Now, is humanism really nonreligion? No, it’s not. Humanists market their beliefs as if somehow not believing in God or gods makes their belief system a nonreligious one. But it is a religion. The BHA website is full of faith statements that describe their beliefs, such as
- “this life is the only life we have”
- “the universe is a natural phenomenon with no supernatural side”
- “we can live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity”
Humanism is a religion with a philosophy and even an ethical code.
These are all faith statements that make up their religious philosophy. Not believing in God doesn’t somehow make you neutral. Humanism is a religion with a philosophy and even an ethical code (although they don’t have a foundation for absolutes and morality except their own reasoning, and, to be consistent, they can’t tell anyone what to do). They even state on their website,
We also hope to give greater confidence to people whose beliefs are humanist by offering resources here and elsewhere that can develop their knowledge of humanist approaches to some of the big ethical, philosophical and existential questions in life (emphasis added).
They are answering ethical, philosophical, and existential questions through the lens of their religion. Both Christians and humanists themselves recognize the fact that humanism is a religion! For example, in 2011 a Humanist Bible was published; the American Humanist Association has asked for humanist chaplains in the military; and in 2014 humanism was recognized as a religion in Oregon so that prisoners could hold humanist study groups.
So if humanism is a religion (which it is), these humanists are handing out their religious literature to students (humanism and atheism are already the prevailing religions taught in Western public schools). Now, this is their right because the UK is a free country. But shouldn’t Christians also be allowed to hand out Bibles or other Christian literature? Of course they should, and yet I doubt the BHA would be tolerant of that! In fact, we’ve seen lots of examples of humanist groups being intolerant of beliefs other than their own!
Simon Turpin, of Answers in Genesis-UK, also responded to this news item. I encourage you to read that on his blog.
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken
This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.
