“And Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go?  I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go’”  (Exodus 5:2).  The people of ancient Egypt worshipped many gods.  One of those gods was the king, or Pharaoh, a mere mortal man.  Pharaoh believed he was a god, with great power, because he had authority over a nation, and because his subjects believed he was a god.  He believed in his power so much, that nine of the ten plagues did not change his mind in regard to letting the children of Israel go.  But the last plague, death of the firstborn son, showed him who possessed a power far surpassing his own.  The Ancient Egyptians did what many in our own society are doing to corruptible man – deifying flesh and humanizing Deity.

 Humanism is indeed an old philosophy and religion.  Only today it has some new faces.  This modern secular humanism reaches into all facets of our society.  We can see it in our public schools, the media, government, Hollywood, business policies, and in the attitudes of our society.  It is such a compelling religion, it has reared its ugly head in the church of our dear Lord and Savior.  The fundamental idea behind this religion is that we, as human beings, have no superior in intellect.  Humanism seeks to remove the notion of a supreme being altogether.  The thing about this religion, is that you can believe in some of its principles and not believe in all of them, and still be considered a humanist.  As we look at this religion, let us consider a few things:  a definition of Secular Humanism, what this religion teaches, how the Bible defeats the tenets of this movement, and finally, why it is a danger to our society.

 Our words mean something.  It is how we communicate effectively.  However, words change meaning over a period of time, as they get used in differing contexts.  Let us take a look at how some of the meanings of certain words pertaining to our subject have changed over the course of time.
 

Terminology          Renaissance            Era Present

Humane          Non-Biblical Literature    Kind toward others

Humanitarian   A believer in Humanity    Philanthropist

Humanist         A scholar who studied    A believer in Non-Christian
                       Humane literature            Ideals, Values, and Concepts

Humanism       A love and respect for     A System of beliefs which
                       Ancient literature             excludes God and makes 
                                                             man supreme Judge over 
                                                              everything

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This chart shows us how these terms have been used in the past, and how they are used today.   When we talk about Humanism and the humanist today, we are talking about a system of beliefs that has removed God from reality, and a group of believers who are essentially atheists, and believe that human beings are the ultimate intelligence in existence.  We must be clear, however, the fact that someone believes in God does not mean he does not hold some humanist ideas.  We will see how this religion has even infiltrated the church.

On further study of the definitions of Humanism and humanitarianism, we see the following two definitions: a) the doctrine that man’s obligations are concerned wholly with the welfare of the human race; and b) the doctrine that mankind may become perfect without divine aid.   The latter of the two definitions is a telling one.  First of all, a system of beliefs that has order and “doctrines” is a religion.  Many philosophers and leaders of education and government see secular humanism as a religion.  In 1960 a court case involved a humanist who did not believe in God.  Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black ultimately declared Secular Humanism a religion along with Buddhism, Taoism and others.  Second, it is evident from the scriptures that God made man a spiritual being; he has the need to worship and be fulfilled spiritually.  Just because individuals struggle to remove the existence of God, they cannot deny their need to seek spiritual fulfillment. They just choose to worship humanity, the created, and not God, the Creator. 

Many who proclaim to be humanists also claim there is no God.  Atheist Corliss Lamont suggests the cosmos created gods by way of human imagination, instead of God creating the cosmos.  The reasoning is that nature created the supernatural, and not the supernatural created the natural.  Without God, of course, the humanist can live as he wishes, with no eternal consequences.  If nature is all that exists, when death occurs consciousness ceases to exist.  The fulfillment of their life, they claim, is in the present.  This life is it.  This line of thinking does all kinds of damage to authority.  If man is the ultimate authority, then any behavior not specifically prohibited is acceptable.  If a law did not include murder as a crime, and if man were the ultimate authority, murder would not be wrong.  When man is the last authority, society decides the morals.  The laws would reflect the fickleness of man. 

The humanist believes in a natural creation and that the material, not the spiritual, is eternal.  The Humanist Manifesto II states, “science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces. As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context.”   Therefore, many embrace the Darwinian view of macroevolution.  All arguments presented to them are thought to be weak at best.  For instance, the cosmological argument is supposedly weak because God must have a cause.  If He need not have a cause, then, they ask, “Why cannot the universe also exist without a cause?”  Carl Sagan, author of Cosmos, proclaims that science is sufficient enough to prove that God and the supernatural do not exist. 

