God is a Secular Humanist?

My new book for today is John W. Loftus' Why I Became an Atheist, which details not only Loftus' conversion to and then from Christianity, but his arguments against it. I'm not terribly far into the book just yet, but came across a rather interesting argument I haven't seen in the many similar books I've read.

It concerns the notion of a moral compass and addresses the argument that atheists are amoral at best, immoral at worst because of their lack of belief in a higher being. Usually, authors point to the fact that this isn't the case in real life, which Loftus also does, but then he takes it further. He argues that if what God says is "good," then it isn't really objectively good, it's just an order.

This makes the whole concept of the goodness of God meaningless. If we think that the commands of God are good merely because he commands them, then his commands are, well, just his commands. We cannot call them good, for to call them good we'd have to have a standard above them to declare that they are indeed good commands. But on this theory they are just God's commands. God doesn't command us to do good things; he just commands us to do things.
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If we say, on the other hand, that God commands what is right because it is right, then there is a higher standard of morality that is being appealed to, and if this is so, then there is a standard above God which is independent of him that makes his commands good. Rather than declaring what is good, now God recognizes what is good and commands us to do likewise. But where did this standard come from that is purportedly higher than God? If it exists, this moral standard is the real God. (39)

And if God follows a higher moral standard - presumably, since that is the standard Christians claim to follow, in the best general interests of humanity - then God is a humanist. It makes sense. Jesus' teachings are generally humanist. The teachings of our "great" preachers - Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa, etc. - are humanist. So, God is humanist.

Which means, what, exactly?

Well, it either means that God is rather self-destructive, since humans are notorious for destroying things that might control them, or it means that God is human. And if God is human (not literally, but in concept), then it means that God must be, as we are, mortal. So either we invented a deity that mimics us in appearance and morality, or Nietzsche is right and God is dead.

Either way, humanity - and humanism - is the closest thing we really have to a god. A thought both terrifying and inspiring. Because if we are god, then we'd better shape the hell up and start acting like it.