In October 2020, a new regional association of the HVD was founded in Munich. Last Saturday, December 5, 2020, the Council of Delegates of the HVD Federal Association unanimously accepted it as the new Bavarian state association. On behalf of the HVD Federal Association, Board Spokesman Erwin Kress explains: “We warmly welcome the new Bavarian state association to the ranks of our member organizations from now again 13 federal states. The HVD Federal Association will support the new state association to the best of its ability, especially in its start-up phase.”
The newly founded HVD Bayern consists of a young and agile team that wants to take the concept of practical humanism further into the public eye. Secular-humanist people in the Free State of Bavaria are to be offered a new home and place of work. In addition to a wide range of online services, the new regional association also plans to act as an innovative social organization.
For its part, the HVD Bavaria emphasized its desire for close cooperation with the Federal Association and the HVD regional associations and hopes to be able to benefit from the HVD’s many years of experience in humanistic-practical and political areas of work.
HVD Bayern: Reason, critical thinking and dialog
The chairman of the HVD Bayern is the philosopher and sceptic Dr. Nikil Mukerji, academic director of the executive course Philosophy Politics Economics (PPW) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. He is also Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Society for the Scientific Investigation of Parascience (GWUP) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hans Albert Institute. As he said at the founding event, Dr. Mukerji sees humanism as “a commitment to reason and critical thinking, a renunciation of esoteric, mystical and magical trains of thought as well as an ethic that respects the equal dignity of all people and is accessible to every rational person. These values cannot be taken for granted. Especially in this day and age, we must defend them again and again – against charlatans, pseudoscientists, conspiracy theorists and ideologues.”
The deputy chairwoman is the doctor Lydia Patzak. At the founding meeting, she explained that dialog with religious representatives is also important to her. “Only by working together peacefully will we be able to slow down climate change, take in people in need from war zones and overcome pandemics emotionally, socially and politically: learning from the past for the present, acting locally but thinking globally; resolving conflicts peacefully is crucial for the future.”
Adrian Beck, Commissioner for Internal and External Coordination at HVD Bayern, was a guest of the Council of Delegates, which performs the function of a general assembly. Beck emphasized that humanism must “provide the space in which humanity can find an answer together to the question of how it intends to continue to exist on this planet in the long term.”
Bringing together what belongs together
The Humanist Association of Germany was already represented by a regional association in Bavaria until 2019, but the former Bavarian regional association split from the HVD at the end of 2019. The HVD Federal Association, which very much regretted this development, is now all the more pleased that the Humanist Association of Germany is once again present in the Free State of Bavaria with the new ambitious regional association and will offer the secular-humanist people living there practical humanism.
The HVD Bayern website is still under construction, but interested parties can already get in touch: info@hvd.bayern.
