Free Republic

What is the New Age Movement? What is secular humanism? What influence do they have on America’s society and public schools? Are they making our society and public schools better or worse? What kind of following do they have? Who are their leaders? It is my purpose to answer these questions and many more as they relate to the effects of the New Age Movement and secular humanism in America’s society and public schools. Hopefully, those who read this article will become enlightened as I did to the realization that America is rapidly becoming a New Age nation.

The identity consciousness of pupils and students must be countered. They must be prepared to take their place as planetary citizens in a multi-cultural, multi-religious, non-racial and non-sexist society. Narrow-mindedness must be replaced by the largest possible degree of open-mindedness on all matters, thereby superseding any narrow ideological orientation.

Different types of educational curriculums, programs, and strategies are being used to support the acculturation of humanism in American schools.. Some of these are global education, non-directive education, affective education, and active learning. These methods use the guise as acceptable programs recognized by leaders of different aspects of our government and society. By having the acceptance of our governmental leaders, it has made the transition of these programs into mainstream America and its school systems a simple task. However, it is not too late to begin a counter attack. America must find out the truth about the evils contained in...

Many of the leading educators in the United States have accepted the humanist approach to education. These are the same people who have developed our curriculums, spent federal money on educational programs, and advised our government on educational trends. William H. Kilpatrick, one of John Dewey’s followers, stated that the old education format was based on “a psychology that stressed acquisition, even drill, and minimized critical thinking.”

[An oldie-but-goodie appropriate for Earth Day.] April 22, 2005 -- Today is a religious holiday that should make us all into atheists. April 22, 2005, marks the 35th anniversary of Earth Day. For many people it's simply a day to think warm and fuzzy thoughts about clean air, crystal lakes, verdant forests and soaring eagles. Until the 1990s May Day marked the worship by the communists of an abstraction called the "workers" at the expense of real flesh-and-blood workers and every other human being on the planet. The result was human carnage. Now Earth Day marks the worship by eco-extremists...

That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto's West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country. But at West Hill on the faith's holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words “Jesus Christ” will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with “Glorious hope.” Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity's central...

Last week, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote a column titled "Secular Europe's Merits," in which he explained why he prefers the secularism of Europe to the religiosity of America. To his credit (other New York Times columnists do not generally agree to debate anything they write -- Paul Krugman, for example, has refused to discuss his new book on liberalism with me), Cohen agreed to come on my show, and proved to be a charming guest. A distinguished foreign correspondent for Reuters and the International Herald Tribune, Cohen nevertheless betrayed what I believe is endemic to those who...

Let's face it: Atheism is in. Not since Nietzsche have disbelievers enjoyed such ready public reception to their godless message—and such near-miraculous royalties. But even that hasn't put them in a good mood. Snaps Christopher Hitchens, who wrote God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (although not, presumably, the pronouncements of atheists), "Many of the teachings of Christianity are, as well as being incredible and mythical, immoral." A feuding Richard Dawkins suggests that believers "just shut up." Apparently, they didn't get the tolerance memo. Other authors—including Douglas Wilson and Francis Collins—have capably refuted the new atheist shtick. But remembering...

Board pulls out of program; Organizers try to understand reasoning Posted By Jennifer Hamilton-McCharles The Nugget Posted 10 hours ago Rose Haufe doesn't buy the reason given by the area's largest school board to no longer support Operation Christmas Child. The Powassan resident told The Nugget Tuesday the project is "simply caring for people and is beyond any religious boundaries." "I'm trying to think of their motivation, but I can't think of why they wouldn't want to do this," Haufe said. "When a child gives they never forget. It's a lesson they need to learn. It teaches them there's others...

Holiday task force gives decoration suggestions for city This article discusses a proposal by the city of Fort Collins, CO to establish a task force to consider policies related to city-sponsored holiday displays. The "educational and multicultural" display would represent both religious and non-religious celebrations that occur between Nov 1 and Jan 30.

The worldview of Evolutionary Humanism (or scientific naturalism) has two central components. The first is metaphysical; the second epistemological. Metaphysically, Evolutionary Humanism infers that the natural or material realm either self-created or has existed eternally. This doctrine is known as scientism. In addition, this worldview teaches us to believe that everything---including life and intelligence---came about through unseen (immaterial) processes of motion called evolution. Epistemologically, it demands that sensory knowledge (empiricism) be the only authoritative source of knowledge. In the words of the Humanist Manifesto II: “Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis…science is the best...

