Humanist Religion (1): The Humanists’ God

http://www.daveforddoesearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/un-building.jpg

[Above: the United Nations, a chief temple of the humanist religion]

Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.  –The Humanist Manifesto II ( http://americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II )

The quote from Humanist Manifesto II identifies the humanists’ god in one word: we.

Except, of course, some of that we is more god than others.

Oh, there’s a small price to pay. You have to give up “the prayer-hearing God, assumed to live and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them” because “it is an unproved and outmoded faith.” For the time being, you have to give up the hope of eternal life, too–and the forgiveness of sins. But once they learn how to download John McCain onto a disc, so he can be a U.S. Senator for the next 900 years, they may get around to making some form of immortality available to the common herd.

But again, I draw your attention to that key word, we. We are gonna do all the things that God shoulda done, but didn’t. We, through our anointed Scientific Experts, are gonna (1) control the environment, (2) get rid of poverty, (3) get rid of disease, (4) live practically forever, (5) –oh, and this is such a good one!–“significantly modify our behavior.” Yessir, they’ve had lots of practice modifying other people’s behavior! Where do you think those miles of barbed wire and those heaps of corpses come from?

The humanist will say that there is no divinity, nothing higher than man himself–the pinnacle of evolution, the boss, the cat’s whiskers, poised ready to unlock vast new powers! But again, some are very, very much higher than others. The ones outside the  barbed wire are definitely higher than the ones inside.

The humanists’ god is not the State, but the very special individuals who operate, advise, and control the state–and are fantastically enriched by doing so.

This is the religion that has taken over the Western world and all its relevant institutions–the state, science, the nooze media, the schools and universities, courts, the entertainment media, and even a rather sizeable chunk of the churches.

It, in turn, is controlled by, and is the servant of, spiritual wickedness in high places which the humanists do not admit exists.

A Few Simple Truths

There are times when I just feel swamped–so much crazy stuff going on, I can’t decide what to write about. So how about a little selection of simple observations?

Just because everybody says it’s true, doesn’t mean it’s true. The “appeal to consensus” is an invalid argument. But it’s the main support beam for Evolution, Climate Change, what have you.

But of course if the majority opinion is that some liberal scheme is wrong and totally undesirable, consensus then becomes irrelevant.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker doesn’t have a college degree; therefore he isn’t qualified to be president. Maybe he ought to cram for a degree in Women’s Studies. Then he’d be qualified to be president.

Every utopian scheme–are you listening, Humanist Manifesto fans?–is doomed to run aground on the rocks of sheer impossibility. They promise things that no one can give, and eventually succeed only in arousing a revolution of rising expectations. You can’t string people along forever.

If President *Batteries Not Included really loves this country, he has a mighty strange way of showing it.

If our current crop of leaders truly is the best a nation of 300 million can do, God help us.