Humanism

RV115-01

The New Age Movement

A New Currency

I'd like to read a few of Gary North's comments in his newsletter of February, 1984, concerning this new currency and the ultimate objective. It's part of bringing in the antichrist world (when you know that that is the final of the book):

"An economic revolution is being planned by the United States Treasury. It isn't getting much attention. Officials say there's nothing to it, and what little attention it is getting is misleading. It could affect everything you own: your bank account; your privacy; your investments; your retirement plans; and, the way you do business. On November 2nd of last year, a closed-door congressional hearing took place in Washington. The press was not invited. No official stenographer was present. It wasn't reported in the press until weeks afterwards, and then only because of a leak. Yet what took place could affect millions of Americans for years to come. You're included on the hit list.

"Officials of the Federal Reserve System and the US Treasury met before a subcommittee of the House Banking Committee. They announced the plans of the Treasury to introduce a new currency, possibly as soon as next year (in other words, after the 1984 elections – they're cautious). What is really shocking is that these officials arrogantly announced that they didn't even need to ask Congress for permission to make the switch. They claimed that they had the legal right to do it on their own, but they didn't cite any law. I reported to my "Remnant Review" subscribers last October that this was being planned, when I learned of a very quiet survey conducted by a government-hired survey team. Under the banner of consumerism, this team began interviewing people in shopping malls about their opinions concerning the new dollar. They found out that most of the people who were interviewed were opposed to the whole idea. But people did say, after being prompted by the interviewers (in my view), that if the change was made in order to stop counterfeiters, they would favor it.

"As soon as government officials learned this, they adopted an official explanation to sell the American public on the idea that there's a huge counterfeiting threat facing the country, and that the government has to do something about it. At the closed door hearing, a Treasury official bragged that 90% of all counterfeiters are caught before they pass a single bogus bill. The obvious implication is that informant's tip off to law enforcement agencies.

"So, if it's not counterfeiters who are the reason for this expensive switch in our currency, what's the real reason? We're the reason: taxpayers; the lambs to be sheared. The bureaucrats have an economic crisis on their hands. The crisis is escalating. They're trying to cover it up, but they can't do it much longer. This year, the budget deficit (meaning the official understated deficit) may hit $200 billion. Last year, it was just under $200 billion. Let's face it: $2 billion here; $2 billion there; and, pretty soon, you're talking about big money. They can't stop it. The spending mania in Washington is getting worse – not better. The recession of 1982 taught the politicians nothing. And now the big banks are sitting on top of a half-trillion dollars of potentially bad loans. Somebody has to pay if these loans go sour. The bankers have already decided who's going to pay – the taxpayer (is).

"What is the problem? Taxpayers are beginning to figure out the game, and they're discovering ways to pass on the buck to other taxpayers, who in turn start looking for loopholes. But the feds are going to start using the old envy routine to manipulate the voters into accepting the new currency: 'Look at all those evil people who aren't paying their fair share of taxes. They're using cash to avoid payment. We're going to stop them with the new currency.' Oh, yeah? How?

"The proposed new currency will supposedly have various colors to foil the counterfeiters. But high technology photocopying machines reproduce colors beautifully. The anti-counterfeiting secret of U.S. paper currency has always been the unique special paper that it's printed on. Counterfeiters can't get their hands on it. Copying machines? Are you serious? So, how will new colors make any difference to either the great counterfeiting problem or the great underground economy problem? What kind of government snow job is going on here?

"The new currency is part of a larger picture. It's not just new colors on pieces of paper. It's part of an overall strategy to get Americans to accept a radical change in how they buy and sell, and how they pay taxes. Those $200 billion annual deficits are creating a monumental crisis, and the planners are determined to reduce them by hook; crook; and, the sweat of your brow, and mine. The name of their game is simple: control. They have to monitor more and more of the economy (meaning your transactions and mine) in order to soak up every loose dollar. The Social Security system may have as much as $5 trillion in unfunded liabilities today, according to the official Treasury figures. Who is going to pay for all this? And more to the point, in what new ways are tax collectors going to try to collect the funds?"

A Cashless Society

So, here we have another little piece of the puzzle falling in to creating the antichrist world. We have the deliberate, government-created, energy crisis (that we've already looked at), and the cry of the citizens that government should do something to control the price of energy; namely, get after the oil companies, and nationalize them. The vast Alaskan North Slope oil reserves, as we have shown you, have been deliberately capped. There is more oil up there than in all of Saudi Arabia, but it has not been permitted to flow to the American people. The gas line was ordered by President Carter across Canada to be sure that it would never be built. It could have been built in six months, and we would have natural gas coming everywhere at unimaginably cheap costs.

