Thursday, December 15, 2016

Humanism and the Deification of Humankind

One prominent criticism of Humanism is that it "deifies" Humankind.  The source of the criticism is typically a proponent of some variety of Supernaturalism.  Now, one unclarity in the charge is the meaning of the term 'deify'.  If it means 'posits to be the creator of the universe', it would be difficult to find a Humanist who believes that.  Likewise for the interpretation 'posits to be omnipotent'.  More likely is that Humanists are being accused of presuming that Humans are the ultimate judges of their conduct.  Implicit in the accusation is that there is a higher authority that can be cited, and that higher authority is usually the author of the Ten Commandments.  However, the problem with that premise is that it is question-begging: it groundlessly asserts that that author is a deity, and not Moses, a human.  So, this criticism of Humanism is less than objectively compelling.

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