PHILOSOPHY

carpe diem: latin; "seize the day". The Carpe Diem Society is literally about the meaning of life.

It is for those who reject religion and are devoted to overcoming existential angst in a world that has no cosmic meaning or purpose beyond what humans give to it. We call this approach "Third Path" Humanism because it offers a third solution to overcoming existential angst beyond the two common choices of religion or nihilism.

---

---

Third Path Humanism in Action

Life meaning is subjective and comes from within. It is defined by the individual through an eclectic personal journey of self-enlightenment. We believe that learning from each other is the best way to overcome existential angst and nihilism. Carpe Diem therefore seeks to create an eclectic community that promotes active participation in a range of life-enriching activities. All activities focus on three categories that are vital components of self-fullfillment and self-actualization:

SOCIAL – Community & Charity
INTELLECTUAL – Personal Growth & Development
PHYSICAL – Sports & Adventure

The Basis of Secular Humanist Ethics

The philosophy adopted by Carpe Diem provides a strong foundation for a system of ethics based upon reason and logic, rather than the self-deceptive dogma of religion and mysticism.

We respect the intellectual goal and the emotional drive of the underlying religious impulse - the pursuit of truth and relief of suffering - but we repudiate the methods. Faith, ideology, mysticism, superstition, revelation, dogma and appeals to authority are invalid sources of knowledge. Anyone can invent them. No one can substantiate them. Such claims are numerous and are frequently in contradiction to each other and with observed fact, hence they routinely lead to violent disagreement and the use of force or coercion to validate their claims. Further, the emphasis on relief of suffering serves to emphasize a negative view of life that ignores the pursuit of making this life better, which in our view is a moral imperative.

In the final analysis the only method of separating competing claims to truth is by putting those claims to the test of empirical observation and experience. All knowledge MUST be derived through experience, and any claim that cannot be observed or tested by the senses is unsubstantiated and therefore utterly worthless. One sharp difference between religion and secular humanism, then, is that we place the pursuit of verifiable, reliable truth as a higher value than belief for its own sake. We do not ‘believe' on the basis of what we want to be true, or upon the unsubstantiated “say-so” of some alleged authority. If there is not adequate evidence we will choose to abstain from belief rather than invest in an erroneous belief. If empirically verifiable evidence comes to light that refutes old ideas we will be the first to discard those outmoded beliefs in favour of ones more in line with the facts, all the while aware that our current beliefs are never absolute, and are always subject to change or revision in the face of new data. This standard applies to ethical questions just as it applies to all others.

We challenge and question all claims, no matter their source, be they new ideas or accepted ‘truth.' We prefer the “hard” truth about the world over the most appealing of self-delusions, because only from an accurate picture of the world can we make good decisions for our future. Our own fate and the fate of the world hang upon the quality of our decisions, and those decisions hang upon the quality of our knowledge about the world. To believe claims that are not verifiable is to choose your “truths” in a way that places other factors - such as what is comforting or appealing - above what the facts really are. It is to live in unreal self-delusion that will make good decisions impossible, and it is the first step down the path to eventual ruin; only if we see the world clearly, as close as possible to how it really is, will humanity be able to overcome the challenges to our continued survival and prosperity.

The history of life on earth is a litany of extinction. One species after another arose to dominate the planet, only to be snuffed out by shifting forces of natural selection. Are humans somehow special? Are we superior? Will we be spared the fate of the dinosaurs, the trilobites, or other dominant species that have gone before? Is Man the ‘Son of God,' made in ‘his' image? Do we have a divine protector watching out for us, or are we the pinnacle - the teleological goal - of the evolutionary process? Of course not. To make such claims is the height of hubris, and foolishly places our fate into the hands of someone or some thing that in reality does not exist any more than the Santa or space aliens. It is to run and hide from taking responsibility for our own choices, wellbeing and destiny. Just as Copernicus pierced our Church-sanctioned “infallible” delusions of the Earth at the center of the universe, so too we must bring our childish ego into check or risk suffering the fate of the other once prolific but now extinct species who dominated the planet before us.

In this sense, and this sense alone, humans really are special: we are the only species ever to evolve that is capable of consciously and deliberately shaping our destiny. We are the only species to rise above the merciless savagery of natural selection that has crafted all other species before us through relentless death and suffering. Our intelligence is what makes humans unique, and only our intelligence gives us the ability to perceive the world and shape our destiny accordingly. If we have the power to do so, yet we do not, then we truly will not be worthy of our much-lauded intelligence, and some other species will attain dominance in our place. Perhaps the mighty cockroach will attain supremacy, secure in the human demonstration that intelligence doesn't count for much in a world governed by natural selection if it isn't used to promote or safeguard survival and prosperity.

