Secular Humanism Author: Louis Reyneke Last Trumpet Teaching Ministry 1 Thessalonians 4:16 - For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God. www.lasttrumpet.co.za Secular humanism Secular Humanist Theology • No deity will safe us, we must save ourselves. Humanists consider all forms of supernaturalism as myths, to them God falls in the category of dragons and fairies. This implies that nature and the material is everything. • Humanists are behind the move to throw Christianity out of the educational system, under the guise of separating church and state. • Education never takes place in a moral or philosophical vacuum. • If the larger question about human existence is not asked within the Judeo-Christian framework, they will be addressed with another philosophical or religious framework that is definitely not neutral. • Humanism cannot in any fair sense apply to any one who still believes in God as the source and creator of the universe. (Paul Kurtz) • Humanists maintain that the idea of a sovereign creator God was a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotism. • Despotism: Absolute power; authority unlimited and uncontrolled by men, constitution or laws, and depending alone on the will of the prince; as the despotism of a Turkish sultan. • The next humanists believe is that man has no eternal soul and that immortality and life after death is a hoax. This atheistic viewpoint is clearly the cest pool out of which immorality and relative values are watered. • Humanists must of necessity seek the fulfillment of man in the here and now of this world. This is indeed the ultimate self-serving belief. The humanist believes that man is supreme authority. • According to the humanist manifesto there is no first cause, or creator of the universe but the universe is self-existing. • To the humanist God is man deified. Instead of God creating the cosmos, the cosmos individualized in the form of human beings giving reign to their imagination, created God. • Like cosmic humanism the humanists claims that modern science proofs the fallacy of the Bible. To John Dewey, science and scientific methods have exiled God and the supernatural to the dustbins of history. • The shift in anthropology, psychology, science and literary criticism is not the result of new and more accurate scientific evidence, but is clearly the result of an atheistic, naturalistic belief system. • To humanists, the Christian notion of lost and saved sheep is spiritual aristocracy and high arrogance. It is important to note that the anti- God theology of the humanist strips him of any purpose for living besides self-gratification. In his effort to deify himself, the humanist in actual fact demoted himself to a slave of his own appetites and desires. Secular humanist philosophy 1 • Humanism is naturalistic and rejects the supernaturalistic stance with its postulated creator-God and cosmic Ruler. • Humanists are hesitant to label their philosophy, since specifically defining the humanist position would imply that they believe that absolute truth exists. • Humanists list a variety of philosophies like materialism, naturalism, organicism and other “scientific theories that fit their worldview – each holding the same tenet: the material world is all there is. • Nature may be indeed broader and deeper than we know; any new discoveries, however, will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural – whatever exists can be explained by natural causes; the supernatural cannot exist. • Materialism denotes the same general attitude towards the universe as Naturalism. • Darwinian evolution formed the basis for materialism. Materialism does not believe in anything that goes beyond the five senses and the material universe and that cannot be explained by science and laws. • Evolution is the father of determinism witch states that any theory held by any man is the product of certain physical structures of the holder- perhaps in the brain and body chemistry. All ideas of true and moral would only be the result of random motions of atoms in the brain. • There can be no science of human behavior because human behavior is unpredictable. • Evolution is also the father of relativism which state that truth is relative to the person, no ultimate truth exist and what is true for you is not necessarily true for me. Relativism denies the existence of a moral and eternal soul and is Satan’s attack on the moralality of man. If everything is relative then society becomes amoral and there can be no such thing as right or wrong. The logical consequence is that every opinion is equally valid and this is praised as broad-mindedness. • If materialism is all there is then occultism or any form of spirituality is simply a delusion. • Whatever hope is placed in the laws of science on a venture into what is clearly spiritual is nothing but suicidal. • Scientism is the exaltation of science that gives it unquestioned and final authority so that it is the religion of the materialist. Scientism is the psychological dominance of a materialistic philosophy into hardened dogma, masquerading as truth and authentic. • Rather than admit a personal God science chose mysticism and postulates an impersonal force behind creation. Mysticism is at the root of the new age and is the process by witch a personal God is denied and described as a force only to be later replaced by the angel of light. • The Greek mindset is conditioned to accept a scientific explanation and terminology for everything. The respectability of science gives mysticism and the occult the wide acceptance it receives even from the conservatives. • The objective of the devil is to emotionalize and mythologize science so that in effect a belief in the demonic will creep in while the “scientific mind” remains closed to any belief in God or the spirit realm. 2 The spiritual is once again explained by evolution to be a highly evolved species that tries to make contact with man. • The belief that man has unlimited and untapped human potential or that he can contact higher evolved beings through scientific methods makes him in real terms a “Materialistic Magician”. • Science is still on the throne and tries to keep materialism alive in a non-physical realm where it has no authority; this is a recipe for deception and ultimate disaster. • Men are set free from shortsighted materialism only to be caught and swallowed up in the occult. • With science as the front devils can bring a whole new perspective on reality and truth to the world. • Power to everybody brings greater conflict not peace. • In most Eastern thinking gods are purveyors of energy and finally impersonal. The god is the vehicle of its energy and the energy involved determines the character of the god. • If there is no God there is consequently no moral obligation towards Him. Everything is relative to the view and experience of the person and there is no right or wrong. If there is no right or wrong then it follows that every body’s opinion must be of equal value. This is new age broadmindedness that discriminates only against those with fixed Biblical principals. This is in actual fact the worst kind of narrow mindedness because it eliminates all other points of view. The broad- minded desire to refuse nothing and embrace everything denies the very real distinction between opposing views and impolitely refuses to take them seriously. • If the devil cant destroy men by giving them each unlimited power to do so, he will encourage them to each have their own way at the cost of everybody else because after all who’s to say that we cant gratify ourselves. This is real democracy (demoncracy) that insists on the rights of the immoral. • Universalism: The belief that all people will eventually receive eternal life. Many different groups hold to universalism from various perspectives and for diverse (and sometimes opposing) reasons. This doctrine can be found among liberal Protestants and Catholics, the New Age, and most non-monotheistic world religions. • Evolution – relativism – pantheism – universalism • The new age wants to make everything in the Bible physical laws (Christian science) and not moral law. Physical laws empower men while moral laws demand from men. • The gospel of the occult is the promise of power to take charge of one’s own life and get out of life what one desires. It cannot solve the moral bankruptcy of man. • Science of the mind teaches that God is a supreme, creative universal power and that man controls his destiny by mental processes. • Naturalism: all events follow scientifically explicable laws of cause and effect. The belief that there exist scientific procedures for the release of spiritual energy. It is another version of scientism. • Christian science: the belief that the Bible holds formulas that are spiritual laws that when applied produce wealth, health and power. 3 • Positive confession: the charismatic version of Christian Science and naturalism. The belief that faith is a law that activates the Force of faith. • New Thought: Similar to Christian Science theology, however, it usually maintains the reality of matter. Rejects Christ as a person by explaining that the Christ is only a principle. New Thought believes the universe is “mental”, God is “energy” and prayer is the scientific technique to release God energy by applying laws. • God is not part of creation and bound to the laws that He established to govern and maintain it. God is outside of His creation and supernaturally acts and intervenes against the laws that govern the material world. • Those who try to pin God down to a set of rules and laws are motivated by a materialistic mindset.