About the Humanist Society
In July of 1939, a group of Quakers, after reading the 1933 Humanist Manifesto and being greatly moved by it, made the big decision to leave the Quaker movement and become part of the new Humanist movement. In its tenets, they saw the promise of a genuine marriage between science and ethics that would put into action a new kind of religion and forge a new understanding of the word "religion".
Humanism was to them a concept echoing the admonition voiced by Sir Morley of England, who said: "The next great task of Science is the building of a new religion," and which affirmed the thoughts of Sir Julian Huxley in his book Evolution in Action, where he wrote of "Evolutionary Humanism" as "perhaps capable of becoming the germ of a new religion ... justified by facts."
It was therefore with the goal in mind that this small band of former Quakers were responsible in 1939 for incorporating under the state laws of California the "Humanist Society of Friends" as a religious, educational, charitable nonprofit organization authorized to issue charters anywhere in the world, and to train and ordain its own ministry, who upon ordination were then accorded the same rights and privileges granted by law to the priests, ministers, and rabbis of traditional theistic religions.
The organization works as a subsidiary of the American Humanist Association to certify qualified members to serve in this special capacity, having assumed the duties of the American Humanist Association's former Division of Humanist Counseling.
In 2003 the organization's board voted to removed the "of friends" portion of the title in order to foster growth and new groups.
In communities all over, individuals certified to our unique ministry stand ready to provide ceremonial observances of the significant occasions of life.