There is another worldview that is actually universal in its religious appeal. It is the enemy of all organized religions because it masquerades as a non-religion. However, there is no such thing as a non-religion because all world views are religious in nature. In fact world views are essentially defined by their perception of God.
This “non-religion” religion is known as secular humanism which can be defined as a religion where man is his own god.
Since secularism advances the lie that there is no need for God, it should make sense that its most hated target would be that religion which offers the truth about God and how He loves the world such that He was willing to come die for it.
Christianity places Jesus as God in the centre of all things, but secular humanism places man at the centre of the universe. Man is in control. It’s man and his world.
Christianity puts its faith in God’s creative ability and His purpose, but the secular humanists put their faith in institutions that are advancing man’s central position within that world. It is not God’s central position, but man’s central position that is being constantly advanced and reinforced through secular humanism.
To the secular humanist, truth is not absolute, but a matter of opinion or whatever someone, anyone, has determined is good for them. Yet there seems to be no lack of enthusiasm for pushing this invented position upon others, often with a zeal that makes it the most virulent of religions.
Even though secular humanism may promote itself as not being a religion, the reality is that it is a religion as it is a belief system, indeed a belief system of very strong convictions.
As a matter of fact, you can prove that by challenging somebody who is a practitioner of secular humanism, and you will find right away how far their tolerance and understanding goes.
You’ll find out in a hurry just how religious they really are. They will jump all over you because you just stepped on their belief system. You have challenged a world view that established itself as right because, it says so!
One of the very first things that ever happened in terms of my Christian life, was when I was sitting in a university biology class. A polite young man stood up and challenged the professor on his delivery of evolution. I wasn’t a Christian at the time, but I admired the man’s courage.
He obtained the professor’s acknowledgement, stood up and challenged him by asking, “Are you not presenting this as though it’s a fact, when it may not actually be a fact? Could it not be just one possible explanation for how things have come to be?”.
The professor asked, “Are you a Christian?” The young man, being an honest person, I suppose, said, “Yes, I am.” The professor then verbally ripped him to shreds.
Now, people have always been important to me. When I saw what transpired between the professor and student, I realized, “You know, maybe evolution is a whole lot of religion, and not that much science.” Because if it was science, it should be able to take the criticism. But, if it’s religion, we’ll fight, because we’ll fight over our beliefs at the drop of a hat.
Another point that I have to make is that when we consider the message of the Christian faith, it’s inclusive of all people. We are taught to love everyone; to be representatives of God himself; to carry on with the ministry of love and forgiveness inspired by Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we are to forgive those who don’t believe the way we do because they, needing the same forgiveness we have in Christ, just don’t understand. They’re just not clear on the truth, likely having invented their own version of it or simply accepted what their culture has advanced.
In any case, we are taught to love others into the kingdom. We are not taught to fight, kill or maim. Not that we are to passively allow others to run roughshod over us, but we are always to consider that God loves all, whether believers or not and we are to demonstrate that love without prejudice.
It is our job as Christians to go and to tell the world about the Gospel. However, we must always keep in mind that every belief system believes everybody should believe as they do. This is our biggest challenge. It is the universal challenge of opposing world views.