The Religion of Secular Humanism

“The United States Supreme court has held that secular humanism is a religion. Belief in evolution is a central tenet of that religion.” (Edwards v Aguillard U.S. Supreme Court 1987. Justice Antonin Scalia.)
This quote is used in the blog series Secular Humanism Is A Religion, our book Antidisestablishmentarianism and frequent comments. Since I have covered the basic facts over and over again, Secularists have resorted to attacking the quote.
Most of these attacks demonstrate that the attackers do not understand how the courts work. So I will explain this quote for those who are uninformed.
First Justice Scalia really did write this. This is simply a cut and paste from the opinion Edwards v Aguillard, June 19, 1987. I did not include the references to other court cases Justice Scalia inserted into these two sentences.
Second, this is a dissenting opinion. As soon as Secularists notice this, they jump to the erroneous conclusion that this means the entire statement is meaningless.
The third point is the critical point, the point Secular Humanist either miss or simply do not understand. ” The United States Supreme court has held that secular humanism is a religion.” (emphasis mine) This means that SCOTUS in the past “held that secular humanism is a religion.” Scalia did not make the ruling “secular humanism is a religion” in Edwards v Aguillard, 1987. Justice Scalia is simply pointing out that the ruling “secular humanism is a religion” was already made by SCOTUS.
The first man attempting to have Secular Humanism recognized as religion in the USA was Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine was not a founding father and died a French citizen, not a US citizen. He supported the French Revolution.
For over one hundred fifty years, Secular Humanist filed lawsuit after lawsuit to force recognition as a religion. They won that position in a series of cases in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.