From the idea that only nature exists, humanism says that the mind, or conscience, and the body are one and the same.  The conscience is less a byproduct of the physical brain than it is the brain “deceiving” the body.  There are two schools of thought in this area. The first is the humanist, or naturalist view, namely monism, which says there is no such thing as a conscience separate from the physical body.  The second is called dualism, which states that the body, or the physical, and the mind, or the spiritual, are two separate entities.  Humanists have adopted the monistic philosophy to go along with macroevolution and their disbelief of the supernatural.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).  This verse really hits home as we look at the destructive religion of Secular Humanism.  We must deal with the doctrine and not with the individuals, since each person maintains his or her own personal view.  Those viewpoints are entirely subjective, and as such ebb and flow with the human rationale.  The Bible clearly states, “In the Beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1).  God does exist.  We have sufficient evidence to show that God does exist.  “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).  This passage tells us that in nature we find the invisible God.  Scientific methods are inept to prove the existence of God.  However, logic demands, based upon the evidence, that a supreme being does exist.  The arguments for the existence of God do hold up to scrutiny and can only be averted by false reasoning.

Based upon the fact God does exist, the remainder of Genesis 1:1 says, “created the heavens and the earth.”  Nature and the material world are temporal and not eternal.  It had a beginning, and it will have an end (2 Peter 3:10).  Only the spiritual realm is eternal.  The spiritual created the physical.  We have the creation account in the first two chapters of Genesis.  From these two chapters we can answer the question:  “Where did I come from?”  Jesus also refers to the creation and God’s part when he said, “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6).  There was not a long period of time in the history of the earth where human beings were nonexistent.  It is not true to say that, from a chemical soup, life emerged, and millions of years (some say billions) passed before human beings evolved.  Christ mentioned the fact that human beings were on the earth from the very beginning of time.  A believer in God cannot rationally believe in any other explanation than what is plainly set before us in Genesis one and two.  A rational person cannot honestly believe in any other explanation.  It takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe that God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis also holds the key to the dualistic view of mind and body.  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27).  God is a spiritual and eternal being.  When He created man, He passed those qualities on to man.  Is man a physical being, and subject to pain, suffering and death?  Yes!  But man also has a conscience which suggests the presence of two entities coexisting.  Paul writes, “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:45-47).  There is no disputing the fact that the earthly man and the spiritual man were created at two separate times.  The physical man was created first, and then the spiritual man.  “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).  Logically, there had to be a body to receive his soul from God in order for him to be a living and spiritual creature.  It is further undeniable that people are unique in the inner life of the mind – what they are in their thought world determines how they act. 

The religion of Humanism is an aggressive/passive one.  The proponents of Humanism actively speak out, but not necessarily by shouting that they are Humanists.  They are much more subtle.  When given a forum, they preach their doctrine to any who will listen.  Smooth words are floated out to the audience where the emotions are touched.  “The individual matters,” “all humans are equal,” “bigotry must be stopped,” and “let us help our fellow man.”  These phrases sound good on the surface, but underneath we gain a much different picture.  Humanists want to replace our belief system with another.  Humanists would like to replace these beliefs:

· Religions based on supernatural beliefs
· Biblical ethics in society
· The family as the basic unit of society
· A national republican form of civil government
· Multi-national civil governments

With these beliefs:

· A religion based only on natural beliefs
· Humanistic ethics in society (subjective at the core)
· The individual as the basic unit of society
· A democratic socialist form of civil government
· One world global civil government 

The trouble is that many God-fearing citizens in these United States of America, even though they believe in God, defend and promote some of these Humanistic ideas.  We can see how our schools are being ravished by evolution and the idea that the individual is all that matters.  The students then get the idea, even if never bluntly stated, “I have no soul, I am not special, therefore it matters not what I do in life.”  We have seen the consequences of such a belief system.  When people allow government to take care of their needs, and the individual is supreme, then no one else matters.  People become absolved from all responsibility for how they treat other people and even their own family.  As long as they abide by civil law, there are no consequences to immoral behavior.
 
 

Humanism is a religion indeed.  Unfortunately we cannot go into greater detail. However, we can know that Humanism is a religion with a doctrine and motives.  Many in not only this country but in other places in the world are embracing this old religion with new faces.  It teaches atheism and the absence of the spiritual world.  It seeks to deify humanity while humanizing Deity.  Humanism has a lot of support from wealthy and influential people, especially in this country.  We as Christians must stand up and be vocal about the true God of the Bible.  His role in creating a magnificent creature made in His own image, man, is truly remarkable.  Most importantly, do not allow others to do your thinking for you.  Many are led astray because of sweet sounding words.  If you do not wake up to the truth, it may be too late.  One thing is certain, “no one will be an atheist on the Day of Judgment.”

 1 Waggoner, Robert L., Chart Revised 5/27/94
 2 Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (New York, New York, Portland House) p.691
 3Noebel, David A., Understanding the Times, (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1991), p. 50 
 4  Humanist Manifesto II , p. 17
 5 Noebel, David A., Understanding the Times, (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1991), p. 125
 6 Schaeffer, Francis A. How Should We Then Live?, (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976) p. 19
 7Waggoner, Robert L., Chart Revised 8/8/94