I am wondering whether or not secular humanism is replacing (or displacing) other religions as the unspoken "religion of choice" for the United States and Western Europe.

What Is Secular Humanism?


It treats all other religions (those that are based upon faith, at least) with a "high degree of skepticism".

The principles above seem to be gaining a lot of popularity these days.

My question for debate: Do you think that secular humanism will eventually replace all other (or most other) forms of religion in the United States?

A lot of that is what Jesus spoke about and He was considered a radical and a blasphemer in His day!

Read Matthew 9:14-17 and 21:23-23:39

I think Jesus would have a real problem with :

Faith was the essence of Christ's teachings. That no amount of good works were sufficient to be saved. That only through faith can one come to salvation.

I'm referring to his conversations with the Pharasis and how He was the New Covenant and that the old Laws were obsolete. That traditions were being turned into regimented paths to salvation and that salvation came through selfless love.

I said but not ALL of it.

[quote=amlord,Jul 3 2003, 07:24 PM] [/QUOTE]
Faith was the essence of Christ's teachings. That no amount of good works were sufficient to be saved. That only through faith can one come to salvation. [/quote]
I have studied some of these issues and here is my humble opinion.
First, Jesus didn't say he was displacing the old covenant, and he expected us to still obey the laws of God. He just simplified them by saying that we should love God and our fellow man and that all other laws are hinged on those 2 concepts.
Second, there are only about a dozen scriptures that say faith alone will do it, and all are by Paul. There are hundreds by Jesus (and his original desciples) that say works are important as that is what we will be judged on in the final days. To say that faith alone is all that is required for salvation would make you a follower of Paul, not Christ. Paul was not around when Jesus was teaching, so it makes sense that those who were with him would have a better idea of what his message was. Paul was the church's greatest missionary and without him Christianity may have died out or remained as a cult within the Jewish faith, but lets not allow his teachings to override the teachings of Christ. And if you take into consideration who Paul was talking to at the time, it is clear that he is talking to a small group within the very early Christian church (still a sect within the Jewish faith) who thought that following the Mosaic laws (including the many rules that cannot be directly attributed to God) was all that is required. There are also scriptures by Paul that say works are needed. (I have a list if you are interested, but it is on my home computer and I won't be home til August)
No amount of good works, ALONE, will do it, true, but that is not an excuse to ignore the many exhortations given to us by Jesus to do good. Christ died as an atonement, and it is a gift to us, but a gift not accepted is an insult, and those who think that they can be selfish, greedy, cruel, etc. and still gain salvation are fools.
It isn't an either/or situation, it is an AND situation. Saying you believe in Christ, then living contrary to his teachings is not going to get you there.
I think that the early church (Catholic) has seriously misunderstood, if not corrupted, the teachings of Jesus. And after the first few decades, it was a LOT of corruption. I give credit to the Catholic church for owning up to many of their mistakes over the centuries, but they and many of the Fundamental type protestants have seriously distorted the concepts that Jesus tried to teach.
Current protestants are being misled by those preachers who "guide" scripture studies to make sure that we get out of the good book only what they want us to get. I think most of them are the false shepherds that Jesus warned about.
Secular Humanism sounds like combining the best of Enlightenment with the best of religion, which is fine by me. If we apply reason to the teachings of religion, perhaps we can dispose of some of the errors introduced by misguided or corrupt religious leaders.

Bill55az,

You have a mastery of the writtern word, I'm jealous.
I agree with you 100% and I'd just like to add that Jesus was the Lamb, the ultimate sacrifice, negating the need for the Jews to sacrifice animals to honor God. So, by that he did eliminate the old covenant, the old laws, BUT not the 10 commandments.

Already has.

Surprisingly, I find myself in complete disagreement with Platypus.

I would like "secular humanism" (or whatever you want to call this non-supernatural philosophy) to become the dominant belief system in this nation. I see no evidence of this happening.

(By the way, let me make it clear that I am only talking about the very first item on amlord's list. The other items seem much less controversial. Very few religious people are against human development, ethical behavior, the search for truth, and so on.)

Here are some statistics on religious belief in the USA, from Gallup polls. Note that there has only been a minor change in the answer to this question: "How important would you say religion is in your own life: Very important, fairly important, or not very important?" The percentage of those polled who chose "Not very important" reached a high of 15% in the first half of 2001, and has slowly been declining (at least up until 12/02.)

Polling Results: Religion

The United States is still a very religious nation, compared to other traditionally Christian nations. Look at the chart of various beliefs on this site:

Religious Beliefs in "Christian" Nations

I find this interesting:



Note also on this same page poll results from the UK:



This is unimaginable in the USA.

You know, I have to admit that the Religious Right is correct about one thing; this is a Christian nation, culturally, and it will remain so for a very long time. But I'll be damned (!) if I let them give it a Christian government.

