10 - The New Humanism

Summary

When people of today, including the Nones, look back over the past life of our culture and ahead to the future, they often think that the perspective to take with us into that future is secular humanism. Secular humanism says religion has had its chance and failed. Or at least that it – secular humanism – can take the good things from religion, combine them with a bunch of other good things, and leave us ahead of the game. But the claims defended in this book show how religion can rise again. And the content of the argument, somewhat unexpectedly, suggests how a new religious humanism might be developed. Among other things, I want to give some attention to how strongly this new humanism challenges secular humanism. Who is best fitted to take us into the deep future? Who passes – or best passes – a 10,000-year test understood in that sense?