2004 Volume 4The Greatest Killer The 20th Century has been the bloodiest century in all of history. And humanism has proven to be the most destructive religion of all time. Far more people have been killed in the name of atheism than by all other religions combined. Historian Paul Johnson has observed that ”the 20th Century state has proved itself the great killer of all time.” The 20th Century has seen the worst atrocities ever committed. The word ”genocide”, a new term coined in the 20th Century, describes what has occurred repeatedly in secular humanist states - which had...

Harry Potter and "the Death of God" - by Michael D. O'Brien Special to LifeSiteNews.com Editor's Note: LifeSiteNews.com, the news service which first put online the letter signed by Cardinal Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI - against the Harry Potter books, is proud to present Michael O'Brien's latest essay on the Potter series.  The author, North America's foremost Potter critic, has written many articles that analyze in detail the Harry Potter novels. Here he reflects on the significance of the series as a whole. Well, July 21st has come and gone and the world is muggling onward. The date,...

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They...

BLACKSBURG, Va. - It's worse than we thought.....Soon after two people were shot to death in a Virginia Tech dormitory Monday morning, the college's president gathered a team of his highest-ranking eggheads to decide what to do. And they did absolutely nothing. Why did the academics keep the shooting a secret for two solid hours - while 30 more souls lost their lives? It seems the finest minds in Virginia chose to treat the shooting as a repeat of an August emergency that made them shut down the campus - unnecessarily. The tragic decision not to act was made by...

CAEN, France -- With 40 minutes to go before show time, the 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium was already packed. A fan set up video camera in the front row. A sound engineer checked the microphones. The star: Michel Onfray, celebrity philosopher and France's high priest of militant atheism. Dressed entirely in black, he strode onto the stage and looked out at the reverential audience for his weekly two-hour lecture series, "Hedonist Philosophy," which is broadcast on a state radio station. "I could found a religion," he said. Mr. Onfray, 48 years old and author of 32 books, stands in...

HUMANISM UNMASKED AS DEFINED BY JOHN DEWEY, THE FATHER OF MODERN EDUCATION Humanism is as old as the garden of Eden, but few know what it is. The idea of Humanism replacing Godism can be seen in the garden of Eden when Satan taught Eve that she would know longer need God, she could be as her own god and do what she pleased after she got enough knowledge of her own. Men have written on the subject since Plato and Aristotle, but still most people only think it means 'kind' or 'humane'. A better definition is required if...

October 02, 2006, 6:02 a.m. Traitors to the EnlightenmentEurope turns its back on Socrates, Locke, et al. By Victor Davis Hanson The first Western Enlightenment of the Greek fifth-century B.C. sought to explain natural phenomena through reason rather than superstition alone. Ethics were to be discussed in the realm of logic as well as religion. Much of what Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and the Sophists thought may today seem self-evident, if not at times nonsensical. But that century was the beginning of the uniquely Western attempt to bring to the human experience empiricism, self-criticism, irony, and tolerance in thinking. The...

This is a video of a brave Arab woman speaking passionately against violent Muslims on Al-Jazeera TV. I'm surprised they allowed her to speak and I wonder if she is still alive today.

Blessing of school may have done more harm to students than good Saturday, September 09, 2006 I write regarding the Aug. 27 blessing of Woodward Park Middle School and the Aug. 31 editorial "No harm done." Even if I grant that the 180 people who took part in this blessing were legally exercising their free-speech rights and that no unconstitutional mixing of church and state occurred, I am far from convinced that no harm was done. Can you cite any empirical studies proving that such blessing ceremonies are safe and effective? If you can’t, is it possible that students who...

How To Fight The Religious Righthttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/26/opinion/main1837172.shtml http://tinyurl.com/jhs6f July 26, 2006 --------------------------------------------------------------------- (The American Prospect) This article was written by Adele M. Stan. --------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a modest and, I thought, obvious proposal that I put forward two weeks ago on this page: That liberals give up the notion of creating a cohesive religious left movement that could act as an effective counterforce to the animus of the religious right. Instead, I argued, liberals would do well to claim our own moral agency by virtue of our own humanity and the essential values of liberalism, which encompass the most admirable tenets...

