no longer be
maintained.

"Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human
personality to be the end of a man's life, and seeks its development and
fulfilment in the here and now.

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

"There will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind
hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural. Man 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 custom.

"We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental
hygiene, and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful
thinking.

"The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which the
people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good.

"The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in
religious thoughts throughout the modern world. 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 a vastly increased knowledge and
experience."

Professors John Dewey, E. A. Burtt, and Roy Wood Sellars are among the
signers of this statement. It is an excellent and comprehensive
statement, but one is left wondering why the name "religious humanism"?
It is difficult to become enthusiastic when one realizes that these men
take to themselves the thunder of the atheists of the past, and under
the misnomer, "religious," place before the public what all atheists of
the past ages have been preaching.

It is most gratifying to perceive that such distinguished men as signed
this statement are frank enough to admit the extent of the religious
revolution, and determined enough to take a hand in the clearing away of
the debris that clutters the crumbling of all religious creeds. Yet it
is only fair to point out that this statement contains nothing that
would not be recognized by those intrepid atheists of the past, and
little more than they urged in their time. I refer to those brilliant
French atheists La Mettrie, Helvetius, d'Holbach, d'Alembert, and
Diderot.

CHAPTER XIX

THE DOOM OF RELIGION; THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM

_One should recall the