"If you separate out the ethical message from religion, what have you got left? You've got a bunch of fairy tales."
- P.Z. Myers, professor of biology at the University of Minnesota
The Enlightenment tried to right the wrongs that had plagued Western Civilization. There indeed had been a major problem of ignorance, of superstition, of tyranny by the leaders of the politically powerful Church. Enlightenment thinkers scooped up ideas from the Age of Reason and ran with them. Reason! Rational thought! Empirical evidence! These were the things that could give man true knowledge! Superstition and ignorance had to go.
While great Age of Reason thinkers like John Locke and Isaac Newton had acknowledged the power and authority of God, the leaders of the Enlightenment began to pull away from the supernatural altogether. Man no longer needed religion to give him Truth, they argued. Man could discern Truth for himself. He could use Reason to answer any questions he had, and by the fruit of Reason, man could decide for himself what was good and what was evil.
Eventually, these anti-supernaturalistic ideas would be codified in a document signed on May Day, 1933. This "Humanist Manifesto" began by affirming:
FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process…
Comments