Boyd K. Packer on Humanism and Education

July 26, 2009 in Education by Greg | 5 comments

I have wanted to post these two quotes by Boyd K. Packer on humanism and education for quite some time. In 1994, President Packer said:

Humanism_Symbol Like a ship without a rudder, without a compass, we drift from the family values which have anchored us in the past. Now we are caught in a current so strong that unless we correct our course, civilization as we know it will surely be wrecked to pieces. Moral values are being neglected and prayer expelled from public schools on the pretext that moral teaching belongs to religion. At the same time, atheism, the secular religion, is admitted to class, and our youngsters are proselyted to a conduct without morality.1

The second quote comes from a talk Pres. Packer gave at BYU in 1996:

In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools and its becoming almost generally true it is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools. Look back over the history of education to the turn of the century and the beginning of the educational philosophies. Pragmatism and humanism were the early ones, and they branched out into a number of other philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face.”2

That word “proselyted” in the first quote stood out to me. And of course humanism is at least as old as the Book of Mormon, if not earlier.3 But the idea that schools actively “proselyte” children to become humanists is disturbing.

According to the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II:

FIRST: In the best sense, religion may inspire dedication to the highest ethical ideals. The cultivation of moral devotion and creative imagination is an expression of genuine “spiritual” experience and aspiration.

We believe, however, that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species. Any account of nature should pass the tests of scientific evidence; in our judgment, the dogmas and myths of traditional religions do not do so. Even at this late date in human history, certain elementary facts based upon the critical use of scientific reason have to be restated. We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of survival and fulfillment of the human race. As nontheists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity. Nature may indeed be broader and deeper than we now know; any new discoveries, however, will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural.4

After reading through the various manifestos on humanism, it became clear that proponents of pragmatism and humanism have indeed created many of modern society’s problems.5

Sources:

  1. Packer, Boyd K. “The Father and the Family”. May 1994. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 25 July 2009.↩
  2. Packer, Boyd K. Charge to the David O. McKay School of Education. December 1996.↩
  3. “A second argument used by Korihor might be called his humanism. In concert with the other humanists of the world, he insists that achievement and success come by human means, such as physical strength, skill, and reason: ‘And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength.’ (Alma 30:17.) Riddle, Chauncy R. “Korihor: The Arguments of Apostasy”. Undated. The Neal A. Maxwell Institute. 25 July 2009.↩
  4. “Humanist Manifestos”. 25 July 2009.↩
  5. See Brigham Young on Darwin, Huxley and Miall for President Brigham Young’s prophetic warning in this regard.↩

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Tags: Boyd K. Packer, Humanism, Pragmatism, Teaching

  1. JaredNo Gravatar on July 26, 2009 at 10:25 am

    Great quotes. When I was younger I did not understand what was wrong with humanism. I knew that humanism was opposed to the gospel but not WHY. On the surface many humanistic philosophies sound wonderful. There are whole philosophies of psychotherapy based on humanistic psychology and many of the ideas of humanistic psychology are great. However, the key to why humanism is at odds with the gospel is in that last quote you shared. Humanism is atheistic, or at least agnostic. People grow and progress independent of God and sometimes in spite of God, at least according to humanism. Humanistic humankind are listening to Lucifer in that they want to do things independent from God. In many ways pride is the foundation of humanism.

  2. Steve MNo Gravatar on July 27, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Is President Packer saying that there should be prayer in schools? That seems to raise a host of problems. Whatever his objections to secular humanism may be, I’m not sure that permitting prayer in public schools is the answer. Nor am I persuaded that the problems President Packer cites can rightly be attributed, even in part, to the absence of prayer from public schools. The Establishment Clause seemingly spoke to this issue long before 20th century humanist manifestos came into existence.

  3. JohnNo Gravatar on July 28, 2009 at 8:28 am

    Br. Packer grew up many years ago in a small Utah town dominated by members of his own faith. Mormons could — and did — do as they pleased back then, just as they did in my home town. If the non-Mormons didn’t like it, who cared? Today’s modern world with all its various races and religions and national backgrounds is a very different animal. I have a sneaking suspicion that secular humanism, whatever it is, is being used here as a whipping boy for an increasingly diverse world where no one religion — ours in particular — should be allowed to dictate how things are run, unless we own the school. I see young men and women in my ward graduating from an incredibly diverse, cosmopolitan suburban high schools, some going on to non-church colleges and universities where they are exposed to all kinds of ideas and practices, and are doing just fine. In fact, I would argue that the best way to counter the evils of secular humanism, if that is what they are, is to send more strong LDS students to non-church schools where they can be living examples of the kind of values we profess to care about.

