“You shall be as gods”: secular humanism and the kingdom of man (Part 1)

“My children of the world, you stand now upon a hill, a hill that you have built upon humanistic values and materialistic manners, as you sought to build a world of your own, cutting off the light, and building a utopia, built with humanism and socialism, and communism—all under the heading of love and brotherhood, but covered with a blanket of darkness of the spirit. For this, the Eternal Father has allowed you to pursue your own course. The awakening shall come in shock to many.” – Jesus, November 20, 1979

Secular humanism is a godless belief system (a godless religion) in which man puts himself at the center of creation, in place of God. Even the humanists admit this, in books and articles. One example is the humanist Charles Francis Potter’s book, Humanism: A New Religion, in which he writes, “Education is the most powerful ally of humanism. What can theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”[1]

Catholicism teaches Faith with works, Protestantism erroneously asserts Faith without works, while secular humanism extends the error of the Protestants one step further by proclaiming works without Faith. Owen Dudley writes:

“Men are in danger of staking their all upon what would prove to be the greatest delusion ever foisted on humanity, were it generally accepted. Men are being told that there is a certain road to human happiness in this world; that those who tread this road will find an Utopia of earthly bliss; that they will become ‘men like Gods.’ It is not the first time men have been so told. ‘You shall be as Gods,’ urged Satan in the Garden of Eden. But he lied. And the man and woman were fooled. So also will it be with the men and women who allow themselves to be caught in the snares of those who are repeating that invitation today.”[2]

Secular humanism is “this-worldliness”, that is, transferring the center of gravity from eternity to this world.[3] The humanist would say, “This is the world that matters. Heaven is a dream. This world is a fact. We must therefore confine our attention to it.”[4] The object of Christianity is to bring man to know, love and serve God in this world so that he may be happy forever with Him in the next. The humanist, however, sees this world as an end in itself. “…It is clear,” says Dudley, “that you cannot be a Humanitarian and a Christian at the same time.”[5]

As one author put it, “Secular humanism is not human at all. It is beastly diabolical.” The Bible tells us in the book of Genesis that our first parents, Adam and Eve, sought to be like God by arrogating to themselves the power of lawgiver, in defiance of God’s authority: “And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:4-5) Another way of understanding this temptation is, “You'll be as gods to know good from evil,” that Adam and Eve falsely believed they could determine what was good and evil, independent of God. According to Herbert Schlossberg, “All forms of humanist sentimentality ethics have one common characteristic: subjectivism. Humanists decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong without any external entity to instruct them.”[6] Pope John Paul II writes, “The blindness of pride deceived our first parents into thinking themselves sovereign and autonomous, and into thinking they could ignore the knowledge which comes from God.”[7] This is the great seductive lie that satan uses over and over again: that man alone decides what is good and evil.

Our Holy Father says that only God can answer the question about what is good, because He is the Good itself,[8] and that “Revelation teaches that the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone.”[9] But when individuals and societies decide for themselves what is good and evil, apart from God, they dethrone God in their hearts and from His lawful kingship over individuals, society and the world. Jesus Christ alone is the King of kings and Lord of lords: “all nations shall come and shall adore in Thy sight” (Apoc. 15:4), and “He will judge all nations: and all nations shall be gathered together before Him: and He shall separate them one from another” (Mt. 25:32). The Catholic Church teaches that “all public power must proceed from God: for God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world.” The State must honor God: “Men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, not less than individuals, owes gratitude to God.” Furthermore, “it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So too it is a sin in the State not to have care for religion, as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit…” One of the chief duties of the State is to protect and shield religion: “All who rule, therefore, should hold in honor the holy Name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of laws, and neither to organize nor exact any measures that may compromise its safety.”[10] But according to secular humanists:

“Men by their own efforts are to establish the Kingdom of Man on earth, the reign of universal happiness. Man is to be his own saviour. The Saviour of men is to be ousted from the position He has held for nigh upon two thousand years. The Kingdom of Man is to take the place of the Kingdom of God.”[11]

Secular humanism “is the supreme revolt of the rational creature against His Creator,” writes Dudley. “It is idolatry.”[12] According to Reverend Rushdoony, “The state has progressively disestablished Christianity as its law foundation and, while professing neutrality, has in fact established humanism as the religion of the state.” Humanism has substituted Christianity as the ruling religion in the United States and in many countries of the world. Humanism is the established religion of the state in the United States, the secular religion promoted in public schools and in many so-called “Christian” churches.

