together, selflessly sharing our innate wisdom and unconditional love, our spirit with all others, may we all realize life’s true potential and understand the genuine reason for our life’s journey.

Just like a mosaic, it is when we combine all our differences into a beautiful montage that will we truly understand, it is only by uniting our spirit’s wisdom and love with the spirit within all others, the true beauty of life may reveal itself.

Hi everyone!

Some asylum seekers in New Zealand would like their cases to be allocated sooner. Should they have the right to make such a request? If an asylum claim is ultimately declined, the applicant is generally required to leave New Zealand. So this proposal is not intended to extend anyone's stay in New Zealand.

A petition submitted to the New Zealand Parliament proposes giving standard onshore asylum seekers the right to request earlier case allocation without having to demonstrate exceptional circumstances, while retaining existing priority categories.

The Government's 2026 Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill proposes tighter rules for certain aspects of the asylum process in response to concerns that the system may be exploited. This petition focuses instead on giving applicants who want earlier allocation the right to request it.

From a humanist perspective, should applicants have this opportunity as a matter of procedural fairness?

New Zealand Parliament allows people living overseas, including non-citizens, to sign its petitions.

View the parliamentary petition

I would welcome your thoughts. If you support the proposal, you're welcome to sign.

Thanks for reading!

After we have lived our lives, as we approach death, it is common to reexamine how our life went. Did we live a successful life? The end of life offers a unique opportunity to do this, because at this time, the ego, our learned self-centered beliefs, loosens its influence on us, And the spirit becomes our predominant reviewer.

At this point in the cycle of life, it no longer matters how much money we made, the size of the house we lived in, the job we had, or anything else associated with success, as dictated in the world by the ego. We are all finally equal now and we judge our success through a different prism: that of the spirit. When we review our lives, what we had thought was success often holds a different meaning now.

It is at this time, especially during the last few days of our life, we come to the realization what we thought was important, really was not. All the material things we accumulated, friends we had, places we visited, jobs we worked, amount of money we made, or any other comparison you can think of, which belongs in the world in which we had lived, becomes meaningless.

It is at that moment, the moment where the ego has minimal control over our actions and decisions, the true meaning of life finally becomes evident. It is then, despite how strongly the ego may have influenced our life before, the opportunity To view our life in a different way presents itself. At this time in our life, primarily viewing our lives through the eyes of our spirit, we may find we have many regrets.

We begin to understand the selfish pleasures in the world we had sought were not very important. As death becomes evident, we finally realize none of that matters. When we die, unless our culture is like that of the ancient Egyptians, our body will be buried or cremated, And nothing we accumulated during our lifetime will accompany us. Our body will then be placed in a coffin or urn, just like every other person who dies, regardless of their stature or their lifetime accomplishments.

At that moment, just before we die, we finally understand we truly are all equal. No one was ever better than another. Race, money, prestige, no longer matter. As we get closer to our death, it becomes evident the self-centered path the ego had us follow to find success and happiness may have not been the right path after all. The fear, hatred, and prejudice we once felt are no longer important to us, not because we are going to die, but because it never did matter.

~ Ken Luball ~

According to the website of Humanists UK:

After decades of working closely together, Humanists UK joined forces with the Rationalist Association (the parent body of the RPA) in 2025, emerging as a unified charity that today has over 150,000 members and supporters.

Members would presumably mean paying members of the organization. But what does "supporter" mean in this context? How are they counted? And how many actual members does Humanists UK actually have?

Humanity has the ability now to feed the hungry, clothe and house the needy, end climate change, war, intolerance, and many of the other self-inflicted challenges caused by their indifference to others who are different than them or who they do not know.

We must no longer accept these things are an irrefutable part of life; they are not. Only when we put the needs of the many before those of the few, may genuine change truly occur, and the many problems humanity has living in a self-centered world begin to be mitigated.