I don't know if you caught it on the radio, but I just happened to be listening as I was driving along. The announcer said, "The Exxon Oil Company has this week announced the find of a vast new oil field on the North Slope of Alaska." Then it never said another word. I thought it was going to go on and explain. There was only that one sentence. Well, all of us already know what's up there, and here Exxon is coming through. And I wondered to myself, "Now, who slipped that through?" And I never heard another word, like somebody said, "Did you hear that? Pass the word down. Don't anybody put that on the news wires again. Take it off."

So, the powers that have to control people must control their food; they must control their energy; and, they must control their finances. Then you have a society by the throat. The increasing control of agriculture, of course, is coming through the vast corporations which ensure that there will be government control, not by all of those little small farmers, but by the government's control of the vast corporations.

Madame Petrovna Blavatsky

Annie Besant

Well, Annie Besant used the concepts of evolution to justify the vast promotion of the doctrines of karma and reincarnation. She became an early proponent of reviewing past lives under hypnosis, which, of course, is the information that one receives from a demon.

Alice Ann Bailey

The Goal of the New Age Movement

Education

So, in came the move to take over the government schools. The United States federal government controls 10% of the budget of American public schools, but through various agencies, the federal government literally has about 85% control influence. The New Age movement plans to establish the New World Order through a new set of values and a new set of goals which are instilled in public school children. We, in the Bible belt, are in a kind of an abnormal relationship to the New Age movement, because we (in the South) are like the condition that Krishnamurti face when he came to the country as a whole. There is still a strong impact of biblical viewpoint here, so the government schools have been restricted from openly pursuing the full concepts of the progressive education ideals. In other parts of the country, it is running rampant, certainly in the East, from which most of the influence comes. So, what you will hear is what is on the horizon for all of us. It's going to come. Nobody is going to hold it back. The movement now is far too powerful.

Progressive Education

John Dewey

Humanism

The Humanist Manifestos

So, you might say, "Hey, you know that according to the Humanist Manifesto, this is what they're out to do?" And some smart character debater type grabs you by the throat and says, "How do you know?" You say, "Well Sam Jones told me." You're going to have to go back to the original sources, and then say, "Hey, I know. I read it from the people who wrote it."

John Dewey was the first president of the American Humanist Society. John Dewey was a signer of Humanist Manifesto I, and it expresses his own personal frame of reference toward life. And then he instilled the concept (the frame of reference) into the whole American educational system. So, here's the question: Can a person be a born again biblical Christian, and support the Humanist Manifestos and the programs that are based upon them? And I mean, they are not just educational program. They are social programs, and they are political programs.

Obviously, if what, we read in the Humanist Manifestos is contrary to the Word of God, then we must say we must take issue with the Humanist Manifesto. If a politician comes up and says, "I am a humanist. I base myself upon the concepts of the Humanist Manifestos," then we must say, "Aha! I know that, as a born again believer, I must oppose you because you oppose the living God. We have the issues clear, but that's the question: Can we, as Christians, subscribe to something that we know that the Word of God condemns?

Doublethink

In George Orwell's novel, they had the slogan in that Big Brother society: war is peace. Those are mutually contradictory ideas, but if you're capable of doublethink, you can believe that. Slavery is freedom. If you're capable of doublethink, you can hold both of those. But of course, what that means is that you don't think anything. What that means is that you have nothing that you believe in, and that you have nothing that you stand for. And ultimately, that is the object of doublethink, so that there is no absolute truth that you can anchor yourself to.

Some Christians foolishly try to play mental gymnastics with what these manifestos proclaim as the proper modern scientific view of life. They try to play mental gymnastics, and they try to bring this into accommodation with their Christian viewpoint, instead of rising up and pointing to that thing and saying, "That is a document from hell itself. It was created by Satan, and it is condemned by the Word of God. And I know something about the Bible, so I know that this is contrary to the Word of God.

Of course, the Humanist Manifesto I repeatedly use the word "religious humanist." It made no bones about the fact that what we are presenting is a new religion. The old Christianity is no longer suitable for our children to function upon, because if they keep functioning on that, they're going to keep functioning on all of those old principles that made this country great; and which made it independent; and, which promoted nationalism and patriotism. Those concepts undermine the concepts of globalism: a one world community; and, a one world government. And you and I as Christians cannot pretend that we can accept what some popular political leader accepts, and that we, too, as Christians who are born again, can join him in accepting that. The Humanist Manifestos express the philosophical basis, in fact, for the antichrist tribulation world. And society is now being prepared to accept those concepts through the American schoolchildren. ...

