Yorktown University Offers Free Access Lecture: "John Stuart Mill's 'Religion' of Humanism"

Richmond, VA, June 21, 2012 --(PR.com)-- A free online lecture on “John Stuart Mill's Religion of Humanism” is being offered by Yorktown University, an accredited Denver, Colorado-based Internet university committed to the philosophy of limited government of the Founding Fathers, the Judaeo-Christian tradition and philosophic truths that shape our enduring Constitution.

This free lecture is given by Linda Raeder, Ph.D., a Yorktown University faculty member and author of “John Stuart Mill and the Religion of Humanity,” published by the University of Missouri Press.

Dr. Raeder examines how one British thinker, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), created a “religion” of humanism, and how Mill’s “views led to a decline in personal morality” and an expansionist view of the state.

“Mill displaced the person as bearer of moral agency in favor of external factors, such as social institutions,” Raeder says. “Mill replaced God with the state as the fountainhead of all that is good… By making the state sacred, Mill created a powerful political religion.”

Dr. Raeder goes on to argue that “what must be recognized for a proper appreciation of Mill’s though and legacy is the depth of his animus toward traditional transcendent religion, and especially Christianity.”

“The values and ideals embodied in (Mill’s) new ‘social religion’ have been widely assimilated by modern Anglo-American consciousness and constitute the ethos that has impelled the rise of modern liberalism,” Dr. Raeder contends. “One consequence has been the transformation of Anglo-American liberalism from a philosophy of limited government to one of modern expansive government.”

In addition to teaching at Yorktown University, Dr. Raeder is an associate editor of the Humanitas journal of the National Humanities Institute.

Access to Dr. Raeder's free lecture is available at http://www.yorktownuniversity.edu/10031.cfm