An agnostic is uncommitted on that issue, but is committed on the issue of whether God's existence can be known. God is the indispensable foundation of all morality, all science, all civilization worthy of the name. The position of secular humanism is that morality, science, and civilization in general are autonomous activities that may or may not take religious form at different times and in different cultures. I cannot see any neutral position between these two on which a public school system could be based that would satisfy both. This does not mean that secular humanism is a religion too, as Senator Orrin Hatch and others have claimed.
Every social institution is based on philosophical assumptions.
We are still working out the implications of these assumptions for our public school system, just as we continue to work out their implications for our legal system in the courts. We are, and always have been, a secular nation, formally committed to the proposition that civilization is not necessarily founded on religion. Our public schools are based on that commitment. They are not, and cannot be, philosophically neutral. Richard J. Burke is chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Oakland University in Michigan.