Natural Humanists discourage competitiveness in every area of life. They believe all human beings should be encouraged to reach their full potential throughout their childhoods, and throughout their adult lives, and should be celebrated for all of their efforts and every one of their achievements. However, they believe that nobody should ever consider themselves, or be considered by other people, to be in any way ‘better’ than other people because of the knowledge, skills, confidence or power that they attain as a result of this, because, to Natural Humanists, every single human being will always be of equal value.
They believe in always celebrating what’s truly valuable to human beings, to the planet, or to other living things, but never valuing anything that lacks this true value. Consequently, they don’t celebrate any human trait that’s considered toxic in today’s world, including competitiveness, vanity, aggression, and a failure to recognise that all humans are of equal value; toxic traits which are common in many sports, and which teams can often actively promote.
They believe that all human beings should actively attempt to include other people, and should always avoid excluding anybody, for any reason. No parent should ever ‘disown’ one of their own children and, similarly, no human being should ever disown a member of the global human family.
They believe that all human beings are on the ‘same team’, so should never compete against each other, unless it’s essential for them to do so for their survival.
They acknowledge that ‘unity is strength’ and that, in all areas of life, if we’re all ‘pulling in the same direction’, then there is very little that we can’t collectively achieve, for all our benefit.
They’re opposed to the existence of any type of ‘team’ which excludes people not considered to be ‘good enough’ to be part of it. They’re also opposed to competitiveness, which they believe is part of a now inappropriate primitive genetic drive to survive, by meeting our own individual needs, by denying others the ability to meet theirs, which Natural Humanists believe, in today’s world, is rarely, if ever, appropriate.
They acknowledge the happiness that people can gain from watching and following football teams, and other competitive teams, but believe that the competitiveness of both the players and their supporters is unhealthy. They support the playing of all sports for fun and for improving individual transferable skills, particularly when any team members are chosen at random and change each time the sport is played, and possibly also at ‘half-time’ as well, to avoid team allegiances, and to encourage celebration of the game itself, and of cooperation with all ‘types’ of people, rather than focussing on supporting a specific team, which often involves being antagonistic towards members of the ‘opposing’ team.
They support individual-sports, as a way of increasing and celebrating human beings’ individual abilities, talents and capacity, but, again, discourage competitiveness, believing in celebrating players for who they are, and for what they achieve, rather than because they ‘won’, or are in some way ‘better than’ everybody else.
They disapprove of any sport with higher or lower leagues, or ‘knockout’ competitions, where some are seen as ‘good enough’ and therefore ‘win’, but others are considered not to be ‘good enough’ and ‘lose’.
They encourage talented players, and every human being, with any type of specialist skill or knowledge, to freely share these skills and knowledge with other people, to allow them to improve their own abilities, rather than guarding their knowledge and talents selfishly, to maintain their own relative superiority.
In other words, they believe that all human beings should view the development of any new skill, or the gaining of any new knowledge, as an important way of allowing both themselves and other people to develop, to grow and to achieve, so that they can all, collectively, become the best version of themselves.
Natural Humanists’ strong belief in equality, tolerance and cooperation, combined with their sensitivity to each other’s feelings, needs and wishes, and their objection to arrogance and to competitive teams, means that they usually object not only to competitive team sports, but also to nationalism, regionalism, racism, xenophobia, sexism, prejudice, or any other form of adverse discrimination, all of which they consider to be unhealthy and immoral.
They believe that all countries and regions of the world should always value both themselves, and each other, and should always actively cooperate, for the common good, not for the individual benefit of one, at the expense of the other.
They always favour compassion, cooperation and collaboration, rather than competitiveness, and they believe that all human beings should always be sensitive to each other’s needs, as well as their own, in every part of their lives, and should also try, whenever possible, to apply this thinking to every other natural species, all of which, like human beings, are part of the same global natural community.
Natural Humanists acknowledge that religion can lead to competitiveness, intolerance and even aggression, violence and war, because people are considered to be in the ‘wrong team’, rather than all human beings recognising their shared humanity, shared values and shared beliefs, while at the same time celebrating all of their many differences, and finding ways to happily and peacefully co-exist, as fellow human beings, for the benefit of the planet and every one of its inhabitants, of every species.
They acknowledge that both selfishness and competitiveness are part of our natural survival instinct, so are completely natural human behaviours, and they therefore avoid ever humiliating or abusing anybody when they exhibit behaviour caused by these instinctive drives. Instead, they believe that in today’s world, it’s behaviour that’s ‘toxic’, not people. Consequently, they try to encourage and support each other to leave competitiveness, and every other unhealthy, instinctive behaviour in humanity’s past, and to always celebrate each other’s efforts and achievements in doing so, because, to Natural Humanists, we’ll always be on the same team.