On this point rests the most important basis of our Carpe Diem philosophy: human beings must take responsibility for their own well-being, and the well-being of all the other inhabitants who share the planet with us. As individuals, as a society and as a species we must take responsibility for understanding the world accurately and clearly if we are to make prudent and appropriate choices that safeguard our survival in a world rife with nuclear proliferation, overpopulation, scarce resources and environmental degradation. Failure to do so will undoubtedly result in widespread devastation, both of humans and of other organisms who share our planetary home.

War, famine, holocaust, environmental collapse - all are distinctly possible futures that loom large before us, and are futures that are in our control to shape. There is no god, destiny, supernatural entity, or mystical force that has marked the human species as privileged among all others, or can safeguard our continued prosperity from these or other growing threats. Such mystical views are mere delusional hubris that can only lull us into a false sense of security and in so doing increase the danger of our destruction.

Northern Ireland. The Crusades. Zionism. Witch Burnings. 9/11. Afghanistan. The Inquisition. Fatwa. The 100 Years War. Lockerbie. Salman Rushdie. Beirut. Abortionist doctor assassinations. Sharia Law. Air India. Jihad. Iraq. Iran. This is just a sampling of why, in a world of exploding populations and increasing nuclear proliferation, it is more important than ever that humans take responsibility for our own destiny, not place it in the hands of religious or ideological dogmas of ignorance and violent zealotry that have so routinely been the architects of evil throughout human history.

As a species we have entered a period of perilous adolescence, where our population and technological growth has given us the ability to obliterate ourselves and the other inhabitants of the planet. We teach our children to take responsibility for their actions, yet we are surrounded with those who flee their own responsibility through prayer and misguided faith in fictitious deities to solve our problems or safeguard us from danger. When confronted with the certainty of hurricanes or tsunamis the answer of many is to pray, rather than build reinforced levees or early warning systems. Then, when the tragedy finally comes as predicted these same people “give thanks” for their “deliverance” to the same God who - in their twisted delusional reality - was responsible for the tragedy in the first place, and then call this a vindication of their faith. Such “thinking” will lead to the coming of a new dark age if it continues to gain dominance in the halls of power.

A new worldview is needed to guide our decisions, or perhaps I should call it a "renewed" worldview - one based on Enlightenment values of reason and science. We must foster an intellectual maturity and responsibility that will allow us to live with our growth and development. We must come to grips with the responsibility of our maturity, which means accepting our obligations to make decisions that will affect our own fate and the fate of others. In the process we become empowered to unlimited human potential and hope, as our species awakens from the slumber of intellectual childhood and takes its place as the architect of our own destiny.

---

---

The Existential Question in Carpe Diem

Implicit in the underlying philosophy of secular humanism is the realization that there is no greater meaning to the universe - we simply exist because of random chance with no intrinsic purpose. Many people find this prospect deeply unsettling, and in part Carpe Diem was created to provide a community for people grappling with this challenge. Our ethical system is based upon the necessity for humans to take responsibility for our own wellbeing, and one key element of this wellbeing is a sense of existential meaning for one's own life.

Carpe Diem is literally about the meaning of life. A central purpose of the organization is to assist those who reject religion and are devoted to overcoming existential angst in a world that has no meaning or purpose beyond what humans give to it. We call this approach “Third Path” Humanism because it offers a third alternative to overcoming existential angst beyond the two usual outcomes of religion or nihilism. To help you see the relationship between these terms here are a few definitions:

Existential: of or pertaining to existence.

Angst: a feeling of malaise, boredom, and nausea towards daily life caused by a sense of meaninglessness.

Secular: non-religious.

Nihilism: a philosophical position that nothing has any meaning or value what-so-ever, and typically results in a complete collapse of ethical values that leads to self-destructive or anti-social behaviour.

Humanism: a philosophical worldview and system of ethics that denies the existence of the supernatural and holds that humans are the sole source of ethical and moral principles. Human beings are the masters of our own destiny, and our survival and prosperity is dependent upon the decisions that we make.

