THE LOGAN’S RUN ANALOGIES— # 5
THE IMPLICATIONS OF
THE HUMANIST MANIFESTO
The dictionary definition of a manifesto is a “public declaration of intentions, purposes, or motives by an important person or group.” The Humanist Manifesto, written in 1933, was an ideological “declaration of independence” by a group of people who called themselves Humanists.
Humanists were men and women who insisted that it was time to jettison humanity’s reliance on any religious and spiritual explanations for reality. It was time to view reality totally from only a human perspective— to interpret everything in nature as having been naturally caused, not caused by a Creator or “God”. This reaction against religious explanations of reality had been made possible by Darwin’s discovery of “natural selection” as the (supposed) mechanism behind the evolution of life. In Darwin’s world, there was no longer a need for a creator, because the Universe had created itself.
Whether Darwin’s theory of evolution can explain the origin of life and the universe isn’t the issue here. (The topic is too big to cover here and has been addressed in hundreds of other places.) The question I want to ask is, “what are the consequences of switching sides? What are the implications of turning from a God-centered perspective of the Universe, to a purely man-centered perspective?”
The following two drawings by Dr. Wayne Haston[1] help to show how such a shift is possible. The drawings are an attempt to illustrate the fact that all people view life through the “glasses” of their preconceived notions. Two people can look at exactly the same facts and yet see two entirely different “worlds”. In the matter of the origin of life and the Universe, for instance, we can either view everything from the standpoint of God’s explanation for reality, or from the standpoint of man’s explanation for reality.[2] Such explanations include how the universe supposedly came about, where life originated, and the ultimate plan and purpose for existence.
The drawing on the left is designed to illustrate the fact that if we believe that God created the universe, we will interpret all the facts that we see according to what God says about them in the Bible. The drawing on the right allows us to see that folk who don’t believe in God must interpret the same facts by studying carefully ongoing processes and phenomena, and then deducing how such things could have originated without a designer or creator.
By the way, the system on the LEFT is called the BIBLICAL perspective, and the system on the right is called the secular perspective. Philosophers call this secular system SECULAR HUMANISM— and it’s now the system that controls our Western society.
As I’ve already mentioned, I can’t tackle the issue here of how both points of view stack up to inspection. That will have to be done elsewhere. The point I’m trying to make is that before the Humanist Manifesto was released, the predominant world-view (at least here in the Western World, what we think of as Europe and the Americas) was the one on the left. The average man believed that God created the universe.
There isn’t time and space here to go into great detail about this, but I will share the conclusion of Henry M. Morris, who, after studying history, anthropology, and science for a lifetime, wrote this comment in his book, “The Long War Against God”:
“It has been said that there is a “God-shaped vacuum” in the heart of every person and one can never be whole until it is filled. God has so made man that he intuitively recognizes God’s existence, at least until his training or religious traditions have educated it out of him.”[3]
And that’s exactly the point I want to make here. The purpose of the Humanist Manifesto was to organize a strategy for educating everybody in what was once called “Christendom” out of their former faith in God— precisely what Morris meant by the phrase “at least until his training or religious traditions have educated it out of him.”
A CONDENSED VERSION OF THE MANIFESTO:
□1. We the undersigned will eradicate the idea that the Universe was created by “God”.
□2. We believe man was not created in the image of “God”, but is the result of natural selection, evolution.
□3. We believe that men do not have a body that dies and a soul that lives on after death.
□4. All religion is man-made, developed through environment and social heritage.
□5. We believe that since “God” does not exist, there are no predetermined rules of what is “right” and “wrong”— human moral codes are to be determined by scientific enquiry.
□6. We believe that all previous religious and theological positions are now obsolete.
□7. We believe there is no difference between the “holy” and the “profane” — the idea that men are sinners and God is Holy is obsolete— everything human is now sacred.
□8. We believe that human beings can achieve total satisfaction and fulfillment in this life—in the here and now— there is no longer a need for the fiction of an afterlife.
□9. We believe that mankind’s previous reverence for “God” was misplaced and is now obsolete and must be replaced by reverence for man, mankind, and the universe.
□10. We believe that all religious notions and beliefs in the supernatural are obsolete.
□11. We believe in tackling all problems scientifically — and such notions as prayer and relying on “God” to be superstition, inappropriate and harmful.
□12. We believe true “religion” ought to focus only on this life, the here and now, and the betterment of this world— because the notion of an afterlife has been proven false.
□13. We believe that all previous religious organizations must be replaced, abolished, or refocused onto a nobler objective: towards the betterment of life on earth. All focus on the afterlife and eternity is a waste of valuable time, energy, and resources.
