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by Bill Seng

“Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.” ~Habakkuk 2:18

Habakkuk writes about idols that are created by human hands that are granted power only in the minds of men. They have no real power and they have no real identity. They cannot speak. They cannot walk. Half of it is used to worship, and the other half is burned in the fire to keep its maker warm. It is in this idol that its maker finds comfort, because he believes that it is his created god that provides him with food, shelter, and protection. Because of the revolution in the midpoint in history (namely, the resurrection of Jesus) carved idols have not enjoyed as much popularity as what they used to have. Nonetheless, the civilized world continues to create idols in their minds that they can worship, adore, and put in them its full trust.

This idol is the “god” of secular humanism. It is a naturalistic religion that worships nature and the evolution of all things. After Christ established his movement that directed worship toward the one true God, superstition fell and along with it fell the notion that engraved images, which we call idols, were real gods. It was a wakeup call to the pagan world that their idols had possessed no strength and that if there really was a living God, he was invisible. So, to counter the movement of the one true God, secularism created an invisible, undetectable god of their own, complete with all of the doctrines that make a good religion.

Sometimes Christians will think of secular humanism in terms of religion, but not too often are its orthodox doctrines discussed. The next few paragraphs will outline the core doctrines of secular humanism and prove that it is a religious ideology. The four doctrines I will be discussing are their explanations for the origin of the universe, the origin of life, the end of the world, and eternal life.

The first of the doctrines is that of the Big Bang which describes the origin of all things. Without going into detail, it explains how everything that is material came from virtually nothing. This makes no sense in a materialistic sense (meaning the belief that everything that exists consists of matter, therefore there are no spiritual realms or beings) because matter must come from matter. That is why the most brilliant advocates of the Big Bang say that nothing is really something. What evidence do they have for this? Really nothing. There are a lot of really well thought out theories about this, but none of them are backed by any solid evidence. So, we are forced to say that the Big Bang is religious in nature.

The second doctrine is the creation of life through evolutionary processes. A lot of people think that this is a verifiable fact, but such a notion is far from the truth. In order to establish the evolution of life from non-life, such an occurrence must be observed either in a laboratory or in nature. Neither of these have been observed. Some might say that natural selection proves evolution, but even if it did (which it does not) it would only prove that living things can evolve into other things. This falls way short of proving that life evolved from non-life.

The third doctrine is regarding the end of the world. Secular humanism also has an end of the universe doctrine, but right now we are going to focus on their doctrine of the end of life on earth. This theory mostly revolves around the idea that pollution caused by mankind is rapidly destroying the environment, causing catastrophic climate change, which will eventually wipe out all life. There is no doubt that pollution can be detrimental to life, but more and more safeguards are being discovered in nature that deal with pollutants. It’s only when mankind pollutes an environment so mercilessly that nature has no time to recover that problems occur. But thus far, all of the data that has been gathered to prove that the earth will soon be uninhabitable has been proven false and, in some cases, totally manufactured through dishonesty. Catastrophic climate change can only exist in a world that is not brilliantly designed to cope with the needs of living beings. Because none of the doomsday predictions of secular humanism have come true (and there have been many), it must be acknowledged that this belief is also religious.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, secular humanism would now like to present to you its latest doctrine: eternal life. Evolution teaches that life is constantly achieving higher forms, thus it is believed that death can be done away with all together in a material sense. And how will we overcome the material curse of death in this world? One word: Google. No, seriously. Google says it’s going to give us eternal life. So, if you have faith in Google, you will live forever. For Google so loved the world that it gave its one and only search engine that whosoever would inquire of it shall not perish, but have everlasting life… or something like that.

If you don’t see the silly idol we’ve created yet, I don’t know when you will. I say on the behalf of religion, we sue (not really). Secular humanism has repackaged all of the makings of good religion for their own purposes. Their god is helpless and powerless. It is unproved and unprovable, making one’s belief in it as pointless as believing in a god that you have carved out of wood. There is only one God. He is full of power, love, and personality. If you seek him with your whole heart, you will find him, because he wants you to insomuch that he is actively seeking you. As the Apostle John once wrote, “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).

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