As part of what we do as an organization Carpe Diem provides a forum for members to grapple with existential issues, and in so doing draws upon a synthesis of three important intellectual traditions:

•  The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer
•  European Existential Philosophy
•  The Atheist Teachings of the Buddha

All three emphasized the lack of intrinsic purpose or meaning to the universe. Many zpeople figure out early in life that there is no god or greater cosmic meaning. This realization is the source of existential angst. As described by the French existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, such individuals are typically confronted with nihilism. Such a position may result in total despair and a complete collapse of ethical values, often leading to behaviour that is self-destructive or anti-social.

When confronted with angst there are three common ways to respond:

•  RELIGION: they turn to religion, where an essentially arbitrary set of beliefs is instilled more for its capacity to maintain peace of mind and social order rather than the truth or validity of its ideas.

•  NIHILISM: they surrender to nihilism and recklessly seek pleasure, abuse drugs, become workaholics or find other destructive ways to desperately fill the void of their empty lives. Ultimately some may even take their own life. As Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “ thus it amounts to the same thing whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations.” Such was the dead-end path of Beatnik existentialists such as Jack Kerouac and Albert Camus.

•  HUMANISM: they accept responsibility for their own survival and prosperity and find personal meaning in pursuits that give their lives fulfilment (family, work, volunteering, learning, adventure, art, altruism, etc.) while providing a framework for self-actualization and enlightenment.

Carpe Diem is for those who want to take the third path. We have adopted a philosophical worldview based upon taking responsibility for our own future wellbeing as individuals, a society and a species – and in so doing we define our own existential meaning.

The Philosophy of 'Third Path' Humanism

As mentioned, Carpe Diem advocates a third philosophical alternative to angst - a path that was identified and elaborated on by the noted humanitarian/philosopher Albert Schweitzer. The methodology of Schweitzer can best be summarized as a “pessimistic worldview” coupled with an “affirming ethic”. He emphasizes the need to accept and acknowledge the fundamental meaninglessness of the universe (pessimistic worldview), while simultaneously affirming an active role for humans in determining their destiny and providing meaning to their own individual lives (affirming ethic).

The existentialists, beginning with Soren Kierkegaard, insisted that the primary goal of the individual is to choose one's own meaning without the aid of universal or objective standards. The “meaning of life” is something each individual must achieve by defining their own subjective interpretation of a life well lived. We each must give our lives subjective meaning based upon the objective consequences of our actions for ourselves and others.

For the individual this means that we must define our own values and meaning. Kierkegaard wrote, “I must find a truth that is true for me… the idea for which I can live or die .” The existentialists asserted that, in the absence of an absolute moral or ethical standard external to humanity, it is entirely up to individuals to determine their subjective life-meaning for themselves through a process of self-exploration.

Unlike Kierkegaard, who was a theist, Jean-Paul Sartre took atheism as his starting point. He too felt that the inevitable result of a realization of the inherent meaninglessness of the universe was a feeling of existential angst or “nausea”. However, in his view, the unique quality of human self-consciousness dictates that every human being inherently possesses free-will (Sartre's “pour-soi” or “Being-for-itself”), and therefore all individuals must bear the burden of responsibility for defining themselves. This freedom from supernatural constraints has two fundamental ramifications:

Such ideas are not confined to western thinking. According to Guatama Siddhartha, known to the world as The Buddha, all existence is dukkha, or “suffering”. Life is in meaningless flux. Nothing has permanent significance. This foundation of Buddhist thought is very similar to elements of existentialism and corresponds closely with Schweitzer's “pessimistic worldview”. The Buddha's solution to dukkha was known as “the middle path”, and included living a life of compassion, speaking and behaving gently, kindly and accurately, and refraining from intoxicants that cloud the mind.

Carpe Diem has brought together and adopted elements of all three perspectives into our philosophy, acknowledging the pessimistic worldview combined with the optimistic ethic. As human beings we are responsible for our wellbeing, whether we choose to acknowledge that responsibility or hide from it in supernatural delusions. This is our ‘third path', following neither religious delusion nor nihilistic despair, but a path of human responsibility to craft the best destiny we are capable of imagining.

COMMON QUESTIONS :

There are several questions that are frequently asked about secular humanism and the Carpe Diem worldview, and I will attempt to anticipate these questions and address them here below:

“How is secular humanism different from religion?”

