Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site mcnc.mcnc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!bch From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion Subject: Re: "Secular Humanism" banned in the US Schools. Message-ID: <744@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP> Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 00:15:04 EDT Article-I.D.: mcnc.744 Posted: Thu Aug 22 00:15:04 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 15:09:40 EDT References: <4141@alice.UUCP> <938@bunker.UUCP> <161@gargoyle.UUCP> Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Distribution: net Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service Lines: 21 Xref: watmath net.politics:10571 net.religion:7450 Summary: Why I don't worry about this, and what you folks are missing, is that it is impossible to define a non-trivial body of thought which comprises "secular humanism." You can say: "Evolution is part of the body of secular humanism, therefore we can't teach it." Wrongo! Secular Humanists (if such exist) may happen to subscribe to evolutionary theory, but so do a broad spectrum of folk who are "not" secular humanists, as do an equally large number of people who don't know whether they are or not. It makes about as much sense to say that evolution is part of the doctrine of secular humanism as it does to say that modern medicine is part of such a doctrine. I think a few tests in the courtroom will reveal the bogey-man of secular humanism (or secular dialectical humanism as Jimmy Swaggart likes to call it) to be precisely that. It can probably only be defined as religion which includes that set of beliefs not included by other religions, especially fundamentalist Christianity. To believe in something is not necessarily the same as having that something be a religious belief. -- Byron C. Howes ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch