The Manifestos both hold up the scientific method as the model for all belief. This is remarkable, because although Manifesto I claims scientific grounding for humanism itself, Manifesto II claims merely that it cannot be falsified which by its own standards would seem to make it meaningless. The third Manifesto, released just in time for the millennium, is even more defensive, although its triumphalist rhetoric blurs the picture. Denying that secular humanism is a religion, Manifesto III pins the blame for this calumny on fundamentalists and right wingers, never mentioning that the first Manifesto said it was a religion. Decrying irrationalism, it fails to recognize that it thereby condemns its own child.
Some movements exhaust themselves only after generations of misspent power.
At the moment when its march through the institutions seems complete, this one is already dead. The next century will tell us how far a corpse can walk. J. Budziszewski is Associate Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.