Peter Dankwa delivered this speech on 30th August 2024 at the Social Night of the 2024 International Humanists Conference in Singapore.
To Be Or Not To Be ...
To be or not to be—that is the answer.
Don’t worry; if you continued, ‘That is the question,’ you are also right. It means you are familiar with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In Act 3, Scene 1, also known as the “nunnery scene” of the tragedy, Hamlet, after enduring a lot of calamities, utters to himself:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?
Many years ago, while I was still growing into the age of reason in a heavily religious community, I was restless to understand why everyone around me would always talk about God, living righteously, having faith, going to church, and the like.
Especially in Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, where in every corner you would find student Christian groups proselytising their faith unabashed. My impressionable mind was drawn to the promised passions, joy, tranquillity and confidence exuded in their behaviours.
Faith everywhere
Everyone was talking about faith, so I bought into it. It couldn’t be that bad, I thought to myself. But I had one problem! A question. A question that looked like an answer. I battled with this question for months. Eventually I approached my father, a respectable elder of the church.
What is faith? How does one have faith? Your guess is as good as mine. I was quoted Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The bandwagon
An answer that did not make sense no matter how many times I repeated it to myself. But whether to be or not to be was my dilemma. To be part or not to be part. Whether to join the bandwagon of faith and enjoy the goodies of faith or wallow in constant privation of what I could have been missing.
That’s how I became a Christian. Having Faith. Hoping for evidence. It was a nice feeling. Enjoying the joy, tranquillity and promise of eternal life. No wonder many folks would agree with Jonathan Swift that you cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.
I disagree. Though I didn’t reason myself into faith, I reasoned my way out.
Ironically, the constant hoping for evidence pushed me to demand evidence rather than simply hoping. To be or not to be wasn’t just a question. It had become an answer. The answer? To be myself, a human, dealing with reality.
That same spark of curiosity that I jumped into Christianity with, having suppressed questioning for cajoling emotional experiences, had now grown into a devouring flame of critical thinking. It had become quite impossible to brush off that innate penchant for asking questions, noticing seeming contradictions, and spotting fluff.
Fast forward to when I became a humanist and realized that I was guilty of the same behaviour—riding the emotional bandwagon of belonging rather than truly being one. It is easier to call yourself a humanist than to be a humanist. To be or not to be, that’s the answer. Humanists don’t make promises. We take action.
Thank you Humanists!
Hence, I want to say a big thank you to all humanists who take action. Humanists like Emma Wadsworth-Jones, Andrew Copson, Roslyn Mould, Javan Lev Poblador, Evan Clark, Kwabena Antwi Boasiako, Justice Okai-Allotey, Nora, Dr. Leo Igwe, Gary McLelland, Alavari Jeevatholto, Andrea Ruggeri, Nelson Sellasi Abitty, Gerda, Boris, Victoria, KJ, Peter Huber, Harrison Mumia, to name a few.
If you’re a humanist by name and not by deed, be reminded that humanism is not a philosophy just to be fantasized about. It is a philosophy that produces the changes we want to see in the progress of humanity.
It’s up to you. To be humanist or not to be humanist – that’s the answer.
What’s next in Peter’s Box? ¡Hasta luego amigos!