When we consider the two Humanist Manifestos, it is not so easy for parents to pass off the humanist goals once their basic beliefs are known. Once you've read the manifestos, you can't just ignore them and say, "Oh, they're innocent. They're not that serious." Your hair will stand on end when you read those things. Some of the objectives of humanism are also very commendable. That's what's so subtle about it. We would not take issue with some of those objectives and visions that they might have. The problem is that they are all structured on the quicksand of man as lord of creation, producing (in man's capacity) their human good. It is not based upon the anchor of Scripture revealed from a personal living God. In fact, both manifestos make it clear that they are structured on the fact that there is no Creator living personal God who is communicative and controlling things.

So, it's no wonder that people indeed are going to be enraged when they enter the tribulation period with this kind of a frame of reference, as you get from Humanist Manifestos I and II, that have presented a man in a very sophisticated, superior, intellectual capacity to handle his own world and his own problems, and then God comes in during the tribulation period (and especially in the last half of it), and He brings man to his knees: groveling like a whimpering, broken animal, bleeding from every pore. Do you know how people are going to react when they're so humiliated, while they sit there with their trembling hands holding the copies of their Humanist Manifestos? Well, the Bible tells us what they're going to say.

Revelation 16:9: "And then we're scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God who had power over these plagues. And they did not repent to give Him the glory. They are going to be so devoted to the principles of humanism even when they know that the judgment which is being brought upon them is from the God who is out there. And now they become aware that He is out there; they shake their fists at Him; they curse Him; and, they do not repent and say, "We were wrong; the Bible was right;" and, they and tear up the manifestos.

Look at Revelation 16:11. This is another example: "And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds." "Blasphemed" means that they said every vile, obscene, cursed thing against Almighty God. But they did not repent of their evil. The greatest summary expression of their evil is in the form of Humanist Manifestos I and II.

Socialism

"Global 2,000," in this report under the Carter administration, is based on the principles of humanism has declared in Humanist Manifestos I and II. The goal is to remove all influence of biblical Christianity from American society. The question is: Can the Bible be right, and modern intellectuals (educated, sophisticated, and enlightened people) be wrong when it is in conflict with a document like Global 2,000 based upon the two manifestos of humanism? Is it possible that we Christians are right? Is it possible that the Bible is right, because the Bible and Humanist Manifestos I and II are in direct conflict with one another? I mean that they are opposed on opposite poles. You know that you're listening to God on one side, and Satan on the other.

Is modern man not free to apply the Bible so that it is not outdated in this scientific age? And that is one of the things that the New Agers constantly hit against. In American progressive education, we are now in a scientific age. We must view the Bible from that frame of reference. Do we really understand what the Bible teaches so that we can treat it as the final authority over the laws of man? That question is often posed. Do we really understand what the Bible says, such that we can stand up and say, "Hey, the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin?" The Bible never calls a thing a sin if you cannot keep from doing it. You may want desperately, and very much, to do it. But it says, "It's a sin. You may very much want to be adulterous, but the Bible says, "It's a sin." If it says, "It's a sin," then you have the capacity to say, "No" to it. It is not something such that you can say, "Man, this is in my genes and I have to go with it."

Do we really understand what the Bible teaches? That is the challenge. Who can know what the Bible says? Preachers should be in their pulpits, and they should expound the Word of God as the Word of God. That doesn't mean just giving those little phrases: "Now I believe that this is what this means." Who cares what you believe? "I feel this way about this passage?" Who cares what you feel about this passage? Just give us the Greek word there, and tell us what it means. Just put up that Hebrew text, and tell us what it means. Then we will understand what God has said, and we will be listening to the words of God, and not to the words of a human tongue (of a preacher).

That's what people can say, "Can you really understand what the Bible says?" You betcha, you can understand. What kind of a God would that be who says, "Now, I'm going to give you all the information you need to make it here on planet earth, but I'm going to give it to you in information that you can understand?"

Another challenge is: Doesn't the strict adherence to the Bible frustrate our wishes; limit our freedom of expression; rob us of the joy of living; and, stifle our noblest hopes for mankind? Is that what the Bible does? Does it stifle the joy of living? Does it rob you of achieving the noblest hopes you have for mankind? Nothing is further from the truth. But that's what the New Age is saying. It is Christianity that is the problem. The leaders of the New Age movement have concluded, and they have gone on record as stating, that they have now gone about as far as they can go with the secular world: "Now, we're going after the churches. We're going into the churches; we're going after the preachers; we're going after Christian movements; and, we're going to bring them down. When we have brought them down, they are the citadel of resistance, and especially those pulpit-pounding, Bible-doctrine preaching churches. We're going to bring them down. When we have brought them down, that voice will be silenced, and we'll have an open field.

