Excerpts below from: apologeticspress.org [Click link for full article]

Secular Humanism and Evolution – Apologetics Press

Caleb Colley, Ph.D.

 

DOES SECULAR HUMANISM MEET ITS OWN STANDARDS?

First, consider whether evolution provides philosophical grounds for adequate social goals. A social goal is one that, if accomplished, will benefit a group of people. The only social goal of evolution is more evolution—that the species may continue to improve. Evolutionists cannot logically impose any other social goals because evolution is profited solely by time and chance, neither of which are subject to human influence. It is nonsensical to speak of creating time or chance, and just as ridiculous to speak of people controlling their own rate of evolution.

The secular humanist may be allowed only such goals as are inherent in nature itself, for he asserts that man is merely a part of nature and the product of evolution. So, what of the “social” purposes of various creatures in the animal kingdom? Surely even the most strident Darwinist would refuse to normalize or universalize the “social goals” of, say, the lion. Social responsibility is not a leonine strength. The lion has no better social goals than killing and eating other animals (even people) when he is hungry. He merely acts in accordance with his “selfish genes,” which tell him that he is hungry. The hungry lion feels no further ethical or moral obligation to any larger social goals. For a Darwinist, the social reality is that “plants and animals prey on each other to survive,” and humans have no grounds to establish any higher standard of life (see Ridenour, 2001, p. 170).

 

[Secular humanism contradicts itself]

The humanist position is contradictory in that it proposes to extol the value and significance of humanity, while promoting a theory which weakens the inherent worth of humanity. As secular humanists insist that humanity descended from animal life via evolution, they impart, however unwittingly, the concept that humans are of no more appreciable ultimate value than animals. Consider the words of internationally renowned psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl, witness to numerous horrors in Nazi prison camps:

Under the influence of a world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had robbed man of his will and had made him an object to be exterminated (having planned, however, to make full use of him first—to the last ounce of his physical resources)—under this influence the personal ego finally suffered a loss of values. If the man in the concentration camp did not struggle against this in a last effort to save his self-respect, he lost the feeling of being an individual, a being with a mind, with inner freedom and personal value. He thought of himself then as only a part of an enormous mass of people; his existence descended to the level of animal life (1984, p. 70, emp. added).

Secular humanism, logically, is doomed to reach the unhappy conclusion that, due to its unbreakable tie to Darwinism, it guarantees failure in accomplishing its stated purpose.

[Secular humanism is at war with itself]

…We have shown that secular humanism, by necessarily evoking naturalistic evolution, is at war with itself. Christianity, in contrast to secular humanism, is fully consistent with itself and human experience.

“…Christianity is the true humanism, since it has for its purpose the forming and freeing and exalting of our true humanness. The Christian story is ordinarily said to be about salvation from sin. But that means nothing different from what we are saying, for it is sin that dehumanizes, and it is only in the matrix of holiness that authentic humanness takes shape” (1985, p. 52). One need look no further than the tragic third chapter of Genesis to see the accuracy of this assessment.

[The gospel actually aims at and hits the target of our need in the bull’s-eye]

… In Jesus, we see the glory of humanity at its fullest potential. Again, from Packer and Howard: “Morally and spiritually, intellectually and experientially, motivationally and relationally, the incarnate Son of God stands before us as perfect man, the one totally human being that history knows” (p. 53). In fact, the Christian humanist and the secular humanist share a desire for humanity to be fulfilled, but differ concerning the path to fulfillment and how to define “fulfillment,” i.e., spiritual oneness with God vs. physical, fleshly gratification. The Christian humanist believes that the keys to understanding existence, and the role of humanity in the world, are found in the Bible. He believes in the potency of the Bible because of the powerful evidence of its supernatural origins (“The Inspiration…,” 2001). The Bible reveals specific information about the God Who has revealed Himself in a limited way via His natural creation (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20-21).

Despite the secular humanists’ prediction that the 21st century “can and should be the humanistic century,” (Humanist…, Preface, 1973), there is a growing recognition that secular humanism is devoid of hope for eternity and fulfillment during physical life. Regardless, two things undeniably are true: First, that “the clash of systems between Christianity and secular humanism is building” (Webber, 1982, p. 55), and second, that the Gospel of Christ still has the best answer to man’s problems: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).