Government is Worldview Part 1: Scientific Naturalism/Secular Humanism

I’m on another series, so suckle your beatselts

Question: What legitimate responsibilities does government have?

Is it their responsibility to protect its citizens, build roads, bridges, and hospitals, feed the poor, educate children, send shuttles into space, execute criminals, make sure our food and water are safe, provide income to the unemployed, assist those who’ve survived natural disasters, fight against terrorists, prevent illegal aliens from entering the country, subsidize farmers, and a myriad of other areas of involvement?

Well, it depends on your worldview.

“So what worldview are you using to determine government’s legitimate responsibilities?“

“And why is that worldview legitimate?”

Once you answer that last question, you’ll know what government’s legitimate responsibilities are. So let’s answer that question. It’s actually pretty straightforward.

What Standards Are There?

Although we could look at a dozen different worldviews, they essentially divide into the following:

• Eastern Pantheism
• Islam
• Scientific Naturalism/Secular Humanism
• Marxism-Leninism
• Post Modernism
• Biblical Theism

It’s these major worldviews that have most influenced and shaped our planet. Sure, you can subdivide them into even more specific philosophies/ideologies/religions (i.e., paganism, deism, animism, hedonism, agnosticism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Methodism, Roman Catholicism, etc., you get the idea), and even merge one or more worldviews to create a have-it-your-way worldview combo meal. You can even super-size it if you want.  The point here is that the vast majority of this world’s population lives by one of these six worldviews.

Now although eastern pantheism (New Ageism) and Islam have certainly made inroads into American culture, they haven’t had the impact in our government and political philosophy that the other four worldviews have had. It’s the remaining four I’d like to look at.

Scientific Naturalism (Secular Humanism)

Although there’s much of scientific naturalism I agree with (freedom of speech and the press, legal right of opposition to government policies, fair judicial processes, religious liberty, etc), I’d like to focus on why scientific naturalism believes these values, and others, are important. By examining the why, we turn from a political to an ethics question. That’s fine, because the Humanist Manifesto II, the public declaration of humanism’s worldview and goals, provides us their position. It states:

THIRD: We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life, here and now. The goal is to pursue life’s enrichment despite debasing forces of vulgarization, commercialization, and dehumanization.

FOURTH: Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses. There is no substitute: neither faith nor passion suffices in itself. The controlled use of scientific methods, which have transformed the natural and social sciences since the Renaissance, must be extended further in the solution of human problems. But reason must be tempered by humility, since no group has a monopoly of wisdom or virtue. Nor is there any guarantee that all problems can be solved or all questions answered. Yet critical intelligence, infused by a sense of human caring, is the best method that humanity has for resolving problems. Reason should be balanced with compassion and empathy and the whole person fulfilled. Thus, we are not advocating the use of scientific intelligence independent of or in opposition to emotion, for we believe in the cultivation of feeling and love. As science pushes back the boundary of the known, humankind’s sense of wonder is continually renewed, and art, poetry, and music find their places, along with religion and ethics. (emphasis added)

 The Humanist Manifest III adds the following:

Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.

The problem in these statements is the fatal flaw of scientific naturalism: it states “reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses” yet it gives no reason why this is so. Why aren’t irrationality and stupidity the most effective instruments humankind possesses? It may sound like a ridiculous question, but if, as naturalism claims, all there is is the physical universe–  that once we die, we cease to exist without any future reward or punishment–  then what difference would it make to me whether I live intelligently or stupidly?

Additionally, scientific naturalism/secular humanism fails to answer why “reason should be balanced with compassion and empathy.” Why shouldn’t reason be balanced with brutality and coldness? For that matter, why even have reason? Why not simply live according to unbridled emotion, senseless brutality and icy coldness towards others?

If the scientific naturalist answers, “Because it’s important for the survival of our species,” we have to ask, “Why is our species’ survival important?”

If their answer is, “Because humans have inherent worth,” then we ask, “Where did this inherent worth come from?” If we simply placed worth upon ourselves (and this is the only option the scientific naturalist/secular humanist has), then we can just as easily remove such worth. Thus the only real foundation of scientific naturalism isn’t the balance of reason and empathy; no, the real foundation is power. Those with power can, in the name of scientific naturalism, exert their will to save babies from being thrown into crocodile-infested waters. That’s great. We commend such a position. But that’s not the only position scientific naturalism supports. The fact is, it can just as legitimately use that same power to order babies to be thrown into those same croc-infested waters. If it’s man who determines man’s inherent worth, then he can also change how inherently valuable man is (for better or worse).

So principles such as justice and compassion, civil rights and liberty are only as valuable in the naturalist/humanist world (and its politics) as those naturalists/humanists who are in power ascribe. If they deem it just to imprison a certain people-group or deem it compassionate to suspend their civil rights or even exterminate them, the naturalist/humanist political philosophy doesn’t condemn such measures. Why? Because it’s man who determines man’s inherent worth — and therefore man determines man’s political responsibilities and rights, or lack thereof.

But if inherent worth comes from outside of ourselves…………nawww

Thus we see the fundamental, fatal flaw with scientific naturalism:

1. Each person can determine his own ethics – he doesn’t need a religious or ideological reason for his ethics, he can simply determine for himself, “I hate good, I love evil” just as easily and with equal ethical weight as “I love good, I hate evil”.
   This obviously causes huge headaches when it comes to trying to live as a governed society.
2. Reason is the ultimate standard for determining what is best for mankind; yet naturalism/humanism never gives a reason why reason is best. Why aren’t anarchy or chaos better?
   If anarchy and chaos have as much social and political validity as government and order, then can there truly be a stable society with such a political worldview?
3. Scientific naturalism doesn’t believe in “advocating the use of scientific intelligence independent of or in opposition to emotion, for [they] believe in the cultivation of feeling and love,” but again, what’s the reason for balancing intelligence with emotion? Why shouldn’t we be cerebral Vulcans? Or aggressive Klingons? If all there is is this physical existence and our cognition of it, why pursue intellect? Why pursue love? Why pursue survival either of ourselves as individuals or as a society or as a species?

Thus, scientific naturalism/secular humanism fails miserably to provide us with the confidence we’d want and need to build a civil society. Would other worldviews have this kind of relativistic approach to government? Sure they would. Haven’t we seen Christian societies unjustly imprison, enslave, or execute people? Yes, we have.

But here’s the difference: Christian societies may do such actions in the name of Christianity, but certainly not in its biblical authority; that is to say, Christian societies may have slavery, but not because it’s mandated in the Bible; Christian societies may persecute non-Christians, but not because the Bible has passages requiring such action. However, such is not the case for naturalist/humanist societies. They do such actions in both the name of and in the authority of their worldview. Though their manifestoes may extol reason, justice and compassion, the very “reason” they hold so dear wipes away the noble sounding rhetoric and reveals to us the chaos and barbarity such a worldview justifies.

If the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century alone under naturalist/humanist governments aren’t enough proof of the inhumanity of this worldview, then I don’t know what proof will be enough.

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