One Glaring Problem with World Philosophy Day

Introduction

It seems like there is a “holiday” for everything! For instance, the month of November has Book Lovers Day (first Saturday of the month), Button Day (November 16), and America Recycles Day (November 15). Where I grew up, one “holiday” celebrated on March 6 is Pulaski Day. It’s an Illinois thing—even though most have no clue who Pulaski was. Okay—I’ll let you off the hook. Casmir Pulaski, a Polish-American who fought in the Revolutionary War, was famous for saving George Washington’s life.

Fast forward to now. UNESCO promotes a “holiday” on the third Thursday of each November. It is World Philosophy Day, meant to honor and respect the world’s varied philosophies as equal truth and to encourage people everywhere to study philosophy. However, one cannot miss that all philosophies are intrinsically tied to religions. We deal with philosophical systems in the World Religions and Cults book series.

Holidays

Needless to say, the “holiday” has undertones of secular religion. This is also why I put holiday in quotes. The word holiday comes from the Old English word meaning “holy day,” but secular “holidays” cannot be holy since nothing is holy in secular religions.

There is a general trend to discount Christian holidays, which are based on God, His Word, or events that occurred in the Bible (thus, they are truly holy). But these Christian holidays are being replaced with secular “unholy” days. Yet inconsistently, the world tends to call them “holidays” anyway, borrowing the concept of holiness while denying its ultimate source and reality.

World Philosophy Day

One glaring problem with World Philosophy Day is that all of the religious philosophies are wrong, save one. In a subtle way, the UNESCO is asking you to celebrate falsehood.

Would you do this with math? If UNESCO said, “We want to have a day where people honor all the wrong answers that kids get when they add 2+2,” would you go along with it? Sounds absurd doesn’t it? All religions are wrong, except one—God’s. In the same way, the only correct answer to 2+2 is 4; all other answers are simply wrong.

The all-knowing God of the Bible, who is the truth, is the only one in a position to reveal the true religion—thus, the true philosophy. Does UNESCO promote this day as Biblical Christianity Day? No. Instead, they would rather suppress the truth and revel in the false (Romans 1:18).

Appealing to a Christian Philosopher

In light of World Philosophy Day, I would like to appeal to the work of Dr. Greg Bahnsen. Dr. Greg Bahnsen was a brilliant philosopher (d. 1995) who studied van Tillian apologetics. He has written, lectured, debated Christianity versus all other opposition, and even earned the name “the man atheists feared the most.” For a taste of his work, I suggest further reading of these three pertinent articles discussing philosophy, apologetics (defending the faith), and religious worldviews, which are relevant to the “holiday” at hand.

Further Reading

• Beware of Philosophy!
• Where the Rubber Hits the Road
• Presuppositional Reasoning with False Faiths