Such a situation could not have come about without the secularization of the clergy, their silence and “swimming along with the spirit of the times in the name of ‘aggiornamento.’”[13] Dietrich von Hildebrand writes:

“The this-worldly tendency can be detected in various pastoral letters, and above all in countless sermons. One speaks more about the fight against poverty and for social justice and world peace—in a word, more about improving the world—than about offending God by our sins, sanctifying the individual, about heaven and hell, eternity and the hope of eternal union with God in the beatific vision.”[14]

“What is at stake is whether the basic truths of the Faith are treated in a way which is appropriate in the light of the whole of Revelation. Today we find a silence about certain dogmas, a shift in the center of gravity: a lack of interest in what belongs to the essence of Christian revelation, in favor of things which are related at most only as indirect consequences to the mission of the Church, which is the sanctification and salvation of souls. The improvement of the earthly lot of mankind—the elimination of poverty and war—is surely a thing of great natural value, and interest in this is a praiseworthy moral attitude. But is that what Christ came for, is that why the second divine Person took on human nature? What is the worth of all external improvement of human life when compared to the fact that in baptism a new and divine principle of life is conferred on man which opens to him the possibility of sanctification, of glorifying God, of eternal blessedness? Indeed, a world in which there were no more poverty, no more wars, and even no more disease—a world without physical and psychic suffering—would have no right to exist even for a moment, and would be worthy of sinking into nothingness if no one in it bowed his knee before Christ, if no one worshipped God.”[15]

“One becomes conscious that the Church is confronted with a grave crisis. In the name of a ‘new’ Church, a ‘postconciliar’ Church, some people are attempting to found another Church than that of Jesus Christ: an anthropocentric society, which is threatened by an ‘immanentist apostasy,’ and which can be drawn into a movement of general surrender under the cloak of rejuvenation, ecumenism, or adaptation.”[16]

H.G. Wells wrote many years ago in A Modern Utopia: “The leading principle of the Utopian religion is the repudiation of the doctrine of original sin.”[17] Even science has confirmed that humanity can trace itself back to a single set of parents. U.S. News & World Report in 1995 stated: “In two reports in last week’s Nature, researchers suggest that virtually all modern men—99.9% of them, says one scientist—are closely related genetically and share genes with one male ancestor, dubbed ‘Y-chromosome Adam.’”[18] Atheists understand the fundamental importance of the doctrine of original sin. G.R. Bozart writes in the American Atheist:

“… evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.”[19]

Humanists have tried to make a detour around the fact of man’s fallen nature, caused by original sin, by insisting that education and proper environment are all that is necessary to bring out the full potential latent within mankind. Such ignorance and wishful thinking have disastrous consequences in the spiritual and social orders. “The street predator of the underclass,” writes Robert Bork, “may be the natural outcome of the mistake the founders of liberalism made. They would have done better had they remembered original sin.”[20] Psychologist Donald Campbell, a past president of the American Psychological Association, says that there is “social functionality and psychological validity to the concepts of sin and temptation and of original sin due to human carnal, animal nature.”[21] Irving Kristol writes:

“We have a kind of faith in the nature of people that we do not have in the botanical processes of nature itself--and I use the word ‘faith’ in its full religious force. We really do believe that all human beings have a natural telos toward becoming flowers, not weeds or poison ivy, and that aggregates of human beings have a natural predisposition to arrange themselves into gardens, not jungles or garbage heaps. This sublime and noble faith we may call the religion of liberal humanism. It is the dominant spiritual and intellectual orthodoxy in America today. Indeed, despite all our chatter about the separation of church and state, one can even say it is the official religion of American society today, as against which all other religions can be criticized as divisive and parochial.”[22]

It is pride, says Owen Dudley, that prevents man from admitting his brokenness and accepting with gratitude one of the truths of God’s Revelation, that is, the doctrine of original sin. He writes:

“Why is the present-day world fevered with this anxiety to put itself right, without the help of the Almighty? To save itself without asking God to save it? For the simple reason that it refuses to admit itself a fallen world in need of God’s help. And so men struggle and muddle along, immersing themselves more deeply in the mire, pretending there is nothing really wrong, crying ‘progress’ where there is no ‘progress,’ calling for a new world which ever tarries and does not come, pursuing a fantastic idea of some future Utopia of happiness on earth, fooled by false deceivers who may thank the intellectual decadence of the age for whatever acceptance their tomfooleries may win. There is no hope for the world but in the acceptance of the revealed truths of the Fall and Original Sin; for, strangely enough, to accept them is to discover the entrance-gate to human happiness. From that entrance-gate there runs a royal road laid by God, wending its way from earth to Heaven. A way of sorrows passing through a vale of tears; a way of thorns that turn to roses; a way of peace that passes understanding; a way of faith foreseeing the unseen; a way of hope piercing death’s dread portals; a way of love losing itself in Love Eternal; a way of unearthly beauty illumined by the dawn-light of eternity; a way of happiness undimmed by any shadow of an ending, entering the Heart of the Everlasting. It is called the way of grace.”[23]

[1] Quoted in B.K.. Eakman, Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality through Education, p. 130.
[2] Owen Francis Dudley, Will Men be like Gods? p. 1.
[3] Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Devastated Vineyard, p. 127.
[4] Dudley, p. 7.
[5] Dudley, p. 6.
[6] Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and its Confrontation with American Society, p. 50.
[7] Pope John Paul II, encyclical Fides et Ratio, #22.
[8] Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, #9.
[9] Ibid., #35.
[10] Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Immortale Dei (The Christian Constitution of States).
[11] Dudley, p. 7.
[12] Dudley, p. 9.
[13] Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Devastated Vineyard, p. 4.
[14] Ibid., p. 128.
[15] Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Devastated Vineyard, pp. 133-134.
[16] Quoted in Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Devastated Vineyard, p. xiii.
[17] Quoted in Chad Walsh, From Utopia to Nightmare, p. 70.
[18] “The genetic Eve gets a genetic Adam,” U.S. News & World Report, December 4, 1995, p. 10.
[19] G.R. Bozarth, American Atheist, September 1978, p. 30; quoted in Duane T. Gish, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, p. 30.
[20] Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, p. 64.