Secular Humanism is a non-religious worldview grounded on secular philosophy. "Metaphysics" is the branch of philosophy that deals with the fundamental structure and nature of existence. All metaphysical positions can be divided into two categories:

1. SUPERNATURALISM: asserts the existence of gods, souls and other irrational, supernatural or mystical forces;

2. NATURALISM: asserts that the universe is rational, knowable and composed entirely of matter and energy as described by science through empirical observation.

Religion and mysticism take supernaturalism as their philosophical starting point. Science and secular humanism take naturalism as their starting point. Thus both are philosophically inclined to deal with metaphysical questions, but start from different assumptions and reach different conclusions.

“Isn't secular humanism just another religion?”

Not at all. In short, humanism is a philosophy that grapples with similar questions as religion, but arrives at answers without relying on supernatural causes or explanations. Magic and miracles play no part in our worldview. Just because both positions address questions of metaphysics does not make them the same. In logic this is a fallacy known as a category error. For example: whales are mammals, and dogs are also mammals. But it does not follow that dogs are whales. By extension: Religion deals with metaphysical and ethical questions. Secular humanism also deals with metaphysical and ethical questions. But it does not follow that secular humanism is a religion any more than it follows that dogs are whales.

Humanism is an ethical and rational alternative to a religious worldview, a system of philosophical principles and ethics that grapple with the ‘big' questions of life without reliance on dogma, authority or revelation. In a very limited sense it can be argued that religion and humanism are similar in that they both offer soteriological solutions to our problems. However the key difference is that religion places the sources of that “salvation” in fictitious supernatural entities, whereas humanism places the source of “salvation” in human initiative. In a sense this is “salvation,” although it is clearly a stretch of what is intended by the common usage of the word. In short, humans are the masters of our own destiny, not some supernatural being or force - hence the name “humanism.”

A Rough Sketch of the Secular Humanist worldview

Secular humanist philosophy is a rich and complex system of thought with intellectual roots whose origins date back to ancient thinkers such as Epicurus, the pre-Socratic philosophers and the Buddha. However the main thrust of humanism arose during the European Renaissance and grows out of the movement towards reason, scientific inquiry and political liberty in opposition to the forces of superstition, religion, tyranny and political bondage. The modern variety consciously arose from the intellectual re-awaking that occurred during the Enlightenment, when western society awoke from the millennium long Christian-imposed ignorance of the Dark Ages that swept the known world with the collapse of the Roman Empire and the destruction of classical civilization.

Entire libraries are available for those who wish to explore the history and philosophy of humanism in more depth. What follows is not an attempt to reproduce such scholarly investigations, but instead is a rough sketch in simplified and non-technical language of humanist reasoning to help you understand how the various positions inherent to secular humanism relate to one another and hang together as a unified philosophical system. The intent of this simplified overview is so that you can see how secular humanism arrives at its core tenets - they are not merely unsubstantiated and “infallible” divine commandments issued by raving “prophets,” but are reasoned philosophical arguments that are open to critique and change. So here then for your consideration is a ‘bare-bones' representation of our secular humanist worldview:

There are many conflicting claims to knowledge and truth. Which should I believe? Who is right, who is wrong, and how am I to know the difference? Such questions are the most fundamental problems that human beings must grapple with. Anyone can imagine or believe anything they want; I could believe an invisible, omniscient, omnipotent being controls the universe, or I could believe that there are six-headed space aliens visiting me every second Tuesday. But is such a belief true, or is it reasonable to believe? Why should I believe one over the other?

Clearly there need to be criteria for believing some things and not others, unless we wish to assert that ALL claims are equally true, as the postmodernist claims. If we make this claim then: A) We admit that any claim is equally true as the negation of that claim, for instance, “it is Saturday” and “it is not Saturday” can not be both true and false at the same time, yet this is what we would be forced to conclude. B) therefore Postmodernism and anti-postmodernism are equally valid. If I believe postmodernism is false then, according to postmodern theory it must be so. Therefore, if postmodernism is true then it is false. Also, if postmodernism is false it is false. Therefore, postmodernism is false. Postmodernism is a self-refuting theory. C) By extension then the world is irrational and we cannot hold any beliefs at all, since the belief and the opposite of that belief are equally true… or equally false. Clearly this is not something that most of us are willing to accept – if you are tempted to take such a position seriously then you should be willing to step off of a cliff with an open mind…. This then brings us to the problem of how to separate false beliefs from true ones. These questions are dealt with by the branch of philosophy known as epistemology.

The epistemological answer for secular humanism is that an appeal to evidence (empirically verifiable data) is the only reliable way yet discovered to separate fact from fiction, truth from falsity, reliable knowledge from fantasy. We can not rely on authority because authorities are frequently wrong: they could be lying to further their own greed or goals, they could make an error, or they could simply be deluded and/or suffering from a mental disorder. Divine “revelation” is no help because it is just a form of appeal to authority, since all cases of supposed “revelation” actually come from people, be they alleged “prophets” or other authority figures. These ‘authorities' are just people claiming to have special access to the divine, but never providing evidence for their claim - no one has ever videotaped God giving the commandments, and human conduits for “the word of God” are profoundly suspect. Any charlatan or person with a mental disorder could claim to have special access to the divine (in fact, the belief that God is speaking to you is a well recognized symptom of schizophrenia and bi-polar disorders).

Faith is also suspect for the same reason; any crazy lunatic could have a very strong faith in the most absurd claims imagined – to quote Nietzsche, “a casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.” If faith were valid there would be a great many Elvises or Hitlers in this world residing in mental institutes. Similarly, such things as intuition or introspection are equally invalid for the same reasons: anyone could have a different intuition or introspection and there is no way to differentiate which of these subjective beliefs is true or false. Without objective evidence there is no way to separate true and false, and the only source of objective evidence is through direct sensory experience of the world. In short, only empirically verifiable data has the ability to distinguish false beliefs from true ones, because it is the only source of objective knowledge.

There is not a shred of empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of the supernatural, just as there is not a shred of empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of Six-Headed Space Aliens visiting me every second Tuesday. If anyone wishes to claim otherwise then simply ask them to produce evidence of a similar quality and quantity to the evidence available for magnetic fields or electricity - without fail they will concoct excuses, provide anecdotes or stories, appeal to the authority or “reliability” of those giving such stories, or trumpet their own faith or intuition of this truth, but in the end THEY WILL PROVIDE NO EVIDENCE, just unsubstantiated assertions and a bunch of weasel tricks to duck the requirement of providing proof. Reports or stories of such evidence are worthless. Evidence that cannot be produced is not evidence, and can be fabricated on a whim for all manner of purposes, or can simply be the product of human error - that's why the criterion of “empirical verifiability” is crucial.

If one is to make a claim - any claim - then the burden to provide evidence of this claim is on the person making the claim. This is a function of basic logic. Any attempt to shift the burden of proof from the person making the claim to the person who is skeptical of the claim is a logical fallacy. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise, when in fact it is precisely the opposite assumption that must be made given that we know it is possible for an infinite number of mutually contradictory truth claims to be advanced. All claims are then assumed false until substantiated by proof, and even when proof is advanced it merely eliminates false contenders for the truth, but can never 100% establish the truth of a single claim.

Another reason the burder of proof is on the person advancing the claim is because it is impossible to prove a negative claim (such as “there are NOT Six-Headed Space Aliens visiting me every second Tuesday”). This is a favorite trick of theists and mystics, but it is intellectually worthless for obvious reasons. For instance, try to prove that Santa Clause does not exist. There is always some excuse that could be concocted - he is invisible, he is in disguise, he has the power to make time stop, he lives in a deep cave and uses a flying saucer, etc. It is impossible, yet we all recognize that Santa is a myth, not merely hiding on some remote and hidden tropical island drinking martinis for 364 days of the year. Anyone can concoct a claim that can not be disproved (ie. microscopic, invisible, pixie ghosts sing to me through telepathy that only I can hear) but doing so renders such claims meaningless because there is no possible way to check to see if the claim is true or not. What is the difference between microscopic, invisible, pixie ghosts and nothing at all? The answer of course is: there is no difference. Failure to provide evidence is fatal to any claim, and the more extraordinary the claim, the stronger the evidence must be. In short, the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Christopher Hitchens has memorably phrased it as such: "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

I have never seen a dinosaur, a great white shark, the planet Neptune, Africa, an electro-magnetic wave or the Parthenon. I have also never seen ghosts, UFOs, angels, unicorns, the city of Atlantis or God. Is there a difference between the two categories? Of course. The difference is that there is solid empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of the first list of objects that gives me reliable confidence that they exist, but no such empirically verifiable evidence for the second set of objects. It is true that I cannot be 100% certain that Africa really exists having never seen it myself, but I can deduce from past first-hand experiences that I have had with other reputed locations (such as my trips to Australia or Mexico) that the claim of the existence of Africa is reasonably reliable. If I were to seek the first hand evidence of Africa's existence I can be reasonably confident that I could rely upon that evidence just as I relied upon the evidence for the existence of Australia (which turned out to be just where the map said it was when I arrived - thank goodness). I can ask for the evidence, and such evidence is forthcoming if I am willing to spend the time to verify it.

