April 28, 2003

American Humanists issue third manifesto
___By Kevin Eckstrom
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Thirty years after rejecting the idea that there is a God who needs to "save" humanity, the nation's largest humanist group said humans' ethical behavior alone will dictate the future of the world.
___The American Humanist Association on April 21 released Humanist Manifesto III, the group's third major statement since 1933. The document was signed by 19 Nobel laureates and 57 other intellectuals, including novelist Kurt Vonnegut and filmmaker Oliver Stone.
___"The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone," the one-page document says.
___In releasing the statement, the organization hopes to revive its philosophy for the 21st century and serve as a counterweight to the Bush administration's embrace of religious rhetoric and even divine mandate, leaders said.
___"A new embrace of humanistic reason is needed to hold back this assault on our protections and prevent us from going down a path toward theocratic despotism," said spokesman Roy Speckhardt.
___Unlike atheists, who say there is no God, and agnostics, who aren't quite sure, humanists believe people are called to ethical living "without supernatural assistance from a god, gods or goddesses or an impersonal mystical force."
___The new manifesto does not break new ground and is far less specific than the group's last document issued in 1973, which called for sexual equality, environmental protection and euthanasia rights.
___The 1973 statement called belief in a prayer-answering God "unproved and outmoded" and said it offers "false hopes of heaven hereafter."

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