This is part one of a five part essay which takes into consideration Atheism, Brights, Freethinkers, Humanism, Secular Humanism, Naturalism, Rationalism, Skepticism, Philosophical Skepticism and Universism. This will consist mostly of from the horse’s mouth information (the post on atheist symbols may be of interest).
Introduction
The Bible makes an interesting connection between humanity’s purposeful ignorance of God, purposeful abandonment of God, and our corruption of the very concept of God. The Bible also tells us of God’s response to our free will, which is to allow us what we want in such cases; distance from God and further self-affirmation that we are right to reject God.
“…I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because the thing which may be known of God is clearly revealed within them, for God revealed it to them. For the unseen things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being realized by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, for them to be without excuse. Because, knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thankful. But they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man…
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness…For they changed the truth of God into a lie…they did not think fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind” (Romans 1:16-28).
I have noticed a parallel between the above description of idolaters who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and secularists who likewise changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, i.e., corruptible, materialistic, secular man. The secularists became fools even while professing to be wise because, as we shall see, they end up establishing for themselves the same strict authoritarian dogmatism that they seek to escape.
In this essay I will consider the stated positions of various schools of secularism. I use the term secular generically to mean a worldview that is materialistic, where the supernatural is negated. All worldviews that can be categorized as secular appear to have at least one thing in common: they proclaim that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong, they portray themselves as the intellectual, rational, enlightened, scientific, and philosophic while everyone else is ignorant and superstitious. We will consider the logical consequences, the logical conclusions, to which their positions take us and leave us. We will consider how their views establish a strict authoritarian, dogmatic system while often denying this very fact. Furthermore, we will consider from whence they derive their ethics/morals. And lastly, we will also see that their claim to base their beliefs on science is merely a self-serving redefinition of what it means to do science.
“Professing Themselves To Be Wise, They Became Fools”, part 2 of 5 ›