Really very nice, analytical and comprehensive essay! You are a Genius! For further information about Humanism, you can see at:
Humanism -- wikipedia, internet philosophy encyclopedia
I would like to comment only on following point:
In words of Frederick Edwords ,"After all, much of Human progress has been in defiance of religion or of the apparent natural order. When we deflect lightening or evacuate a town before a tornado strikes, we lessen the effects of so called "acts of God." When we land on the Moon we defy the Earth's gravitational pull. When we seek a solution to the AIDS crisis, we, according to Jerry Falwell, thwart "God's punishment of homosexuals."
Over this issue, Spinoza has a better point of view. He conceives Will of God to be as equivalent to underlying laws and principles of Nature. Similarly, according to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Wahi is the ‘word’ of God whereas underlying physical principles of Universe are the ‘act’ of God. According to Sir Syed, there can be no contradiction between word of God and act of God. So Sir Syed believes that style of Quranic teachings is allegorical and so these teachings should be interpreted in the light of underlying principles of the Universe. He himself undertook to write a Tafseer-e-Quran (i.e. Tafseer-e-Ahmedy – Sir Syed could not however complete this work in his life) based upon this idea. Keeping in view this perspective, we can come up to a better resolution in this regard.
So in this perspective, whatever human progress cannot be thought of as any defiance of religion or the Will of God. Actually when we deflect lightening or evacuate a town before a tornado strikes, we DO NOT lessen the effects of any "acts of God." If we consider “acts of God” as equivalent to “principles of Universe” then actually we never lessen any of the “universal principle”. What most that we do is just that we only ‘overcome’ the effect of a “particular” universal principle through the application of another universal principle. For example when we land on moon, we actually do not defy the gravitational pull. We just ‘overcome’ this gravitational pull through the application of another principle of Nature i.e. we just apply net positive upward force (a natural force or another universal principle) and so we manage to escape the grip of downward gravitational pull.
Is there any violation of any ‘Natural Principle’? Not at all! The Principle of gravitation does not say that we can never escape gravitational pull. Only thing, which this principle asserts, is that we cannot escape this pull until and unless we apply net positive upward force. So there is no any defiance in this or any other case.
I already have discussed similar matter in another thread in discussion forum:
Discussion on "can we defy Nature -- i.e. Are we free in our will or actions?
Thanks! and keep on benefitting us by your good work!
Regards!