ABSTRACT
The institutions of the United States have been under sustained attack by religious conservatives who maintain that humanists are in a serious state of moral decline. They attribute this to the growth of secular humanism, which they believe has corrupted the young and undermined the very fabric of society. Millions of Americans are nominal members of a church, or consider themselves to be secularists, humanists, agnostics, skeptics, or atheists. The ethics of humanism is an authentic approach to moral principles and ethical values, and far from corrupting men and women, it has contributed immeasurably to human culture. It is a great disservice to our democratic society that secular humanism has been unfairly attacked as lacking ethics. There is a historic tradition, however, whose primary imperative is to base ethical choices precisely on eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. The ethics of humanism prizes strength of character.
