Humanist Blasts Belief in God(s)

"Humanism is a fresh breeze that blows away the stage props of religion," Harold R. Rafton '10 told Harvard Humanists last night.

Among the "stage props" Rafton listed were "gods--single and triple, mother goddesses, ghost gods, son gods, pregnant virgins, demons, and that auxiliary cleaning establishment, purgatory."

Encouraged by the laughter greeting his allusion to pregnant virgins, he followed with a garbled version of the jingle that traditionally goes: "Holy Mother, I do believe/That without sin thou didst conceive;/And now, I pray, in thee believing/That I may sin without conceiving."

A director of the American Humanist Association, Rafton urged that men renounce their belief in a God whose existence cannot be proven and the expectation of a happily-eve-after life in heaven.

Man Underestimates Powers

Instead, he advocated acceptance of the humanist belief that man can improve society through his own efforts. The greatest obstacle to progress, Rafton claimed, is man's underestimation of his intellectual and moral powers.

"Peace of mind and peace on earth can be attained when we do not set one man above another," he added, emphasizing that humanist belief in the fundamental equality of all men.

Humanists are experimentalists, Rafton pointed out. Freed from an "ox-cart religion in a jot ago," They "don't have to stick with a dogma," he said.

Rafton, the author of What Can We Believe? billed his talk "Life Without God--An introduction to Humanism."

The Humanist group at Harvard was organized early this term.