  4. GregNo Gravatar on July 28, 2009 at 8:58 am

    These quotes may be helpful in addressing the issues you raise above.

    Elder Dallin H. Oaks addressed the issue of school prayer in Religion in Public Life and when he signed the Williamsburg Charter on behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1988. In this article, Elder Oaks quoted President David O. McKay who said:

    By making that [New York Regents’ prayer] unconstitutional, the Supreme Court of the United States severs the connecting cord between the public schools of the United States and the source of divine intelligence, the Creator himself. . . . By law, the public schools of the United States must be non-denominational. They can have no part in securing acceptance of any one of the numerous systems of belief regarding God and the relation of mankind thereto. Now let us remember and emphasize that restriction applies to the atheist as well as to the believer in God.

    After the Supreme Court’s decision forbidding Bible-reading in the schools, President McKay stated:

    Recent rulings of the Supreme Court would have all reference to a Creator eliminated from our public schools and public offices. It is a sad day when the Supreme Court of the United States would discourage all reference in our schools to the influence of the phrase ’divine providence’ as used by our founders of the Declaration of Independence. Evidently the Supreme Court misinterprets the true meaning of the First Amendment, and are now leading a Christian nation down the road to atheism.

    Concerning the establishment clause, President James E. Faust wrote in A New Civil Religion:

    The civil secular religion also teaches that the establishment clause of the First Amendment—companion to the “free exercise” clause—should be applied to prevent religious organizations from working cooperatively with the government to bring about worthwhile public policy. There are many laudatory public purposes, such as education, literacy, public health, welfare, and assistance to the poor where charitable institutions, including churches, can and should work with government assistance programs for the public good.

    There are numerous examples, however, where governments have tried to provide accommodation to religious institutions which provide public service through tax incentives, grants of educational materials, or other commodities—only to be challenged in court for fostering religion in violation of the establishment clause.

    I have chosen to emphasize this subject because the twin religious clauses of the Bill of Rights—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibit the free exercise thereof” (First Amendment, U. S. Constitution)—are golden threads which in the past have permitted those who believe in God to publicly affirm that there is a higher power that “rules in the affairs of men.” These religious clauses have fostered the creative impulses and the vitality of religion in an open heterogeneous society. They have freed this country from the terrible religious violence that has existed in Europe over the centuries and from which our forefathers in this country sought to escape. One author described these religious clauses in the Constitution as “the Articles of Peace.” (Father J. Murray, We Hold These Truths, 1960, p. 45.)

    The establishment and free exercise clauses should be read together to harmonize the importance of religious liberty with freedom from government regulation. Rather, today in our nation the establishment clause is being used to restrict religious institutions from playing a role in civic issues, and the free exercise clause denies to individuals their religious liberty. It does not accord the equivalent to what the Constitution accords to secularism—the new civil religion.

    One basic difference between Franklin’s concept of a civil religion and the new secular religion is that the new secular religion rejects in large measure the basic concept of Anglo-Saxon-American jurisprudence. Our traditional jurisprudence has held that God is the source of all of our basic rights, and that the principal function of government is only to secure those rights for its citizenry. May I quote from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; … that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.”

    In contrast, the new civil religion I speak of finds its source of rights by invoking the power of the state. It seems to have little purpose, few common values for morality except self-interest. Most recently that power was invoked by the Supreme Court in a case known in legal circles as Lee v. Weisman. This is the case that resulted in the Supreme Court’s banning ceremonial prayer at public school exercises. Commenting on the case, Edwin Yoder, distinguished columnist for the Washington Post, observed that “the decision is more than a natural extension of the original school prayer decision of 1962. It more closely resembles a promotion of secularity in the public forum—a result which some of the framers of the First Amendment establishment clause probably did not so much as dream of.”

    President Packer said that “pragmatism and humanism . . . branched out into a number of other philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face” – not the ban on school prayer. The latter is rather symptomatic of the spread of these philosophies in public eduction.

  5. GregNo Gravatar on July 29, 2009 at 9:32 am

    John, church-ownership and control of schools wasn’t the point of the post. And humanism is not being used here as a “whipping boy” for arguing for control of education. Rather, I believe President Boyd K. Packer was pointing out that the philosophies of pragmatism and humanism have come to dominance in the public educational system to the exclusion of other value systems. Since both of these philosophies reject the supernatural, Korihor makes an excellent case study for the effects these philosophies have upon society (Alma 30).