The American Humanist Association (AHA) is an educational organization in the United States that advances Humanism, a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms the ability and responsibility of human beings to lead personal lives of ethical fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity. The mission of the American Humanist Association is to be a clear, democratic voice for Humanism in the United States, to increase public awareness and acceptance of Humanism, to establish, protect and promote the position of humanists in our society, and to develop and advance humanist thought and action.
The American Humanist Association was founded in 1941 and currently provides legal assistance to defend the constitutional rights of secular and religious minorities, actively lobbies Congress on church-state separation and progressive issues, and maintains a grassroots network of 150 local affiliates and chapters that engage in social activism, philosophical discussion and community-building events. The AHA has several publications, including the award-winning bi-monthly magazine The Humanist, a quarterly newsletter Free Mind, a peer-reviewed semi-annual scholastic journal Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, and a weekly Internet magazine Humanist Network News. AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and Patheos.
Read more about American Humanist Association: Early History, Adjuncts and Affiliates, Advertising Campaigns, National Day of Reason, Famous Awardees, AHA's Humanists of The Year
Famous quotes containing the words american, humanist and/or association:
“Other centuries had their driving forces. What will ours have been when men look far back to it one day? Maybe it won’t be the American Century, after all. Or the Russian Century or the Atomic Century. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, Phil, if it turned out to be everybody’s century, when people all over the world—free people—found a way to live together? I’d like to be around to see some of that, even the beginning.”
—Moss Hart (1904–1961)
“Each of us, even the lowliest and most insignificant among us, was uprooted from his innermost existence by the almost constant volcanic upheavals visited upon our European soil and, as one of countless human beings, I can’t claim any special place for myself except that, as an Austrian, a Jew, writer, humanist and pacifist, I have always been precisely in those places where the effects of the thrusts were most violent.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)