I believe it was Wittaker Chambers who described liberalism as “Christianity without the Cross”.
Modern secular humanism is cribbed from Christianity. The ancient pagan ‘Man is the measure of all things’ was not sufficient for the modern notion of human rights. Only the lofty anthropology of ‘ . . .come let Us make Man in Our image and likeness. . .’ and ‘. . .and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. . .’ is ground enough for that.
Some secularists, despite rejecting the source, manage to still get the conception of Man right (Nat Hentoff comes to mind), but most manage to start tinkering (the rationalist always thinks he knows best) around the edges: oh, embryos and foetuses aren’t human, oh, the aged are expendable, . . .
I would love of some freeper would actually define a “secularist.” It means ten different things to ten different people and yet this article and many like it treat the term we’re all on agreement of what it means. Although secular humanist is more exact, even then you can’t know a persons beliefs from that term.
I’m an atheist, what do you think my political beliefs are? Other then the fact that I’m posting here you have no idea. Now let me narrow that down and tell you I’m an objectivist. So now if you know that that is you have a very good idea of what my beliefs are.
I just wish people were much more exact in their language. Simply saying secularist or atheist gives even less indication of ones political beliefs then saying christian or muslim.