[21] Donald Campbell, “On the Conflicts Between Biological and Social Evolution and Between Psychology and Moral Tradition,” American Psychologist, (Dec. 1974), pp. 1120-21.
[22] Irving Kristol, “Thoughts on Reading About a Number of Summer-Camp Cabins Covered with Garbage,” The New York Times Magazine, 17 Nov. 1974, p. 38.
[23] Dudley, pp. 57-58.

Our Lady of the Roses awesome Bayside Prophecies... http://www.tldm.org/../Bayside/ These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995.

"THERE IS BUT ONE GOD!"
"There are no gods, My children, upon your earth! There is but one God! You have set up many gods to worship upon your earth, even seeking to make man a god! Can you not remember how the gates of Heaven were closed to you. Why? Because of pride and arrogance and listening to the voice of evil. Your first parents, My children, listened to this voice and fell and succumbed to the evil.
"I understand, My children, I know what lies in the hearts of mankind. They do not give your children the knowledge of your first parents, Adam and Eve. They do not give your children the knowledge of the existence of hell. Can you not understand, My children, why? Without this knowledge, they shall sin and sin shall become a way of life!" - Our Lady, December 24, 1975

GRACES
"In your world now of modernism and humanism, socialism, communism, secularism—all of this, My children, is leading to the unification of man into a one-world religion, a one-world church, and a one-world government to the enslavement of mankind, creating a form of mass atheism in the world. Man is setting up false idols to worship: money, power, materialism. My children, none of this will have any value to you when you leave this world. You must now gather and store your treasures in Heaven if you want and wish to go there. These are called graces, graces given freely for the asking, graces for cures of the spirit before they come over the veil." - Our Lady, July 25, 1977

ENSNAREMENT
"All who have given themselves to the pleasures of the flesh, all who have given themselves to the new modes of humanism and modernism set down for ensnarement of the human race by satan, all those who close their ears to Our voices, shall burn!" - Jesus, May 28, 1975

NOVELTIES
"There are many novelties, there are many abominations and offenses being committed in My Son's houses throughout the world. Man has given himself to experimentation and humanism, and man has not learned from his past or listened to his past Vicars, the Popes of old, who warned of the approach of heresy and modernism. You were given the measures to be guided by to prevent the entrance of the Antichrist into your world and into My Son's Church. But man of God, followers of the cross, you cast the cross down and you stomp upon it!" - Our Lady, February 1, 1977

DECEIVED
"My children, understand that, with all of your modernization and your intent for good, you have been deceived by satan. Humanism and modernism is bringing about bad fruits, My children. A great measure of responsibility shall be given among those in My hierarchy in My Church that have allowed these errors to come in." - Jesus, May 20, 1978

INSANITY
"Man has sought to become a king among nations. And man has sought to destroy My Church upon earth. And he builds himself one that cannot be recognized as being in the light, for it is a church now of humanism. And woe to those who have set themselves up to worship idols, and have commanded through satanism. My children, have you all progressed into insanity? For surely you have been counseled in the past that sin is insanity, and you now shall reap your own harvest in suffering." - Jesus, October 6, 1977

FULL PLAN
"You shall not win souls and neither shall you enter Heaven when you use humanism and modernism and change as your approach. Heaven gave you a full plan for the redemption of souls. You will not change this plan to suit the basic carnal nature of man." - Our Lady, July 25, 1979

THE SIMPLE TRUTH
"The Message from Heaven has not been given, My children, to bring fear to your hearts, but to awaken you from your slumber. Many are being misled; many are accepting error and going like sheep to the slaughter; and many follow like ducks downstream. And what solution, My children, do you have now to your problems of discord, disillusionment, and the turning away from My Son's House, His Church? You must return; you must accept the simple truth which has been given to you. Tradition is part of this firm foundation. The modes of modernism and humanism shall destroy the world." - Our Lady, August 14, 1976

TURN BACK
"Awaken from your slumber, My pastors. You will turn back now and retrieve what you have lost when you have succumbed to the errors of humanism and modernism. Do not be filled with pride. Be humble and accept your cross. Acknowledge before mankind that error has been followed, for to err is human, My children. But when you know you have made a mistake, what have you to gain but to follow this road of folly. Turn back and start again." - Jesus, August 14, 1976

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