I found George asking some questions on another thread about The Humanist Manifesto which he brought up here a couple times in the process of accusing me of being a humanist. I don't know if I ever read the Humanist Manifesto but I'm sure it made little impression on me if I did, and after going and reading it online just now -- I read I and skimmed the other 2 -- I can say that I consider the thing to be an abomination, a work of the devil. To accuse me of anything out of that monstrosity makes George guilty of a serious failure of Christian judgment. To put it nicely.

George wants an assessment of "how much influence Humanism has had on the Western World in the last 120 years or so." I'd say quite a bit, but not necessarily under that name. George's focus is so particularly aimed at these Manifestos that he's probably overlooking all the other trends that have contributed to the mess he's apparently talking about, under other names. I haven't heard anyone even use the term "humanism" in a long time, and I have no idea how much influence the Humanist Association may have had, but I know those same ideas are embedded in the culture through many other sources by now. Does George know where socialism originated? (Answer: Liberal Christianity in the 19th century) The ACLU? (Similar origin, linked up with Communism in the early 20th century). Is George aware of the influence of the Frankfurt School? All the poison that came to flower in the 60s was focused through the work of that institution, Cultural Marxism being its name, the "sexual freedom" poison, the gay rights poison, the feminist poison, the abortion poison, the "liberation" of all the evils on this planet I think, the virulent attacks on Christianity. Is George up on Postmodernism? Does George know anything about Deconstructionism and its source? These are fruits of the Frankfurt School that have been poisoning our universities since the 60s. Oh yes, it all started much earlier than that and the Humanist Association was at least one voice leading up to it I'm sure.

These are enemies I have been encountering and battling to the best of my ability on other message boards for some years now, but George calls me a "humanist."

Well, maybe a woman shouldn't be doing this sort of thing. I really don't know. Maybe although I have no family I should nevertheless try to aim myself to be helpful in that direction. I'd love to have more of a part in my grandson's life but that's not realistically possible right now. I hope I will have a good influence on him in the time I do get to be with him and certainly through prayer. Perhaps I should spend more time with my nieces and nephews and their families, who live a little farther than my car can be trusted to take me these days, but if it's what I'm supposed to do then the Lord would make it possible. I've felt remiss as an aunt but also don't see that I have anything to offer. Only one of them is Christian, and he's involved in a Oneness Pentecostal cult, which makes our conversations a bit tricky, although for the most part I have better conversations with him than with his unbeliever sister who resents my attempts to encourage her to stick with her husband. At least I got my brother, their father, saved -- he thinks he is anyway, we'll have to see, at least he's going regularly to a pretty good church and hearing some good preaching. Maybe I need to get more involved with all of them despite the impracticalities involved.

I don't mean to be sarcastic, I mean really, maybe I should, although I don't see any real opportunities and I don't feel I have anything to offer.

Point is, maybe I'm not supposed to be debating these things on the internet. Maybe I shouldn't even have gotten so involved in them and learned so much about them. I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO AS A WOMAN IN THIS PARTICULAR SITUATION I'M IN AND WITH THESE PARTICULAR INTERESTS AND ABILITIES!

Anyway, George, what you are calling humanism is just one trend of the demonic worldview that has completely overthrown this nation and the entire West in the last half century and is rapidly preparing the ground for the coming of the Antichrist. Or maybe humanism is one of the names for it, but it's not the most familiar name these days.

Please be careful who you accuse of what, because I have reason to think I'm far less "infected" by all that demonic insanity than just about anyone you are likely to meet.

This is a false distinction, George. Words do happen to MEAN things, and what they MEAN is what we are to learn. There's no magic in words themselves, but of course we have to have the correct words or we aren't going to get the correct meaning. Certainly liberals and humanists can distort the message of scripture, but that's not the same thing as struggling to understand a difficult part of scripture, and there are such difficult parts of scripture, and getting the meaning of it is the whole point.

You seem to be attacking logic and reasoning as such, but these are not God's enemies. There is such a thing as reasoning based on scripture and not on twisting scripture. You are very much in error if you are calling all uses of the mind to understand things on the basis of God's word "humanism."

That is a dangerous error you are making, George. I understand what you are trying to say but you are not saying it correctly. In fact this is a good illustration of the point: I think I understand what you MEAN even though you are not saying it right. I think you are rightly concerned with people MISreading scripture to mean something other than it means, and putting words in people's mouths, right? If not, correct me, but if so, you are overstating the case and confusing the issue.

We can count on scripture to have the right words, but human beings don't always choose the most apt words for what they are trying to say, and our job IS to find out what they MEAN. That is NOT the same thing as "what we personally get out of it," but an honest attempt to understand what the words themselves mean, not what WE mean. In the case of scripture we can trust the words even though we still may have to struggle to understand the meaning the writer intended, while with fallible human beings sometimes we have to help them find better words for what they intend to say.

How about the situation with the US Constitution? I'm sure you are one who objects to how recent Supreme Court rulings misread it, right? Well, are the words there or not? It's possible some of the words could have been better chosen since it's not scripture, but I think for the most part they are there and the SCOTUS is misreading them, reading into it their own philosophy. it's MEANING that matters, George. Does Freedom of Speech mean freedom of pornography or not? It's MEANING that matters.



SOME OF GEORGE'S POST FROM THE OTHER THREAD:

#12. Are you aware as to just how much influence Humanism has had on the Western World in the last 120 years or so? Yes? or No?

#13. Are you aware as to just how much influence Humanism has had in the United States in the last 120 years or so?: (In the fields of: Education [primary, high school, college]; Government [National, State, County, City, Town – Executive, Legislative, JUDICIARY]; Media [Print, Radio, Television, etc.]; the families; and in the churches [especially with pastors, teachers, counselors, etc.]. Yes? or No?

#14. Are you aware as to just how much influence Psychiatry & Psychology (based in Humanism) has had in the United States in the last 120 years or so?: (In the fields of: Education [primary, high school, college]; Government [National, State, County, City, Town – Executive, Legislative, JUDICIARY]; Media [Print, Radio, Television, etc.]; the families; and in the churches [especially with pastors, teachers, counselors, etc.]. Yes? or No?

I have asked a little over half the number of questions you asked, but these questions are very important because many of the “arguments’; disputes; disagreements; contentions; and wranglings that take place on this Forum are because we Christians have been “infected” with Humanism – some more than others (but none of us is exempt).

We are a nation of sophists:

SOPHIST, n. L. sophista,

1. A professor (not a college Professor) of philosophy; as the sophists of Greece.

2. A captious or fallacious reasoner.

Humanism has permeated every facet of our lives and as such it is very difficult to discern between that which is Scriptural (spiritual) and that which is Carnal (our Culture, etc.). God expects us to act on Scriptural precepts and principles, not with our own (Humanistic) logic and/or reasoning. That is why it is of the utmost importance that when we read the Scriptures we are to look for what God says (His words), and not what does God “mean”.

The same holds true for men’s words: we are not to try to figure out what someone “means” or what we personally “get out of someone’s words” – we are to read the words as they are, not what we may think they “mean”.

I am done with this subject unless someone else brings it up again.

Yours for the Lord Jesus Christ and for His Holy Word,