Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of Unchanging

Truth, the Colson Center on John Stone Street.

Few months ago, a group called Humanist International updated their defining statement of

world humanism.

Though they explicitly state that the statement is not a creed, it is.

And it serves as an update to what's known as the Amsterdam Declaration, the official

statement of world humanism that was last updated in 2002.

In that edition, the World Human Congress stated that, quote, the solutions to the world's

problems lie in human thought and action.

While that is an interesting claim to make, just a year after the human thought and action

on display in the chaos and tragedy of 9-11, secular humanists interpreted those events

in defense of their creed.

According to the 2002 statement, quote, humanism is a response to the widespread demand for

an alternative to dogmatic religion.

In other words, some people become terrorists because they're religious, not because they're

human.

That argument was persuasive at the time.

In fact, in the years following 9-11, secular humanism seemed to get a kind of second

wind in Western culture, evidenced by the rise of the so-called new atheism.

However, advocates for secular humanism have always resembled the cynical onlookers

portrayed by Frederick Nietzsche and his parable of the madman.

When the madman declares, I see God, I see God, the onlookers mock him.

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