Religion and Spiritual Integrity
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reductive naturalism, and materialism. Scientism means that only scientific inquiry is rational and that science is the only way to a better human future. Reductive naturalism and materialism are similar stances. They hold that At a philosophical level, secular humanism promotes versions of scientism,
what is real is natural (there are only natural events with natural causes), that wand is, as such, a proper object of scientific inquiry. There is no telling how many Americans hold these views, although the 1990 ARIS poll showed hat is natural can be construed in terms of the organization of matter
23 percent declaring that they subscribe to “no religion.” It seems plausible that many, maybe most, scientific w“Secular humanism” names a general tendency toward cultural forms. It orldview pervades contemporary culture. scientists are naturalists or materialists, and that the 18
defines education, art, politics, literature, economics, etc. in such a way that they owe nothing to religion and cannot, in principle, disclose experiences of religious transcendence. In this broad sense secular humanism is strongly allied with the appearance of critique in modern culture, as discussed in chapter 3.
Yet according to our definition of religion in both its general and particular dimensions, secular humanism, ironically, qualifies as a functional equivalent of a religion. Ingredient is the mood of joy in exercising the liberating power of free and rational inquiry in order “to bring out the best in people so that all
people can have the best in life.”human problems in practical ways, to moral principles, to constitutional demo-cracy and protection human potential. Redemption is of the rights of all minorities, and to the maximization of^19 from Secular humanism is committed to solving religion and for the world.
an orientation capable of integrating basic, social, natural, and reflective goods under a principle of what it considers to be the highest good. But what is the highest good according to secular humanism? In its extreme There is much that is admirable and noble in secular humanism. It provides
forms, secular humanists believe in humanity as the master of its own destiny and source of its own moral law. This view we call “overhumanization.” It gives up any sense of genuine transcendence in human consciousness other than intrahuman transcendence. It makes human flourishing an end to
which all other Overhumanization thereby contradicts the good of spiritual integrity, or so we contend. Secular humanists endorse a cosmopolitan outlook with genuine passion and commitment and yet they delimit the range of experi-actions, relations, and forms of life are possible means.
ence in ways that stunt the integrity of human life. The world becomes flat and the future of life is thereby threatened. In order to elaborate this point, we consider the recent literature of new atheism as an extreme version of secular humanism.