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From: cbd@iham1.UUCP (deitrick)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Humanism, Catholicism, and Walter Lippmann
Message-ID: <444@iham1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 09:41:06 EDT
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Posted: Mon Sep 16 09:41:06 1985
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>>  Wrong! Thats not what secular humanism teaches. It teaches little children
>>  how to think about suicide. It teaches them that some people's lives are
>>  worth less than others. It teaches them that homosexuality and premarital
>>  sex are choices for them to consider. It also teaches them to ignore any
>>  values they may be learning in the home and that values are purely subjective
>>  and how to make their own values. (if any!)
>> 
>> Come on! No more BS! Secular humanism is designed to eliminate God from
>> our society and its central target is the YOUNG!
>> And its working just fine! Because most parents don't have the slightest
>> idea what is going on in the public school systems.
 
I apologize to the original posters of the quoted articles for not including
your names. I don't know who you are.

The term "secular humanism" is a redundancy. "Secular" means "not overtly
or specifically religious". "Humanism" is "a philosophy that asserts the
dignity and worth of man and his capacity for self-realization through reason
and that often rejects *supernaturalism*" (my emphasis). It's a sure bet that
anything that rejects supernaturalism (i.e. spirits, gods, phenomena not
explainable by physical laws) is not overtly or specifically religious. The
subject of this debate, then, is just "humanism".

In his book "A Preface to Morals", Walter Lippman writes

	"Insofar as men have now lost their belief in a heavenly king,
	they have to find some other ground for their moral choices
	than the revelation of his will. It follows necessarily that 
	they must find the tests of righteousness wholly within human 
	experience. The difference between good and evil must be a 
	difference which men themselves recognize and understand.
	Happiness cannot be the reward of virtue; it must be the
	intelligible consequence of it. It follows, too, that virtue 
	cannot be commanded; it must be willed out of personal conviction
	and desire. Such a morality may properly be called humanism, for
	it is centered not in superhuman but in human nature. When men
	can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become
	humanists. They must live by the premise that whatever is righteous
	is inherently desirable because experience will demonstrate its
	desirability. They must live, therefore, in the belief that the 
	duty of man is not to make his will conform to the will of God
	but to the surest knowledge of the conditions of human happiness."

Later in the book, he explains human happiness is the result of virtues such
as courage, honor, faithfulness, veracity, justice, temperance, magnanimity,
and love.

That, sports fans, is humanism.

Humanism is not designed to eliminate God from anything. It is an alternative
to organized religion for people who (like me) can't take seriously the whole
panoply of an anthropomorphic God, saints, angels, redemption from sin and 
guilt by a bloody ritual in an ancient desert, purgatory, hell, original sin,
heaven, Satan, devils, and the army of Christ. Seen from a distance, those
things makes no more sense than the gods of Greek or Norse mythology.  Humanism
follows after one loses the capacity to believe. It does not cause that
loss.

For the life of me, I don't see how anyone can claim that humanism teaches one
to think about suicide, or encourages premarital sex or homosexuality. And to
claim that young people are the "target" of humanism is transcendentally stupid.
That makes it sound like a conspiracy, kind of like the Trilateral Commission
. People who make accusations like that lose all credibility.

***FLAME ON***
I was baptized and raised as a Roman Catholic. I went through a Catholic
grade school and got some Catholic religious instruction when I was in high
school. I 'heard between the lines', if you will, and learned the three
basic lessons of the Catholic Church:

	1) The individual is worthless. You have duties and responsibilities
	   but no rights or privileges.

	2) You're going to hell and there's nothing you can do about it. It
	   is not possible to live in a way that will get you to heaven.

	3) Unless you're going to make babies, sex is a sin. Period.

The real threat is a not a philosophy that emphasizes the dignity and worth of
people, but rather a church that would teach this kind of poison.  When faced 
with principles like this, it's no wonder people reject organized religion.
Humanism is a welcome refuge after enduring that lunacy.
***FLAME OFF***

					Carl Deitrick
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