This also applies to the evidence for all the objects on the first list, and is in stark contrast to the items of the second list, the supposed “evidence” for which is both qualitatively and quantitatively lacking relative to the type of evidence that is available for the first list items. One can readily find ample, clear, detailed, close-up photographs of great white sharks, but the same can most certainly not be said for angels or UFO's. No one can see a satellite image of Atlantis, touch the dead body of a unicorn, subject a fragment of a UFO to chemical spectral analysis, or take any sort of direct observation of God. But we can hop on a plane to Africa, view countless photos of Neptune, touch the Parthenon, hold dinosaur bones, and conduct simple experiments with iron filings that reveal electro-magnetic waves. In short, knowledge is never absolute, but is a probabilistic activity where various claims are considered more or less reliable based upon the verifiable evidence that support or refute the claim.

This absence of evidence decisively suggests that the supernatural or paranormal is mere legend and wishful fantasy - just like six-headed space aliens (and vampires, unicorns, sasquatch, fairies, angels, UFO's, the Easter Bunny, etc). Perhaps they exist, but we have no reason to suppose that they exist any more so than we have reason to suppose the planet Ixza-Zod exists. This of course does not “prove” that they are not real, (Ixza-Zod could actually exist in another galaxy “far, far away”….) but that is not necessary since it is impossible to prove a negative (like proving that Santa Clause does not exist). All that must be done is show that there is no verifiable evidence of the same quality that is readily available for the existence of Africa, great white sharks, the plant Neptune, electro-magnetic waves, etc. There is no extraordinary evidence to prove the extraordinary claims - in fact there is no verifiable evidence at all. As a result we must conclude that there is no supernatural realm, no gods, no guardian angels, no Atlantis, no UFOs and no ghosts.

If we were to argue that we can't prove God doesn't exist then we would logically forced to grant the same status to an infinte number of technically imaginable entitites from Santa to Nessie to Ixza-Zod to Bertrand Russell's orbiting china tea pot. Until such time as serious and ample evidence for the supernatural is brought forward of the same nature and veracity as the evidence for magnetism or electricity then we are forced to conclude that only the material universe governed by the laws of nature actually exists. To make claims for the existence of entities beyond what the evidence supports is to make unfounded assertions of precisely the same truth validity as that advanced by the writer of a fiction novel - or by the delusional mental patient.

•  If all that exists is the material universe, then human beings are a part of that material existence, and we are therefore governed by the same laws of nature as every other biological organism.

•  If we are governed by the laws of nature no differently than other animals, and if there is no supernatural realm, it then follows that humans are not privileged or above the laws of nature and are just as subject to extinction or decline as any other species.

•  If there is no supernatural realm to respond to our prayers or intervene on our behalf to guide or protect us then human beings must take responsibility for our own wellbeing, and the choices that we make will dictate our destiny.

•  Our choices are only as good as the knowledge and information that we base those choices upon.

•  If we wish to promote our own survival and prosperity we must seek to make the best choices possible.

•  If our fate depends upon our choices, and our choices depend upon the reliability of our knowledge of the world then our knowledge of the world will strongly influence our chances for continued survival and prosperity.

•  In order to make the best choices possible we must first seek out the best and most reliable knowledge about our world that is possible.

•  If we value the continued survival and prosperity of our species then we have an obligation to take responsibility for our choices and to seek the most reliable knowledge of the world possible in order to best inform those choices. This is the most central underpinning of Carpe Diem philosophy and ethics: human responsibility based upon knowledge and reason.

Based upon this chain of reasoning it is possible to derive several core principles of secular humanism that can be seen as grounding our philosophy and the lifestyle that flows from it. Many forms of these principles are possible, and many different versions have been advanced. What is important is that these principles are not cast in stone, infallible or sacred - they are there to serve as guides. They can and should be changed as our insights grow and develop, or as new evidence comes to light. With this very vital caveat in mind what follows is a formalized rendition of the core principles that the Carpe Diem Society of BC is founded on.

---