I took a Philosophy of Religion class and the opening chapter of the text and the last one was Humanism as a substitute for theism. There is only one way that secular humanism can replace theism, for God to go into non-existance. Now as far as religions that have nothing to do with God you could take a good look at the Methodist, Lutheran, Angligan, and even Catholic clergy and practitioners. You will find that atheism and agnostsism are prevelant if not dominant. I'm convinced that just as in Europe the secular humanism that rejects a prayer hearing, benevolent, morally perfect God, who will judge you on the last day, has dominated the American religious scene for at least 50 years. I have come to realize that even though the metaphysics of theistic thought are impecable the irrationalist of the modern secular world is the god of this age.

Will it??? It allready has. Throughout the 30s and 40s atheists and agnostics embedded themselves into Seminaries and Ministers were trained to simply ignore the supernatural. The fundamentalist (revialist) is the product of a culture that has hijacked the cultural centers and enshrined mechanistic assumptions in the form of empirical scientific metaphysics. Praise experimentum crucis! But thats just my opinion.

Anarchy:


Say what? I have an aunt who is a Methodist minister. I wouldn't say she has "nothing to do with God." I've met some Christians who define "true" Christianity as being as narrow as the walls of their particular church. It's a delusion, but it probably makes them feel really special.


No, you won't. As I'm sure any Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, or Catholics on this board will tell you.

I think that in spite of the fact that so many people still feel themselves to be religious, their beliefs about religion, and their adherence to religious practice are increasingly vague. Anarchy is right, in a sense. The Cartesian "clockwork" has become our prevailing perceptual metaphor, and while that is in itself not incompatible with religion, it probably has a tendency to lead people to a more secular understanding of the universe. Of course the dualism of Descartes' perceptual model has already been supplanted in science by quantum physics; the perceptual model based on "probability" and interconnecting energy will slowly (and hopefully) take over the cartesian model for most of the populace. In this new way we are seeing the universe using a perceptual metaphor that takes us beyond blunt secularism, and beyond pyramidal religion as well. If "secular humanism" is openly concerned with seeking "truth," it will be far more adaptable to perceptual and scientific evolution than most religions.

I certainly hope so.

Shoot, secular humanism is old hat, sooooo last century.

But the flim flammers who sell their churchs sure don't want anyone to think that way. Why? Cuz it horns into their business, that's why.

Judging by the number of established churches and strip mall churches and street corner hawkers, nope, secular humanism didn't take over.

Rather, I've seen people making up their own interpretations of whatever they feel to be spiritual. Church authority has probably gone under, but joining together to worship is still very alive and well.

I think that's a basic human need.

There's still the need to cram something down other folks' throats, too.

Something that secular humanism has given us is the will to solve big problems. Instead of waiting around for Armageddon, we know that nothing will get done unless we do it. At least generally speaking. There are still folks who don't care and actually get all excited that the end of the world may be near.

I call that "spiritual denial."

One could only hope so, life as i see it today does not stand much of a chance at makeing it without the abilty to open ones mind and finding truth. The little ideas of secular humanism are so glowing with things to like about it that really gets most people into it in the first place. More or less i think this philosphy was going to come around as society evolved at anyrate. The sad thing is its leaders and or people in general will be looked upon with distain by the religious right.

I have noticed that humanistic philosophy (secular or religious) has a problem explaining the origin of evil and how to deal with it.

I think once humanists have plausible explanations for these, more people will flock to humanistic thinking.

How would a humanist explain 9/11 and the willingness of some to snuff out their lives while taking other, innocent lives as well? Or is that a topic for a new thread?

(edited for spelling)

Evil to you, hero to others. Sad as it is, its true. You cant defeat the worlds problems by living in ignorance, i think this speaks for itself on a daily basis. If you live by a system of laws, such as in a religion, it gives you a way to see the world, then closes of the rest. So in essence, a closed mind then is evil, at least to me.

So is humanism's answer to the problem of evil that evil does not actually exist? That it's okay for other people to kill innocents if they think it's okay, so it's really not evil?

Is acknowledging the existence of evil in the world evidence of a closed mind? Or is not seeing the evil of an action evidence of a closed mind?

Put it this way, how much do you know about the whole thing, them and all the reasons they have for what they did. And point being this same reason of thought is the thing that enabled them to do what they did, dont you see, they were the good guys, and were killing the evil. Then they became the evil and we are the good guys, or something along those lines. Does evil exist, sure it does, but what is it then. You can define evil as homosexuals, and some on this sight will agree with you, or communists are evil, or zionist jews are evil, or america is evil, and so on and so on, the reality of a group and or person, and thier individual logic means nothing compared to each other. Its that, that is the ignorance, and closed minded nature of people that is harmful overall to all people. The philosphy of secular humanism seeks to banish this in human reality, by really trying to understand what the problems are. This is why i like it, and others do to.

This is an excellent question, and deserves a thoughtful answer.
From a secular viewpoint, the problem of evil is a very complex one.

First of all, one must define evil. It seems to me that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to avoid relativism of morality based on the situation. The classic example would be stealing a loaf of bread to avoid starving. To be sure, there are many actions which would considered to be evil in almost any imaginable situations. The first step, then, is to carefully judge good and evil, and to be willing to acknowledge that the border between them is fuzzy and changable, and that errors in judgement will be made.

