attempts to establish a new moral compass

I have found myself in recent days bombarded my impositions of faith, beliefs in some destiny guided by an invisible hand that has a grand plan. From people around to my own students who seem bent on getting me to believe in that absurd fiction known as Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life."

In reaction to these things I am coming slowly to the resolution to attempt to write about values in this blog. It may come as a surprise, but I do believe in values, and I do believe in morals. However, I see the need to redefine our sets of values.

Most of us base our moral compasses on religious beliefs. I have been feeling that the religious fervor can often lead to a loss of perspective. If you want a full chronicling of the negative effects of religion then look no further than Dawkins' The God Delusion.

I feel that this is a good time to try and reorient our moral compasses. But instead of religious belief being our north, I want us to focus on humanist belief. It's difficult to define this, I know. I would like the idea of the humanist belief approach to essentially mean that we make our decisions not based on the belief that there is something bigger out there we don't understand who dictates whether we get life eternal in paradise but rather that we make our decisions for the better of this world and for the advancement of the human race. I know it seems vague, but as I make entries reacting to various situations that attempt to make us reconsider our moral orientations then I hope that I too will be able to establish guidelines through situations and applications.