What is humanism? So humanism is essentially a way in which uh agnostics and especially atheists would view the world, and they see essentially that religion holds them back from the potential of creating a utopia. Utopia is another terminology for simply saying heaven on earth. They think all religious forms is just a restrictive way of holding us back, and that in and of ourselves, the human being is capable of pursuing utopia, a world without death, a dismay, without sin and violence. They think through technology and effort that they can bring about heaven on earth. And so the danger of secular humanism is that if you have no standard above yourself, and you talk about this all the time, Mark, if we have no moral standard above ourselves, right now, today, the secular humanists would say that we're all created equal. But in the near future, they may not say that. And actually, I'll put a contingency on that, which is secular humanism does not believe we're all equal. Peter Singer, quote, killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it's not wrong at all. He's a secular humanist that is now redefined. He's Australian. He's Australian. Oh, is now redefined what it means to be an image-bearer God. He's basically saying, yeah, a disabled infant does not deserve life.
SPEAKER_02Man, he should be arrested for that sort of yeah. In fact, he believes that uh infanticide should be legal after 29 days
after a child is born. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01It is. And Oscar, I'm I'm glad you you gave that quote, right? Because once in a while we get a glimpse into the heart and mind of an atheist or of a humanist, and they'll get candid. Because a lot of times these guys will dance around the issue and they'll him and ha. But when someone says, Yep, nope, there is none. There are no standards of equality, there's no standards of morality. But guys like this will insert a however to then try to say, but we should live by some standard or whatever. But what you get with some of the dictators of old is the absence of the however. It's and now, right? There are no morals, there are no absolute standards of truth, morality, righteousness, whatever. And now we're going to live that out. And so you have the slaughter of millions, and you've got the subjugation of the weaker. Because as we've talked about before, right? I mean, that is part and parcel with what? Survival of the fittest. I mean, that's right at the heart of it. So don't ever talk down on Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin. They were living out the worldview that you espouse. And where do you justify the however? You cannot, right, Mark? They're again borrowing from the Christian worldview.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it becomes more of an intellectual talking point than a personal preference, right? Because you'll never have somebody who is a true humanist who says there is no right, there's no wrong, there's no good, there's no bad, there's no sacred, there's no secular. They don't go to the Megan's Law Registry to find a babysitter, right? They don't go there to go, hey, you know what, I want to hire somebody to take care of my finances. And I understand that he spent 20 years in prison for fraud, you know, and for stealing and embezzlement. Right. So it it becomes this intellectual talking point. It sounds like we know what we're doing. And personally, I'm not going to live like that, is what they'll say. You know, there's no right, there's no wrong. In fact, men is basically good. If you're going
to lean one way or the other, men is basically good. And they wouldn't throw their wallet down on the sidewalk with their address in it with a hundred dollars in there, thinking that they're going to get that thing returned back to them. It doesn't work out that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Virgin Russell, who was a humanist. Am I correct? Yes. And an atheist. Yep. And like a pope for uh atheists even nowadays, they look back and quote, but he said this faith is a firm belief which there is no evidence. And I think, what a crazy statement. I mean, everything we do in life is built on faith. Your marriage has got a foundation on trust. Um, whenever you have any interactions with other human beings, it's a trust. You say to your girlfriend or boyfriend, not you guys, but you say to a girlfriend or boyfriend, I don't trust you, that that relationship's not going to last. Even nations, you know, they deal with trust with each other. So you can't get away from what he's actually saying is the faith he doesn't believe in is a faith in God. Because that's what's in the heart of man, this rebellion against this creator, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of God, neither can he can be. And that's what's behind humanism: a rebellion against the moral law. God, don't you tell us what to do morally. We want to do our own thing because we love darkness and we hate the light. That's what's behind it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What would you say are some of the things that we have to be on the lookout for in in causing us to drift toward humanism without realizing it?
Well, if you if you don't meditate on God's word as truth, you're going to believe lies are true, right? And this is the importance of meditating on God's word day and night. You know, Oscar mentioned David Foster Wallace. He said, uh, the truth will set you free, but it'll be uncomfortable when it does so. So Jesus said, You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And what we need to do continually is be reporting for duty inside of God's word. That, hey, it's enough. God said it, and that is enough.
SPEAKER_01Ray, I I want you to touch on this. You know, we often don't recognize the influences of the world that creep into the church. And we get blinded and think, oh, this is Christian, this is biblical. As an example, you know, the mumbo jumbo from the psychology, psychiatry world, psychobabble, has crept into the church. And so we'll we'll begin to talk in ways that reflect the rootedness of humanism in certain things. But there are other areas.
SPEAKER_00You kind of just microaggressed me a little more.
SPEAKER_01Microaggressed. Oh my goodness. Ray. Um, but I I think we fail to realize the roots of humanism when it comes to the man-centered gospel.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um, touch on that in a minute. But what you said about conservatism, there's a Trojan horse of humanism that's got within the church. And um there's one litmus test that we can use to expose humanism, and that is just quote Jeremiah um 17 9. The heart is deceitfully above, you know that verse anyway, don't you? It's deceitful above all things. That's offensive to humanism. That'll expose it. I'll say, no, no, no, no, man is basically good. We have some bad things we get into, but we're basically good. But when you look at scripture, there's no room for that. The heart is deceitfully wicked. Who can know it? We drink and we like water, we love the darkness, our eyes are full of adultery, and it's offensive to the pride of man. And the you talked about humanism seeping into the gospel. When you throw out God's law, which shows sin in its true light, then you get humanism creeping into the gospel proclamation that man isn't that bad. And when you say that, then hell it becomes an offensive doctrine. And that's why you get preachers who preach a wonderful plan, God loves you, everything's fine between you and God. You cannot preach hell when you think man is basically good. But once you see sin from God's point of view, that we are desperately wicked, then hell becomes a necessity. It it must exist if God is just. Let me just say something here. Before I was a Christian, I was probably a humanist. I didn't think that deeply. All I was about was enjoying myself and my surfing life,
etc. But if you probed me, I probably would have said, man, it's basically good, blah, blah, blah. Um, but what a joy it was when I came to Christ to give him the reins. Just to say to the God that gave me life, you take over, you take the controls. Because that means I can never be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You get these stories about some guy standing in a field by himself just enjoying life, and a meteorite comes from outer space, traveled millions of miles, and hits him in the head and kills him. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's what they say. But when you're a Christian, you are never in the wrong place. If I get hit by a car, crushed by a truck, whatever happens to me, because I've committed my way to the Lord, he allowed it to happen, I was in the right place at the right time.
SPEAKER_01And that's freedom. Yeah. When you live that way, it's um confidence knowing that God is sovereignly in control over every aspect of your life. And I can't help but think that many of these humanists that live that way, in the corridors of their own hearts and minds, as they see their frailty, their weakness, their internal insecurities, their inability to control life, to stop a loved one from dying, to change the course of their nation's destiny. They see their smallness, they recognize their insignificance. And my hope is that God's Spirit will work and open their eyes to recognize that you're disconnected from the one who set your heart beating, from the one who triggered your brainwave activity to move, the one who holds your breath in his hand, and that they'll cry out to him in repentance and faith. Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
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