Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism (with an emphasis on the capital H to distinguish it from other forms of humanism), is a secular philosophy that espouses human reason, ethics, and justice, and the search for human fulfillment. It specifically rejects religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience or superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making. Secular Humanism is a comprehensive life stance that focuses on the way human beings can lead happy and functional lives. Though it posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God, it neither assumes humans to be inherently or innately good, nor presents humans as "above nature" or superior to it. Rather, the Humanist life stance emphasises the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions.
When it come free will God cannot make anything happen but he can influence it to happen. Process theology believes that the world is not identical with God even though God contains the world; God is changeable because he owns a changeable universe and the final belief is that mankind is not immortal but they can be immortal in God (Grenz, Olson, 1992). The core of Tillich’s theology is reason, revelation, symbol and Being and God, existence of Christ. The final concepts of Tillich’s theology are life in the Spirit, history and the Kingdom. When these two theologies are dissected one will realize that they have some connections.
• Jung states that we can never know whether or not God exists. We can never know if a religious experience is real or whether it is created by the mind. However, Jung accepts science which bases conclusions on empirical evidence without worrying about whether the data is a figment of a person’s imagination. If there is empirical evidence for a religious experience, why can’t we accept that it is true? • The Theory of Archetypes - Geza Roheim argues that the theory of archetypes is unnecessary.
In the Dialogues of Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume, he explains his thoughts concerning God and the higher power that in his opinion should not be accepted. “There is no ground to suppose a plan of the world to be formed in the Divine mind…”(Hume, 714). From this we can concur Hume is no full hearted believer that he considers God knows and will know what has to come. From his distinctions, there is no good reason for a designer, and to think that God is an all-powerful being that also is subject to human like or materialistic traits should not be looked upon as valid. From his theories the only way we can know things for sure is through cause and effect.
Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably increase human good. With being said we can assume that Dewey did not believe in God or Jesus Christ. Because Dewey’s views are the way they are it would be easy to point out the differences in his Ideas and those of Jesus Christ. Dewey believed that schooling should be humanistic instead of Christian. Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions.” Jesus Christ had a different belief when it came to the existence of God and the increase of “human good”.
In his letter, Galileo asserts the Bible as a direct authority on faith and not as of one on science when his states, “that our authors knew the truth but the Holy Spirit did not desire that men should learn things that are useful to no one for salvation" The idea that the Earth moved and the sun stood still did not contradict scripture. If the scripture was interpreted correctly then the sun could only stand still if the sun normally moved around the Earth. Galileo wanted people during the 18th century to open their minds to the scientific discoveries and realize that a new idea did not have to repute scriptures. He argued against the accusations the he was condemning the Bible in a way that was, "without understanding it, weighing it, or so much as reading it". Galileo claimed to strongly believe the Bible and its message of faith.
On one hand you have the philosophers who believe you can speak and write about God, because God is reality. On the other hand, are the Logical Positivists who claim that statements about God have no meaning because they don’t relate to anything that is real. There are a number of philosophers who claimed to have proven conclusively that religious language is meaningful, for example Aquinas’ theory of analogy. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something which is difficult to understand and forming relations through attributes or relations that are similar. Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal language when talking about God.
However, when using this approach little value is given to the fact that some of the psychology tends to contradict with theology beliefs. This seems to cause problems since Christian therapists usually look for guidance with the scriptures and are using two contradictory doctrines to create one intervention plan to assist their clients. The “Nothing Buttery” approach, states that scripture is the only doctrine needed to assist clients. In this approach psychology techniques are not needed because God’s word will provide everything needed to have a healthy
All human beings seek to be rational in what they do. Yes, science does provide a method of justifying rationality but God is the other part of the spectrum that science cannot explain. God is also another figure that provides rationality to someone who does not understand science the only path to salvation and to rationality is through religion. If this form of God takes 1000 different shapes across many religions, it does not make God untrue, it is just a manifestation. The biggest contradictory idea against the motion would be that of whether God can be proven empirically.
Kant proclaims “the belief that we have cognition of something through experience which we in fact cannot accept as happening according to objective laws of experience (faith in miracles)”(p.185). He credits faith's mass appeal and staying power as the main reason for the growth of corrupted notions of miracles and saving grace. Kant was not a believer that accepting Jesus Christ as our savior would be all that is needed in Christian grace to free oneself from sin. Kant says “It is totally inconceivable, however, how a rational human being who knows himself to deserve punishment could seriously believe that he only has to believe the news of satisfaction having been rendered Page 1 for him, and accept it utiliter, in order to regard his guilt as done away with” (p. 123). These ideas of Kant seem to imply he is not a believer of Jesus or that miracles have never happened, the idea Kant is developing that miracles are not necessary for us to develop moral