This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The rushing of the sea-tides of our soul; and inspirations, that we deem our own, are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing of things beyond our reason or control.
The established religious institutions are bastions of ignorance in a world where knowledge has become the most valuable commodity. Well-entrenched, these institutions hold back social progress, dividing people who otherwise have no reason to oppose one another, fanning the flames of militarism and nationalism. Most of all, however, they are promoting ignorance and falsehoods at the expense of truth. How can society advance under such erroneous belief systems?
Belief | Ignorance | Knowledge | People | Progress | Reason | Society | Truth | World | Society |
Given our civilization's increasing technological prowess, there's no reason to believe we can't identify a host of economically viable, bio-based alternatives to unsustainable fossil fuels and petrochemicals.
Civilization | Prowess | Reason |
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
offers the image of a chariot in which the driver uses an obedient lead horse to control another wayward horse; that is, cool reason may know the Good but cannot control the passions without a passionate ally - without a spirit that loves the Good and greets evil with moral indignation.
We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guild or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
Beauty | Compassion | Despair | Dogma | Faith | Fear | Hope | Ignorance | Joy | Learning | Love | Optimism | Pessimism | Reason | Selfishness | Sin | Truth | Beauty |
The ruling passion, being what it will... The ruling passion conquers reason still.
It is true that no people have yet come near to establishing the ideal society. Yet Humanism asserts that human reason and human efforts are our best and, indeed, only hope; and that our refusal to recognize this point is one of the chief causes of our many human failures throughout history.