"If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul."

--Isaac Asimov

I've never been particularly careful about what label I placed on my beliefs. I believe in the scientific method and the rule of reason as a way of understanding the natural Universe. I don't believe in the existence of entities that cannot be reached by such a method and such a rule and that are therefore "supernatural." I certainly don't believe in the mythologies of our society, in Heaven and Hell, in God and angels, in Satan and demons. I've thought of myself as an "atheist," but that simply described what I didn't believe in, not what I did.

Gradually, though, I became aware that there was a movement called "humanism," which used that name because, to put it most simply, Humanists believe that human beings produced the progressive advance of human society and also the ills that plague it. They believe that if the ills are to be alleviated, it is humanity that will have to do the job. They disbelieve in the influence of the supernatural on either the good or the bad of society, on either its ills or the alleviation of those ills.

I received a copy of the "Humanist Manifesto" decades ago when I was still quite young. I read its statement of the principles of humanism, found that I agreed with them and signed it. When, in the 1970s, an updated statement, "Humanist Manifesto II," was sent me, I agreed with it and signed it as well. That made me an avowed Humanist . . .

My humanism doesn't extend merely to the signing of statements, of course. I have written essays by the dozen that support scientific reasoning and in which I denounce all kinds of pseudoscientific trash. In particular, I have argued vehemently against those religious Fundamentalists who back the Babylonian worldview of the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. These essays have appeared in a number of places, even in the June 14, 1981, issue of The New York Times Magazine.

I also wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Times in which I disputed strenuously (and with justice, I think) the views of a prominent astronomer who published a book in which he maintained that the Big Bang theory was somehow anticipated by the biblical writers of Genesis and that astronomers were hesitant to accept the Big Bang because they didn't want to support the conventional religious view.

I expanded that Op-Ed piece into a book, In the Beginning, in which I went over every verse in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, in as evenhanded and unemotional a method as possible, and compared the literal interpretation of its language with the modern beliefs of science. It was published by Crown in 1981.

Then, of course, there was my earlier two-volume Asimov's Guide to the Bible---written from a strictly humanist point of view.

All this resulted in the American Humanist Association selecting me as the "Humanist of the Year" in 1984, and I went to Washington to receive the honor and to speak to the group on April 20, 1984. It was a small group, of course, for we Humanists are few in number. At least, those of us who are willing to identify ourselves as Humanists are few. I suspect that huge numbers of people of Western tradition are Humanists as far as the way they shape their lives is concerned, but that childhood conditioning and social pressures force them to pay lip service to religion and do not allow them even to dream of admitting that it is only lip service.

Previous "Humanists of the Year" included Margaret Sanger, Linus Pauling, B. F. Skinner, Carl Sagan, Benjamin Spock, Andrei Sakharov, and a number of others of equal note, so I was in select company.

I gave a humorous talk on the occasion, dealing with the kinds of letters I received from religionists, letters that went to the extreme of praying for my soul, on one hand, to that of consigning me to Hell, on the other. The talk was a huge success; too huge, for it meant that I was eventually asked to become president of the American Humanist Association.

EPILOGUE
by Janet Asimov

One of the deep desires of a human being is to be known and understood. Hamlet instructs Horatio to tell his story. A child asks to be told a story and is most thrilled when the one he hears has a character like himself in it.

In May 1990, Isaac ended his autobiography with hope, although he knew that he didn't have long to live. He hoped for several more years, but his heart and kidney failure worsened and he died on April 6, 1992.

Isaac wanted this autobiography published right away, so that he could see the book before he died, but this was not done. He also told me that he wanted the book arranged the way it is, in "scenes" written down as they came up in his memory.

Robyn and I were there when he died, holding his hands and telling him we loved him. His last complete sentence was: "I love you too."

I want to retell something I told Harlan Ellison about an incident from Isaac's last week at home. Isaac couldn't talk much, and was asleep most of the time, but once he woke up looking terribly anxious.
He said to me, "I want . . . I want . . . "
"What is it, Isaac?" I asked.
"I want . . . I want . . . "
"What do you want, darling?'
It seemed to burst out of him. "I want---Isaac Asimov!"
"Yes," I said. "That's you."
Then he said wonderingly, and with triumph, "I AM Isaac Asimov!"
I said, "And Isaac Asimov can rest now."
Isaac smiled happily, said "Okay," and fell asleep again.
Even near the end, his sense of humor was still there.
As I said in the memorial service, Robyn, Stan, his wife Ruth, and I were all in Isaac's hospital room the day before he died. I said to him, "Isaac, you're the best there is."
Isaac smiled and shrugged. Then, with a mischievous lift of his eyebrows, he nodded yes, and we all laughed.

Isaac was genuinely proud and happy about his accomplishments.

Isaac said, "I don't feel self-pity because I won't be around to see any of the possible futures. Like Hari Seldon, I can look at my work all around me and I'm comforted. I know that I've studied about, imagined, and written down many possible futures---it's as if I've been there."

Once when Isaac and I talked about old age, illness, and death, he said it wasn't so terrible to get sick and old and to die if you've been part of life completing itself as a pattern. Even if you don't make it to old age, it's still worthwhile, there's still pleasure in that vision of being part of the pattern of life---especially a pattern expressed in creativity and shared in love.

From the book, I. Asimov: A Memoir