Why I Struggle with Religious Humanism

One of the statements that has always irritated me is this:

"Humans are weak and limited. Therefore we need God."

Over the years, I have heard different versions of this argument. Sometimes I am told that human beings are weak by nature. At other times, I am told that God intentionally created human beings weak and limited so that they would depend on Him. Whenever I hear this, I find myself puzzled.

If God deliberately made humans weak so that humans would need God, then human dependence was built into the design from the beginning. In that case, the very weakness used to justify the need for God was created by God in the first place.

The argument begins to feel circular. Humans need God because they are weak, and they are weak because God made them that way.

I have never found this explanation satisfying. More importantly, I question the assumption itself. Why should I accept that human beings are weak? Weak compared to what?

Compared to an all-powerful, all-knowing, immortal deity, of course humans appear weak. But that comparison already assumes the existence of the very being that the argument is trying to justify.

I prefer to begin from a different starting point. Humans are not gods. Humans are human.

We are biological organisms, products of evolution, and part of the natural world. Like every other living thing, we possess certain abilities and certain limitations.

A fish cannot fly, but we do not call it weak. A bird cannot live underwater, but we do not call it deficient. We recognise them for what they are.

Why should humans be any different? To call human beings weak seems to imply that there is some higher standard against which we are being measured. Yet that standard often turns out to be an imagined perfection that no human was ever meant to possess.

I do not see humanity through the lens of weakness. I see humanity through the lens of possibility.

Human beings have crossed oceans, mapped the stars, built civilisations, developed medicine, created works of art, and accumulated knowledge across generations. None of these achievements came from perfect beings. They came from ordinary human beings working with the capacities they have.

Ironically, I do not deny that humans are imperfect. We can be selfish, tribal, irrational, and even cruel. History provides more than enough evidence of that. But I do not see why human imperfection should automatically lead to the conclusion that we need God.

To me, human imperfection simply means that we need to better understand ourselves. Religious thinkers may look at human flaws and conclude that divine guidance is necessary. My conclusion is different. Human beings create human problems, so understanding human nature is where solutions must begin.

After all, if human beings create human problems, then understanding human beings is not the obstacle. It is the starting point.

This is one reason why I struggle with religious humanism. I appreciate its commitment to compassion, dignity, and concern for human welfare.

In practice, religious humanists often work towards many of the same goals that secular humanists support. The differences emerge not in the values themselves, but in their foundation.

Religious humanism ultimately grounds human value in something beyond humanity. Human dignity derives from God, divine purpose, or sacred authority.

My own perspective is different. I do not believe human worth needs to be justified by reference to something supernatural. Human beings matter because they are human beings.

Our joys, struggles, relationships, hopes, and suffering are meaningful because they are part of lived human experience. Humans are not the centre of existence. We are one species among many, part of a much larger universe.

Yet this does not diminish our responsibility. If anything, it increases it.

There is no higher power that will solve our problems for us. We must learn, cooperate, reflect, and take responsibility for the world we create.

Humans are not weak because they are not gods. Humans are simply human, and that is enough.

September 2026