This is a leaflet which I wrote explaining in simple terms what humanism is and the benefits of being a humanist. If you belong a humanist group, you may find it helpful for designing a marketing leaflet of your own:

Humanism says we only live once.

Humanism is about living the one life we have well.

The religions say we live twice. They believe we have an afterlife where we are rewarded or punished depending on how we have behaved. They believe after death we spend countless millions of years in bliss or torture (the Western religions) or are constantly reincarnated (the Eastern religions). But there’s no evidence at all for any of these beliefs – and that’s simply because they are all made up.

Understandably, millions of people want to believe that they will have an afterlife. However, the reality is that we evolved from the animals and, exactly like them, after we die nothing happens.

If you become a one-life humanist, this is how your life will change for the better:

1       It is because there is no afterlife that humanism is the only way of life. You have the pride and great advantage of following the only way of life which is correct

2       Humanism is exciting, because your life then becomes much more precious. You will want to enjoy it more. You will try to improve the quality of your life. You will want to take more care of your health, especially when you are older.

3       Humanism makes you want to get on better with others. With only one life, we have to get on with each other.

4       This means you must respect the views of other people with whom you don’t agree. Being tolerant is a vital aspect of being a humanist. If religion makes people happy and so improves the quality of their one and only life, then this is a good thing.

5       You do have a true afterlife – you live on through your children. When you realise this, your children become very much more important. Good parenting is essential. We would like good parenting taught in schools. We would like schools to have more moral education and less religious education.

6       Because our children are our real afterlife, we have a duty to leave behind a better world for them. Humanists have always been active in social reform.

7       Your moral codes become based on what is best for now. Humanists disregard all the holy books written centuries ago in other countries and cultures which are now quite inappropriate for modern times. For example, we don’t like their views on the status of women, gay people and slaves. This gives humanists a major advantage over religious people.

8       You believe in full equality for women. Oxfam says 70% of the world’s poor are women, due to discrimination. Humanism is much better for women because of its emphasis on equal rights, moral education, tolerance, avoidance of religious conflict, the importance of children and social reform based on today’s circumstances, eg abortion, euthanasia and contraception.

9       Humanism is also better for children, because they are not divided up by being labelled from birth as being Jewish, Hindu, Catholic, Muslim and so on.

10    Humanism is non-ethnic, non-sectarian and non-religious, so it unites people. The religions, by contrast, divide people. Each one claims to be ‘true’, so you get holy wars, fatwas, separate faith schools and fundamentalism. Humanism has none of these.

11    You incline towards pacifism. We have only one life, so why waste it in a war.