Secondly, the explanation for why evil exists involves many factors. (As a side issue, we might address the question of why "evils" other than those caused by human beings exist. Humanism has a simple answer: the universe doesn't care. ) Human evils exist for many reasons. Some people are insane, and do evil without understanding what they are doing. In general, this involves abnormalities in brain function, and can be considered as a "natural" evil, like diseases. Some people unintentionally do evil by mistake, simply because people are imperfect. Some people -- perhaps almost all of us -- do evil because we are weak, and do bad things, or avoid doing good things, due to fear or desire. They generally feel regret. Again, this is a form of imperfection. More difficult to understand are those persons who do what appears to be deliberate evil with no sense of remorse. One can suggest that these persons have failed to learn empathy for some reason. With regard to the crimes of 9/11, and similar acts of evil, it seems evident that these persons have been educated in a belief system which results in a grotesque distortion of what most reasonable persons would accept as a proper sense of good and evil. Ideological terrorists of every sort sincerely believe they are doing good.

Thirdly, the problem of human evil will never be solved until humanity dies out. The best one can do is to minimize it. People should be properly socialized and educated to have at least a minimum sense that others are worthy of consideration. Transgressions should be dealt with in a manner proportionate to the offense. (Minor offenses might require education or restitution; major offenses might require stronger restrictions and/or punishments.) Mental illness which results in acts of evil should be treated medically, or in other ways. Most importantly, in my mind, a reasonable amount of self-doubt shoud be regarded as a virtue. People without any doubt at all are best regarded as dangerous fanatics. If I may be allowed to parody the words of a well-known pop song:

What the world needs now
Is doubt, sweet doubt.
That's the only thing
That we can't survive without.

Defining evil is impossible unless it is the absense of that which is good. What is good can be defined apart for evil just as darkness is the absense of light evil is the absense of God.

We need a qualifying term that identifies God who exists and another one that identifies the existance that is apart from God. Christian scholars usually identify B as creation and it is usually defined in materialistic terms while God is defined in terms of 'eternal power and divine nature' (Romans 1:20). God's eternal power (omnipotence) and God's essential goodness (divine nature) are a kind of paradox. In theodicy there is what is consider by some to be a direct contradiction. In order for this to be necessarily so God's eternal power and divine nature have to be clearly define in such a way as not to allow evil to exist. There is one major problem with this, evil is defined by the absense of good. Just as darkness is defined by the absense of light. Light has identifiable qualities that can be isolated and examined individually. Darkness is the void and when measured is found to be exactly nothing.

There are attributes that God has that are communicable and some that are not. There is the availablity of limited (natural) revelation of God's invisible qualities but true knowledge is not the same as complete knowledge. What we know about God is limited to general principles like:

Gods aseity (independance),
Gods eternal nature (without begining or end),
God's essential goodness (describes as light without shadow)
God's perfect knowledge (omnipotence)

God is both good and omnipotent by definition. So if evil is a substantive reality then why has no one defined the term in terms of evil as something in and of itself? Murder is evil because you have taken someones life. I can reach over here and get a five point scientific definition for life in my biology book that any Biologist will agree with. When you murder someone you are not giving them death, you are taking their life. Death is the absense of life, darkness is the absense of light, and evil is the absense of good and there are degrees.

Death is the absense of life:

Just as there are degrees in life, light, and goodness there are degrees of God's presense. In God's immediate presense there is no darkness, death or evil, its a physical impossibility. In free will we have a choice as to whether of not we pursue evil but none whatsoever with regards to what goodness (virtue, purity, life) is.

Yep, could be a good topic for another thread.

Let me take a secular humanist swag at evil.

First off, evil is relative to your position in the universe. It may be evil that a bolt of lightening strikes you, but lightening is a part of nature and is thus neutral about hitting you. However, a deist would say that God got *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** at you. So God did something evil to you, but that goes against the definition of God.

Eh, contradiction never stopped a deist.

So the origination of evil is point of view, from the secular humanist stance.

I'm not sure if you've considered this, but what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Was bombing two entire cities more evil than 9/11? Then there's Dresden. But let's not complicate things with that.

Deists might argue that 9/11 was God's revenge on a nation that bombed two entire cities. Or not. Depends on the deist's position in the world. Then there's the little thing about meddling in the ME, but again, let's not complicate the situation.

So the continuation of evil is also an issue of viewpoint, from the secular humanist's *and* the deist's sides of things.

It's just that one side admits to this and the other does not.

So, when an event like 9/11 happens, the secular humanist looks for cause/effect relationships while the deist makes connections with evil spiritual forces.

Which philosophical stance has a better chance at avoiding future events like 9/11?

Aye, now there's a good question.

Stick to THIS TOPIC or I close this thread.

AP - your condenscending responses do nothing to further this debate and have inflammed a few members here.

The post from Wertz has been removed. It was NOT an official policy statement.

CLOSED. This thread is no longer a constructive debate.

Maybe we can all try this one again sometime in the future. My apologies to you, Amlord. I despise having to do this.