Justices refuse atheist father's challenge to Boy Scout recruitinghttp://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=16955 By The Associated Press 05.30.06 WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court turned away an appeal today from an atheist father who wanted to end recruiting by the Boy Scouts organization at his son's public school. John Scalise had asked the Court to bar public schools from opening their doors to Boy Scout recruiters and promoting membership, arguing that the group discriminates against nonreligious boys and parents by denying membership unless they swear to religious oaths. Scalise's dispute with the Scouts dates back to 1998, when his son was a third-grader in Michigan....

...........A federal judge who outlawed the teaching of "intelligent design" in Dover science classes told graduates at Dickinson College that the nation's founders saw religion as the result of personal inquiry, not church doctrine. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones gave the commencement address Sunday to 500 graduates at Dickinson College, his alma mater............... "The founders believed that true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible, but was to be found through free, rational inquiry," said Jones, who was thrust into the national spotlight by last years court fight over the teaching of...

Remember humanism? That optimistic belief that human beings are the apex of the universe, the source of all values, and the measure of all things? Throughout the 20th century, many intellectuals believed that humanism would take the place of the world's religions. And yet, even within the world of humanism, the status of "Man" has been diminishing. In the sequence of Humanist Manifestos issued over the years, what began with the exaltation of "Man" has been reduced to the exaltation of "science," by which adherents mean evolution. Today, "secular humanists" still believe in secularism, but the humanism is all but...

Is God a flying ball of pasta? It's one theory -- just like intelligent design KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE HACKENSACK, N.J. - Unlike a certain other religion in the news, the First United Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't object to cartoon depictions of the supreme being. For one thing, he's easy to draw: a tangle of pasta strands with a meatball body. In some pictures, he is shown reaching out to confer the blessings of life and happiness with what church members like to refer to as his "noodly appendage." Flying Spaghetti Monster could be the next big...

Routine reporting by mainstream media journalists shows they rarely ask tough questions of abortion advocates, or of the women who seek abortions and can't get them as easily as they would like. A notable example is a Washington Post story published last week in which reporter Evelyn Nieves laments that the state of South Dakota has only one abortion clinic, which provides services just one day per week. That's because the right-to-life movement in the state has been so successful, that no practitioners are willing to live under the "abortion doctor" stigma there. So the sole clinic, in Sioux Falls,...

"In Aug., 2003, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the results of their $1.2 million tax-payer funded study.  It stated, essentially, that traditionalists are mentally disturbed.  Scholars from the Universities of Maryland, California at Berkeley, and Stanford had determined that social conservatives, in particular, suffer from 'mental rigidity,' 'dogmatism,' and 'uncertainty avoidance,' together with associated indicators for mental illness."  (B.K. Eakman, Chronicles, Oct. 2004, pp. 28-29)   As usual with leftists, the true meaning of their words is couched in deceptive code.  When the deceptions are peeled away we discover that ''dogmatism''...

"Man On The Moon" Based on the performance by REM"Base On The Moon" Parody by Sarcastic Paranoid

True and False Humanism Secular Humanism rests on an unperceived fallacy. In effect it says that man can love and esteem himself more if he does not have to share that love and esteem with God. But love is something which grows the more it is shared. When men love God, their genuine self-love does not diminish, it increases. Finally, it is only because they love God that men are properly enabled to love themselves. THE TERM “HUMANISM” is ambiguous from a Christian stand point. In one sense its common use is to be welcomed, since it tends to make...

In 1920, Winston Churchill spoke of a group of Enlightenment conspirators who had produced a system of morals and philosophy "as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible." He observed that this malignant worldview "has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century. This worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality has been steadily growing." (Zionism versus Bolshevism) This malevolent system of warped morals and anti-human philosophy entered into...

Bioethics and Public Policy: Conservative Dominance in the Current Landscape Overview The rapid advance of biotechnology is quickly outpacing our ability as a society to absorb the effect it will have on our lives. Scientific and medical complexities, combined with real-life scenarios that were beyond our collective imagination a decade ago, leave many of us struggling to comprehend and evaluate the implications that these advances may have on daily life. Fundamentally, people fear change, suffering, and death—and these fears are at the heart of most bioethical issues. From embryonic stem cell research to the Terri Schiavo case, a whole new...

