Just as sure as Christianity, Buddhism or Islam…and it is rotting the foundations of our society and our culture.
I posted about my concerns of the dangers to liberty that arise from secular humanism in The Worst Are Getting On Top and again in Is God Necessary to Liberty?.
Michael Alan at Legal Insurrection writes about how that secular humanism is playing out in our institutions of higher learning:
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of sitting in on a lecture given by Dr. Richard Baer, professor emeritus of environmental ethics and education, at an event hosted by the Cornell Republicans.
Baer spoke at length about how, in their rush to ensure that they’re not promoting religious values, state-run and other “non-sectarian” schools actually end up promoting a dangerous brand of secular humanism that effectively acts as a religion in which one worships one’s self. [emphasis mine – ed.]
The double standard is astounding. Never mind that schools spend plenty of time – rightly, in my view – promoting values like racial and gender equality; when it comes to issues of, say, sexual morality, sixth graders should really hear both sides and form their own conclusions.
While I encourage you to listen to Baer’s argument yourself (the MP3 of a 1994 lecture in which Baer makes roughly the same larger points is available here), he essentially contends that by making the decision not to promote morality, both our public schools and institutions of higher education actively discourage moral behavior.
This is certainly true of Cornell. In fact, this coming weekend my university is hosting “Filthy/Gorgeous,” its annual celebration of sexual promiscuity headlined by “Chi Chi LaRue,” a DJ that dresses in drag whose day job is producing pornography. While I’m thankfully not privy to the more graphic details of what the event entails, you can pretty much get the idea from the promotional materials (warning: link NSFW) and the innuendo in the event’s tagline – “Come Filthy. Come Gorgeous. Just Come.”
This event is held in a University-owned recreation center and its nearly $30,000 price tag is paid for by numerous student organizations, most prominently the LGBTQ Student Union, that receive funding through the mandatory $229 student activity fee that this state-supported institution levies on all students.
But to be fair, organizers also raised money this year by getting sex toy and lubricant manufacturers to cosponsor the event, so students are only responsible for about $13,000 of the event’s expenses.
Take a listen to Dr. Richard Baer’s lecture at Michael’s link. It is very insightful.
Nice job, Utah – as always.
The “religion” of secular humanism was EXACTLY what John Dewey was talking about when he said these words:
By “true God,” Dewey meant Man and his use of science/reason (i.e. secular humanism).
John Dewey was the father of the modern public education system.
On a related note to this post and John Dewey, Bill Ayres has taken Dewey’s place and is known to have said:
Ayres has just picked up where Dewey left off – and for the same purposes. Progressives have been using our schools as weapons against us, turning our children into secular humanist drones who cannot think for themselves, but who “feel” really good about themselves.