An ad campaign by a humanist group in Washington, DC is spreading "Christmas cheer" with the slogan "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake". This raises two questions in my mind.
First of all, how can a humanist group encourage people to be "good for goodness' sake" when humanists subscribe to a philosophy of moral relativism. These are the guys who are telling us that "goodness" is solely determined by context and what "seems" right at the time - in other words, there is no objective standard of right and wrong (except of course for the standard that it is wrong to claim that there is), or even absolute truth (except for the "truth" that there is no truth). Therefore, if we accept the relativist position that humanists espouse, how can we be good for the sake of "goodness" -- i.e. according to some standard of goodness? How exactly are we supposed to define being good when we aren't allowed to objectify anything as bad?
The second question that comes to mind is the following. If humanists are opposed to the advocacy of "religion" by government institutions, including public schools, we must assume that humanism is itself not a religion, because they do seek to have their own views espoused by government institutions, for example moral or cultural relativism and naturalism. Two features of religion most vociferously opposed by humanists are exclusivity (the claim that ones beliefs are true and others are not) and the practice of proselytization (the winning of converts, i.e. evangelism). However, humanists in fact make a claim of exclusivity -- clearly, the belief in God and the belief in no God cannot both be true. And this ad campaign, despite the claims made by the group that it is only meant to reassure fellow atheists and agnostics, smacks of proselytization. Therefore, the claim that humanism is not a religion in its own right is suspect. As such, according to their own standard of excluding even the appearance of advocacy of any religious position, what becomes of the teaching of evolution, insofar as it is taught as a naturalistic process, and relativism in public schools and universities? Or do they need to drop their objection to teaching Intelligent Design on principle?
I submit to you the following quotation:
ReplyDelete"And let us with caution indulge the opposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
George Washington
Farewell Address
September 19, 1796