Timeline of Secret Government Projects LSD, Esalen, HAARP and the Cosmic Cointelpro or When You Dance With the Devil... note: because important web-sites are frequently "here today but gone tomorrow" the following was archived from http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/timeline.htm on November 3, 2002. This is NOT an attempt to divert readers from the aforementioned web-site.  Indeed, the reader should only read this back-up copy if it cannot be found at the original author's site.This timeline, prepared by a researcher of our Quantum Future School, [JH] with many linked sources, barely scratches the surface. It is our hope that readers will do additional research,...

The American Atheists organization says President Bush should stop urging prayer for Hurricane Katrina victims because it violates the Constitution. Ellen Johnson, president of the group said Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Bush "should not be violating the Constitution by telling people to pray for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It's unconstitutional for government officials to be promoting religion; and besides, judging from the speed of some relief efforts, officials should be busy working instead of preaching."

GENEVA (Reuters) - Humanists and atheists from East and West meet in Paris next week to forge a common platform against what they see as a growing threat from religions and religious politicians to secular states across the globe. Their gathering, the World Humanist Congress, is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the French Law on the Separation of Religion and State, a key document which set France alongside the United States as a bulwark of secularism. "With U.S. society sliding towards theocracy, and religious belief -- even fundamentalism -- on the rise in every continent we have...

One major conflict between the Judeo-Christian value system and the various secular ones competing with it revolves around the answers to these questions: Is nature created for man or is man merely a part of nature? Or, to put it in other words, does the natural environment have any significance without man to appreciate it and to use it for his good? The Judeo-Christian responses are clear: Nature has been created for man's use; and on its own, without man, it has no meaning. Dolphins are adorable because human beings find them adorable. Without people to appreciate them or the...

If you’re an evangelical Christian, a Jew, a Catholic or any kind of believer – you have an implacable enemy – one who hates you and wants to destroy you. When I say hate, I’m not talking about pique, annoyance or a vague aversion. I mean hate the way Nazis hated Jews, the way white supremacists hate blacks, the way the Hutus hated the Tutsis. Once you reach this realization, it gives you an almost Zen-like clarity of vision and focus. Because then you understand your enemy, what motivates him, and what he is capable of. And you begin to...

LONDON -- Monkey business proved to be lucrative Monday when paintings by Congo the chimpanzee sold at auction for more than $25,000. The three abstract, tempera paintings were auctioned at Bonhams in London alongside works by impressionist master Renoir and pop art provocateur Andy Warhol. But while Warhol's and Renoir's work didn't sell, bidders lavished attention on Congo's paintings. An American bidder named Howard Hong, who described himself as an ''enthusiast of modern and contemporary painting," bought the lot of paintings for $26,352, including a buyer's premium. The sale price far surpassed predictions. "We had no idea what these things...

At around the age of eighteen, I became interested in politics. Prior to that, my attention was focused elsewhere due to my age, I believe. I did not understand the real meaning of political language, but I tried, mostly without success, to seek out sources to research and understand it. When I turned eighteen, in accordance with Muslim education, I completed an intensive program of Islamic study, which took four to five months. During this time, I began reading non-Iranian, secular books. While reading history, sociology, anthropology, and religious texts, it became clear to me that, when religion moves from...

(AgapePress) - Ironically, 225 years after the United States of America broke the shackles of a great European empire, our country is yet again struggling to free itself from Europe. Will we become another Europe? Or will America remain separate from the dark cloud of secular humanism that has engulfed that continent? The great churches of Europe that were so much a part of that continent's culture for centuries are now mere dwarves of their former selves. The Protestant movement that began in Germany with Martin Luther has lost all of its influence among the people of that continent. Today,...

When Pope Benedict XVI was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger he told Europe to recover its Christian roots “if it truly wants to survive.” Amen from an arch-Protestant whose ancestors included refugees who fled Catholic persecution for freedom in Virginia. The new Pope is a scholar who sees history unfolding into the future. We agree. Europe will be Islamic and subject to Islamist Totalitarianism by 2100, unless Europeans turn to faith and family. If Europe fails to live for faith and family, succumbing further to Socialist Human Secular Totalitarianism, then European culture deserves to die under Islamic culture. Many Europeans hope that...