Human Manifesto I

So, the manifesto begins: "The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time has passed for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by vastly increased knowledge and experience. In every field of human activity, the vital movement is now in the direction of a candid and explicit humanism. In order that religious humanism may be better understood, we, the undersigned, desire to make certain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life demonstrate.

"There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance, and which are powerless to solve the problems of human living in the 20th century. Religions have always been a means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpretation of the total environing situation; theology, a world view; the sense of values resulting therefrom, gold or ideal; and, the technique the cult established for realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results in alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the changefulness of religions through the centuries. But through all changes, religion itself remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life."

The point that they're making here is that religion is evolving, so we have to evolve to a new religion beyond Christianity.

"Today, man's larger understanding of the universe; his scientific achievements; and, his deeper appreciation of brotherhood have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such a vital, fearless, and frank religion, capable of furnishing adequate social goals and personal satisfactions, may appear to many people as a complete break with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to traditional religions, it is nonetheless obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age."

The New Age movement presents itself as a synthesis of all that is best from all the religions of the world. This is 1933. Hitler has just come to power in Germany. The terror and the trauma of World War II has not yet appeared.

To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm the following."

Now you'll hear what humanists believe:

"First: Religious humanists" (and this is why the Supreme Court passed down the judgment that humanism was a religion – because they call themselves that in their own first manifesto). "Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created (Eastern mysticism).

"Second: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature, and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process (Eastern mysticism).

"Third: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

"Fourth: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded to that culture."

What they are saying there is what communism says: that people are whatever economic system they're born. So, we're going to create a new man by changing the economy from capitalism to socialism.

"Fifth: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously, humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry, and by the assessment of their relation to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method."

What are they saying in the fifth proposition? There are no values that come from beyond man as to what is right and wrong.

"Sixth: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism; deism; modernism; and, the several varieties of new thought.

"Seventh: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, and recreation – all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained."

We would not be able to take much issue with that.

"Eighth: A religious humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life, and seek its development and fulfillment in the here and now."

This is the explanation of the humanist social passion. What the eighth principle says is that the only purpose of man is to enjoy the good life now. Whereas the Word of God says that the purpose of man is to bring glory to God and to enjoy Him forever. This is a vast difference.

"Ninth: In place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer, the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life, and in cooperative effort to promote social well-being."

In other words, worship and prayer are soap bubbles that you blow into the air, and then they pop into nothing.

Tenth: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural."

In other words, there will be no great hope beyond where we are now because God is running a plan.

"Eleventh: Men will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene, and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking."

Do you know what "social and mental hygiene" means? It means brain washing. In our next session, we'll get to some of the examples of the way this is being done in the government schools now. This is one of those little clue phrases (and little key actions) that, if you as parents are alerted to them, and your children are in government schools, you might be appalled at how much of that is surrounding them. This means mental hygiene to change their bad Christian biblical points of view.

"Twelfth: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man, and to encourage achievements that add to that satisfaction of life.

"Thirteenth: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life: the intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions; their ritualistic forms; ecclesiastical methods; and, communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows in order to function effectively in the modern world."

Translated, that means that we need a new world religion.

"Fourteenth: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing, acquisitive, and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate, and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world."

I don't have to explain that to you. That is the call for socialism and for communism. They want a shared life and a shared world. They mean that they want to share with you Americans have, because you happen, by the grace of God, to be at the top of the totem pole of material possessions. They mean to bring you down to all the slovenly, indolent, incapacitated, inactive, unimaginative, unproductive, third-World nations, so that you can be brought down to their level as they share the good things of life that your labors have produced.

"Fifteenth: We assert that humanism will: A – affirm life rather than deny it; B – seek to illicit the possibilities of life, not flee from them; and, C – endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this, positive morale and intentioned humanism will be guided. From this perspective and alignment, the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow. So, stand the forces of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, and that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task."

Then there are some 30 signers. John Dewey is one of them. The final statement is the same thing that Norman Vincent Peale is telling you on the television ads now. The solution to your problems lay within yourself. That is Eastern mysticism. You are God yourself, and when you realize it, your answers will be the answers of deity.

The National Education Association (NEA)

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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