Message from founding President Paul Tobin:
Are you a humanist, atheist, freethinker, agnostic or sceptic? Are you fond of the scientific method and reasoning Have you ever wished to know like-minded people in Singapore to share thoughts with, or to work together for good cause? [Read more…]
Many humanists are concerned about protecting the Earth and living sustainably. While Singapore is renowned as a clean and green city, the high population density and heavy sea traffic meant that some trash has inevitably ended up on the city-state’s beaches and mangrove coasts.
With this in mind, the Humanist Society (Singapore) organised its first beach cleaning exercise on Pulau Ubin island on December 6, 2015. One of the 63 islands of Singapore, Ubin was once a centre for granite mining. Today, there are less than 100 residents left on the island and it is considered one of the last remaining rural areas in Singapore. About 2,000 people visit the island each weekend for camping, trekking, cycling and other outdoor activities. [Read more…]
The shocking and unwarranted events that unfolded in Paris and Beirut recently should not be condoned. We do not accept any reason or ideology that justifies such harm and sorrow.
While the perpetrators should be apprehended and held responsible for their actions, we should ultimately strive towards understanding the factors that led to these attacks and find a way to prevent them from occurring again.
However, fear of offending sensitivities should not drive the conversation about what has happened. As a society, we should strive towards creating an environment where our problems can be aired before they are allowed to drive wedges and create insurmountable divides that can no longer be bridged.
If anything, these events should serve as a stark reminder that solutions to tensions best arise from open and honest discourse, based on facts and unimpeded by ideology or partisan disagreements. Human lives should be valued over rigid adherence to dogma, for lives once taken cannot be revived again.
A story by the Humanist Society (Singapore) for the Better Tomorrow – IHEYO’s Charity Week.
An AFP article once said Singapore has no room for the dead. A tiny city-state and the second most densely populated country on Earth, local cemeteries – including the largest Chinese cemetery outside China – had to give way to malls, schools and tall apartment blocks to meet the aspirations of the living. [Read more…]
This is the QnA summary after Paul’s presentation. The QnA was meant for all 3 panel speakers, but this summary is directed at questions and answers related to Paul only. The questions and comments from the audience are not attributable. The HSS would like to thank Ashley Toh, Nur Hakeem, Martin Piper and Dan Tang for helping to transcribe the lively exchange.
This is a summary of the lecture on humanism and offence delivered by HSS President Paul Tobin at a CENS workshop on October 23, 2015. It was followed by a QnA.
If an earthquake causes a building’s roof to collapse, should engineers fix the roof and pretend geological fault lines do not exist? Or should engineers acknowledge these inevitable fault lines and build stronger buildings to withstand future quakes?
HSS President Paul Tobin made this analogy when discussing religious fault lines in Singapore on October 23 at a one-day workshop titled “Social Fault Lines and Singapore” at Marina Mandarin Singapore, which saw 7 other speakers discussing issues such as religion, social class, gender and sexuality as social faultlines threatening Singapore’s cohesiveness. [Read more…]
We have compiled a list of our most viral posts on Facebook to date, as parts of efforts to understand the humanist community better. We determined their virality based on the number of shares.
A few observations about these posts:
It is the #sg50 weekend! We present you with a special photo series, Next 50. In this series, people from our humanist community were asked about their well wishes and aspirations for Singapore in the next 50 years. It includes many universal values such as kindness, peace, equality and compassion. These photos were taken at our SG50 barbeque on August 1, 2015. Photos by Zhang Chenyuan.
Peace, above all else
“War is the planning and execution of death and destruction on a global scale – the humankind’s wish to destroy itself. No other human misadventure is more horrendous or efficient in self-destruction. In the age of nuclear weaponry it is manifest evidence of collective sociopathy driven by political incompetence and stupidity.”
– Bernard Johnston’s wishes for #next50
Photo: Our President Paul (left) with students from PATHS, an undergraduate group from NTU
The Humanist Society (Singapore) supports interfaith dialogue as a means to strengthen understanding between various religious groups, and between religious and non-religious communities.
In the first quarter of 2015, we collaborated with an undergraduate group from Nanyang Technological University called PATHS. The four-person group was working on a campaign on promoting interfaith dialogue among tertiary education students, as part of their Final Year Project.
Interfaith dialogue in Singapore had traditionally involved the ten major religious faiths. While non-religious Singaporeans are free to take part in interfaith dialogues, the non-religious are not represented in major interfaith bodies such as the IRO and the IRCC.
As of 2010, non-religious Singaporeans account for 17 per cent of the resident population, a slight rise from 13 per cent in 1990. PATHS recognised this gap in interfaith representation and made a special effort to include the irreligious in their interfaith project, which lasted over their last two semesters in NTU across 2014 and 2015.
The project involved youth representatives from the Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Baha’i and Jewish communities. The group chose the name “paths” as a way to include a wider range of beliefs, such as humanism, which many do not consider a religious faith.
Photo: Paul (far left) with representatives from various faiths (back row)
PATHS and the HSS held informal discussions in the early part of this year to plan our involvement. In February, we invited PATHS to our Darwin Day 2015 at the Singapore Botanical Gardens, where we held some games related to science and nature. PATHS did a great video of our activities and interviewed one of our humanist youth members, Pearl Lin. Here’s a recap:
In the video, Pearl explained who humanists are, the importance of Darwin Day and science to the humanist community, and what are her greatest concerns as a humanist. She also shared her dreams to join an NGO and tackle issues such as child trafficking and women’s rights.
PATHS campaign ended in March in an event called Let’s Talk About Paths on March 21, 2015, where representatives from various religious faiths gave a speech describing an aspect of their faith. The audience comprised mainly of students from various tertiary institutions, from various religious backgrounds.
We were represented by Paul Tobin, our President. In his talk, Paul gave an introduction to the key tenets of humanism, how he was born into a Catholic family but gave up the faith and became a humanist. Towards the end, he explained how he introduced moral thinking and the difficulty of moral dilemmas to his children. He also revealed a list of books he bought for his children. The key thrust of Paul’s speech was to dispel misconceptions that people cannot be good without believing in God or a higher power.
This collaboration has allowed HSS to present the humanist community and the irreligious to the bigger society, especially youth in local tertiary institutions. The HSS would like to thank PATHS for their engagement and we hope there will be similar opportunities to engage Singapore’s youth in the future.
You can follow PATHS on their Facebook page.