The initial event that disabled Terri Schiavo didn't end up killing her. But in her obituary notice, what will the cause of death read? Will it read: murder? It should. The heart attack that disabled her didn't doom her; a husband without a heart did. Under judge-made law, euthanasia has become America's most astonishing form of premeditated murder, a cold-blooded crime in which husbands can kill their wives and even turn them into accomplices to it through the telepathy of "their wishes." To wonder if we're on the slippery slope sounds like an obtuse moral compliment at this point. The...

It's Christmas lunch at my house this year. My mother, a practising Jew, will be at the table, and so will my father-in-law, a fundamentalist Christian. My children were bequeathed a rich religious heritage but they have turned out to be "none": non-scripture, non-believers, non-religious. Before they were 13, they were declared atheists. "C'mon, Mum, how can we have a bar-mitzvah if we don't believe in God?" they intoned. And the idea of going to church on Sunday instead of to soccer struck them as ludicrous. If they had a religion, it was sport. People with religious or spiritual beliefs...

Christians are bad. Comrades are good. That is the lesson of the recently concluded parallel process by which the European Union Commission and the European Parliament accepted Laszlo Kovacs of Hungary as a European commissioner while vociferously rejecting Italy's European affairs minister, Rocco Buttiglione, for his views on marriage and homosexuality. The media describe Laszlo Kovacs as a "socialist." In fact, he is a career communist with decades of totalitarian experience.

Calgary – Michael O'Malley, a controversial Catholic school trustee, has been censured by his board and won't be allowed access to confidential information. The Calgary Catholic School District says O'Malley, elected to the board a month ago, breached its code of conduct. Cathie Williams, chair of the board, says O'Malley released confidential information to the public, got involved in contract negotiations and made negative comments about the chief superintendent. "At this point in time, Mr. O'Malley will be excluded from legal matters of the board, basically any matters that are of a confidential nature," she said. O'Malley, a well-known anti-abortion...

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Toronto As a young Canadian Muslim who has called for reform in Islam, I've been traveling throughout North America and Europe over the past year. Last week, I toured France and Spain. God help me. I didn't expect a warm reception from fellow Muslims. But now, I'm also not sure that liberal Muslims like me fit comfortably in a secular European crowd. I say this even after the murder of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker, who police officials say was shot and stabbed by a Muslim extremist. Mr. van Gogh had exercised his right to criticize...

Election exit polls showed that twenty-two percent of voters ranked "moral values" as the most important issue, above terrorism and the economy. Nearly 80 percent of that group voted for George Bush. As the dust settles in the aftermath of his decisive victory, people are still talking about the so-called moral divide in America. Were the polls flawed? Does it matter? What divide is this? The irreligious have morals values, too. They just differ in many ways from those of Christians. For example, they may claim that the moral law derives from man's best efforts through trial-and-error evolutionary processes. Christians...

To tell you the truth, whatever the protocol of acceptance and concession speeches after presidential elections -- and I watched both -- I would not call what we just went through a national election. Or at least not a healthy one. I would call it a warning, a signal of things to come, the klaxon of what is clearly a crossover moment in time, perhaps, but not a real profile of the historic American character and hopes. We are supposed to understand that by a margin of less than 150,000 votes in one state this "country" decided its policies, programs...

Editors' preface: A noted historian of the Middle East has said the following about the legacy of scholars who devoted their careers to the study of the region: The giants of the recent past tend to be largely forgotten as soon as they are dead if not before, especially if what they have written isn't what is now considered fashionable or central … They are criticized when they are in error, but their achievements are forgotten.[1] While this is largely true in the English-speaking countries, it is not true in France, where a few French "giants" of Islamic and Arab...

Four years of faith-based initiatives is long enough. As every American should know, our country was founded on the principles of man ("We the People"), not God, and religion should not be thrust into the actions of our government. Easier said than done, especially with the current presidential administration. "After Sept. 11 everyone was equating religion with patriotism," author Susan Jacoby told The Capital Times. "If you weren't religious, you weren't patriotic." Jacoby, who will speak here this weekend as part of the Freedom From Religion Foundation's national convention, is the author of "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism." The...

Not long ago, humanists could feel that theirs was the way of the future. But now, Dave Belden argues, we will need to relearn how to make common cause with religious progressives For many humanists, it may be time to rethink some fundamental attitudes: the world's poor are the engines of population growth and most of them have religion. The rich can't function even in their own countries without bringing in working armies from the global south; through this flow of people, religion is returning to the sacred (or is it the scared?) homelands of secularism. This process raises serious...