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“Morality without mythology”: a humanist response
This is the second post sharing a discussion between friends, one a self-described humanist and the other a self-described Christian. Read the previous post to get the context for this one.
My confession
As a preliminary matter, you are correct, you are not the “Christian friend” I wrote to. He is actually an amalgam of the worshipers at the Evangelical Church of God where my Grandma Emma took me as a child. They actually did have a fervent faith in the fundamentalist beliefs I used to contrast with and explain humanism, as do “a minority” of about 40% of today’s Christians.
And I do write as a “confession” to them that I have stepped away from what they tried to teach me, not in an effort to convert them, but as a plea for forgiveness, or at least, understanding. I “confess” that I am different. Use of the term “confess” avoids the implication that I am “better” — we just see the world differently. I am trying to be ecumenical, trying to maintain “morality without the mythology.”
Morality is important to me, mythology is not. (Mythology is just a story to support adherence to the morality.) Though too often mythology just gets in the way.
