What is the Ethical Society?
- A laboratory for personal growth
- A weekly rest from worldly cares
- A place to recollect one's real worth through tapping into a deeper connection
- A center for raising ethical children in truth and community
- A social spot to safely be oneself and reach out beyond oneself
- A center of discussion of current issues on which ethics has a bearing
- A spiritual home
- A wedding chapel
- An academy of free inquiry on the most significant questions of life
- A movement to "ethicize" all social reform movements
- A keeper of the ideal of an ethical world society
- A gateway to worthwhile ethical action in the world
- An organization to structure and invigorate all of these
- People affirming and supporting their highest aspirations
We truely aspire to bring out the best in others and thereby in ourselves.
Are you familiar with a church or synagogue? Well, an Ethical Society is like that, but with a distinct emphasis on ethical experience over dogma. Familiar with a temple or mosque? An Ethical Society is like that, but the Sunday gathering is not a matter of worship. It's a matter of "worthship." It's a matter of practicing the method of worth, seeing one another as beings of incalculable, incomparable worth, acting accordingly, and endeavoring to extend that practice to all humans, so that all are treated with dignity and respect.
At an Ethical Society, people sing, they laugh, they tell stories and listen to each other's stories, they sigh together, they read and talk and learn, they tolerate and even appreciate wide differences of opinion, they relax together, they rise up to fight injustice when it becomes clear to them that injustice is afoot.
An Ethical Society welcomes you at every stage and in every circumstance of life. At times of personal need, members support each other with caring and assistance. Facing the challenges that different conditions of life present (for example, being single, creating community, coupling, parenting, career and leadership development, retirement), or the challenges of going through transitions like divorce, sickness, unemployment, and other travails, members form educational workshops and support groups. Ethical Society Leaders are available to members for consultation and personal counseling. With ceremonies based in human experience we celebrate the seasons of the year and the personal meaning of birth, marriage, and death. Ethical Societies are laboratories where we learn how to face the discord in life and create harmony. Ultimately the Ethical Society becomes a state of mind, a state of character, and a set of relationships that keeps expanding outward.