□14. We believe that the previous competitive capitalist agendas need to be replaced by cooperative socialist agendas, which will profit all rather than the privileged few.
□15. We believe that the quest for a good life, for human happiness, is the highest goal of mankind— and that men are quite capable of attaining happiness, security, progress, and satisfaction totally by human effort, without the antiquated need for “God”, which notion is now obsolete with the recent exponential advancement of modern science.
SPECIAL NOTE : 13 of the UNDERSIGNED were from a Christian background and many of the rest were influential in the design and development of the Public Education System.
As you may have noticed, the Manifesto declares that it’s the intention of Humanists to infiltrate the public education system and teach everybody that there is no God, that all of life and reality can be explained from a man-centered perspective.
The reason I have brought this issue up here is because Logan’s Run confronts us with a System that not only controls its citizens from the cradle to the grave, it indoctrinates them to believe things about death that are not only not true but dangerous. This is easy to see in the film— Carrousel is an elaborate lie that baits citizens into what amounts to public suicide at age 30. (When you saw the film, your gut reaction was probably the same as mine: “Not me, brother!” )
The point it, it ought to be clear from a reading of the Manifesto that they have done the same thing as the System computer in Logan’s Run. They’ve overstepped their boundaries. The System computer has invented Carrousel out of a misguided attempt to control the population by setting an artificial age limit — and to make it palatable they’ve suggested that renewal awaits those who submit.
So what’s the equivalent situation in our secular humanist system?
The secular humanists teach that there’s no heaven, no hell, no afterlife, and no God.
You may think this is not a problem— because it’s what you believe anyway. The problem is this: how did you came to believe this? Were you born a secular humanist? If not, then perhaps you’re the product of the secular public school system, which in turn is the product of John Dewey, one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.
All this still may not concern you very much until I insert what I call The Logan’s Run Factor.
The Logan’s Run Factor.
The Logan’s Run factor is the fact that in the movie, Carrousel is an elaborate lie which tricks people into a premature death with the lure of renewal— the promise of a comfortable afterlife The Secular Humanist system does exactly the opposite— it promises no afterlife. You might think these promises are polar opposites, and they are . But they accomplish exactly the same thing— they dupe people into accepting death without a fight.
Did you notice in Article 3 that secularists believe there’s no such thing as a soul which lives on after death? (This means death ends everything— when you die, you cease to exist.)
Did you notice in Article 10 that there’s no “supernatural realm”? That means there’s no heaven and no hell. This may sound like no big deal to you. But has it ever occurred to you that the Christian “heaven” is almost the exact equivalent of Logan’s Sanctuary— a place of safety and escape from the System?
And has it ever crossed your mind that this uncomfortable Christian teaching about Hell could just as well have been hidden from the general public as Classified Information— and the very fact that it’s always been part of the Biblical perspective and has not been hidden away from the public eye is because it’s an absolute essential factor people need to consider before they die?
In other words, people balk and mock about Hell, when it’s probably the most important reason why you should not go gently into that good night! What if there really is a hell? Wouldn’t it be better to know about it and do something about it, than suppress it because it makes you uncomfortable?
I realize that the Biblical and the secular perspectives are completely different when it comes to the matter of the afterlife. I realize that the Biblical perspective seems hard to believe— and in the case of Hell the doctrine seems grotesque and outrageous to our Westernized “secular” mindset.
But what if there really is a hell? Wouldn’t it be equally grotesque and outrageous to tell people there’s nothing to fear— death ends everything? Think about it. I have heard entire secular “ministries“ are in place to counsel people who are afraid to die. They tell them that there’s nothing to fear. Death ends everything. The coaching is so prevalent that even young people who are fed up with life are beginning to think of death as a way out. If life gets miserable or boring, why not end it all?
The problem is, what if death doesn’t end it all? What if after you die there is an afterlife, as the Biblical perspective claims? And what if there’s something you need to do in this life, before you die— to prepare yourself for the afterlife. What if you die unprepared?
Shouldn’t you at least check out BOTH perspectives completely? Shouldn’t you, like Logan, check out Carrousel— but at the same time check out Sanctuary, too?
LINK TO NEXT EPISODE #6 : SANCTUARY
[1] Dr. Wayne Haston wrote the Syllabus for The Philosophy of Christian Education which he taught at Temple Baptist Seminary
[2] Best book to explain this in detail is James Sire’s The Universe Next Door http://www.wtsbooks.com/common/pdf_links/9780830838509-1.pdf
[3] Henry M. Morris, The Long War Against God, Grand Rapids, 1989, Pg 273