It is a secular philosophy that rejects religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience or superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making. It posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God, it neither assumes humans to be inherently or innately good, nor presents humans as "above nature" or superior to it. Like communism anything that smacks of making us responsible to ourselves or one another for any reason not related to subservience and obeisance to the bible or God of established religions meets with great disdain and ridicule. That having been said it should be of no surprise that when an individual was asked some time ago in a court room to swear to tell the truth “So help you God” and that person refused the bible or the oath as stated, great consternation arose. The individual a secular humanist felt his word should be good enough on its own. Naturally someone in the fundamentalist Christian camp was offended and raised great criticism without any foundation other than they exclusion of God. A survey soon went out to question as to whether or not the statement “so help me God” with or without a bible present should be compelled. The question was asked if the respondent agreed or disagreed with the critic’s stance that it should be compelled. While I do believe in God I am none-the less a secular humanist and do not agree in compelling anyone to take an oath “so help them God.” Here was my response.
God made us with certain abilities including intellect. There are certain things as humans which are innate to us and certainly a basic value of life and ethics is one of them. If you have to mouth the words “So help me God” then God help you. If you have to run to scripture to figure out that stealing or lying is wrong then God help you. If you have to be reminded that God is watching you so you don’t kill someone or worse kill someone in God’s name, then God help you. If you can not intuit that there is a basic human dignity and worth regardless of a person’s sex, creed, ethnicity or orientation then you are BEYOND redemption and then truly only God CAN help you.
In a world where Jerry Falwell and people like him say Catholics including Mother Teresa are not Christian, where the Vatican allows someone like Cardinal Law to say mass in such a public forum as a Pope’s Funeral, where fanatics distort the beauty of the Koran, then God help us all. The lesson we so completely forget is that God expects up to help ourselves! God expects us to rely upon the intellect and innate dignity and humanity that were placed there when we were created. When we spend less time worrying about God and scripture and more time honoring God by use of these gifts, then the world will start to change. When we can celebrate our God instead of fearing or grieving him, then the world will take a change for the better. There is reason secular humanism has been on the rise and that reason is because God IS trying to help us all.
