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From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: The Annotated Humanist (part 2 of 4)
Message-ID: <1021@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Apr-84 00:14:17 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.1021
Posted: Fri Apr 20 00:14:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Apr-84 01:04:45 EST
Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA
Lines: 72

[Part 2 of 4-part commentary on "Humanistic faith."]

> Materialistic humanism asserts that matter comes before spirit ....
> ... simple matter ... proceeds to develop ... a spiritual dimension.

How can materialism even assert that the non-material exists?

> ... the stuff of which this world is composed is the necessary context
> for the ideas and ideals that enrich human life.

In other words, whatever pleasure is available to you, go for it. Forget
what the someone thinks, no matter how perverted your pleasure is.

> In every infant we stand before the mystery of this process.

What - doesn't your holy scientific method have all the answers? :-)

> The natural world is the only one there is.

The book of Ecclesiastes deals with this - and the inevitable futility -
at length.

> Nature is unified ... its laws regular ....

Order from chaos? Why should *anything* be regular?

> Religion is a human enterprise.

Man-deification. More of it later.

> It is the human race that is concerned with ethical values.

What is the basis for ethics, for good and evil, right and wrong, etc?

> We desire to increase the measure of the good and the true and the
> beautiful in the lives of all people.

Whatever perversion gives pleasure...

> Albert Schweitzer ... spoke not of a humanism that worships humanity
> but a humanism that seeks, without creedal test or ritual requirement,
> to treasure each human being as a center of meaning and value.

Self-contradictory. Where your treasure is, there also is your heart.

> The adventure of religion is not in the discovery of Eternal Truth or
> Absolute Meaning - arenas in which humans do not and cannot deal ...

Phew - the cattle don't smell this bad. If there are no absolutes,
circular reasoning is all that's left. But then, humanism asserts many
bottom-line values, implying some sort of Absolute.

> ... - but in our individual and communal search for and creation of
> meanings and values that dignify and enhance life.

More evidence of man-deification. Again, choose your pleasure.

> I am a humanist because humanism does not rely on tradition, a special
> book or person, "what I'm feeling right now," ...

That last is humanism exactly.

> [Humanism] relies on reason, thought, the human mind as the best means
> of discovering truth and promoting justice.

Can I make it through another 80 lines of this stench? There has to be
truth to base reason on. Further, the mention of "truth" and "justice"
added to Norman Lear completes the triple corruption of Superman's purpose.
-- 
				The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
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