From: Tom Ferrick Subject: Re: Details for MITAAH panel event To: Matthew K Gray Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 13:59:54 -0400 Received: from PACIFIC-CARRIER-ANNEX.MIT.EDU by po10.MIT.EDU (5.61/4.7) id AA29264; Mon, 13 Apr 98 14:06:44 EDT Received: from camail1.harvard.edu by MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA25234; Mon, 13 Apr 98 14:07:10 EDT Received: from [128.103.225.40] (gpritz.harvard.edu) by camail1.harvard.edu (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-12719) with ESMTP id AAA8396 for ; Mon, 13 Apr 1998 13:59:54 -0400 X-Sender: tferrick@camail1.harvard.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Tom Ferrick's message of Fri, 6 Mar 1998 14:13:18 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lines: 25 Xref: john-muir.media.mit.edu personal.misc:4384 Dear Matthew I'm Tom Ferrick, the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, a post I founded and have held for over 20 years. Before that I had been a parish priest and a college Catholic chaplain. My office telephone is 495-5529 and mail goes to P.O. Box 1125, Cambridge, MA 02238. Some of the basic tenets of Humanism are that human beings are a natural part of the evolving life in the universe, that we each have a brain (therefore mind) that is commensurate with the reality in which it was formed; knowledge is therefore a survival mechanism. Humanists are monists, disbelieving in two separate worlds of spirit and matter. Mystery abounds but miracles are limited to the imaginative invention of humans. This would include all claims of supernatural revelation. The meaning, purpose, and morality of our lives are what we choose to say they are, philosophical foundations that provide us the surest form of self-identity. Concepts such as personal freedom, democratic justice, the envoronment, and (for art and humor) a sense of proportion are cornerstones of our world-view; there are more, of course. And humanism, being at home with science and history, is organic, every growing and shifting, and never precisely what one person today says it is. For now, that's all, folks!