Humanist Society of NSW, Australia 1.39

NSW Humanists, backed by the other state societies, understands Humanism as the defence, promotion and extension of the Enlightenment - values which were developed and codified during that time in history. These values, which are secular or non-religious in character can be stated as follows:
* its opposition to religious interference in public life is based on the notion that the exercise of power and authority should be based on knowledge or what is knowable, reason and science (which is seen as the only means by which humanity can acquire sure reliable knowledge);
* that is of course our negation of religion or rather our rejection of religiously motivated impositions; the associated positive secular moral values are:
* notions of equity and human rights which today explicitly includes equality of the sexes and freedom of sexual preference; these values can only be maintained only if there is:
* democracy, the rule of law, a free open society; which requires:
* formalised arrangements as institutions;
* "transparency" - honest, trustworthy accounts or accountability, publish reliable statistics, conduct scientific inquiry and endeavours unbiased by vested interests;
* independent checks and balances; because people will always tend to seek special favours. Such a state of affairs cannot occur or be maintained unless civil society:
* upholds civility and civil culture. This requires in the civil society:
* a cosmopolitan character (implying tolerance of other cultures and ethnicity, building multiculturalism [no racism]) and universal, not parochial values or at least negotiating these dialectically for specific reasons. The polity has to be reasonably wealthy for this state of affairs to be stable so therefore:
* innovation and economic growth which today extends to care for the environment and the non-human world. This depends on:
* advancement of science, which can only flourish in a well educated community, so included are;
* fostering the arts including architecture, literature, music, theatre and the visual arts contributing to the development of our aesthetic senses;
* last but not least the polity needs to have an optimistic stance (a confidence that appropriate action will yield beneficial results which would not otherwise occur), we regard that we can control our future.