ABSTRACT
Humanists have been committed to the propositions that human beings are capable of rationality and that they ought to use their critical intelligence to understand nature and solve human problems. The modern world has witnessed some encouraging humanistic developments. In certain sectors of the world the more liberal and humane religions are losing ground as the most doctrinaire and militant forms gain adherents. The realm of the paranormal either invokes the occult or invents new pseudo-sciences to enable it to transcend experience and nature and to postulate new, hidden and deeper realities of mystery and imagination. In the United States, for example, a doctrine known as "scientific creationism" denounces and combats the theory of evolution; it demands equal time with it in the schools. Science fiction has become the sacred church; but it seems to be performing functions similar to that of traditional theistic religion.
