I have written about Steve Kellmeyer, who posts on the Renew America website, before. A previous post took him to task for claiming that secular humanism abuses women.
In his recent article CNN: God’s gift to religion Kellmeyer tries once again to slander secular humanism.
The thrust of the article critiques a special on CNN called “CNN Presents: God’s Warriors” that starts on Tuesday August 21st and hosted by Christiane Amanpour. According to the website, the program “examines the intersection between religion and politics and the effects of Christianity, Islam and Judaism on politics, culture and public life.”
Kellmeyer doesn’t like the program – which hasn’t aired yet – because he feels it left out a group:
You see? It isn’t secular humanism that causes problems. How could it be? Secular humanism has only been around since the Enlightenment, has only really gained traction in public culture with the growth of industrialization in the late 1800’s, and only had public advocates in the American political sphere in the latter half of the 20th century, that is, within the last thirty to fifty years.
No, the problem isn’t secular humanism, rather, it’s the explosion of faith into a powerful political force in the last 30 years that causes “anger, division and fear.” As every CNN viewer knows, faith in politics was never a powerful political force prior to 1970.
Then he says:
Every European and trans-Atlantic war since (and including) the French Revolution has been based in secular humanist principles. Together, they have generated more famine, rapine, torture and slaughter than the rest of human history combined. What could possibly be the problem?
Really?
Once again Kellmeyer offers no evidence for his bold claim of his distorted history.
I don’t know of any secular humanist suicide bombers or terrorists. I also don’t know of any secular humanists who attack clergy or burn their churches. It wasn’t secular humanists who got a majority of people in 11 states to take away rights from gays in 2004 when laws outlawing same-sex marriage were passed.
As for secular humanists being responsible for every war since the French Revolution, I had no idea that President Bush was a secular humanist when he invaded Iraq in 2003.
One of these days Kellmeyer might actually get his history right and not have to resort to cheap shots at secular humanists.
I’m sure he’s including the Nazis (who were Teutonic occultist Lutherans) and Communists (who were atheist, not secular humanist).
I love his assumption that everything in the world was PERFECTLY FINE until 1970, and then those dirty secular humanists (who at the time represented, what – 1% of the culture?) fucked everything up. A limited view of history, indeed.