humanism self-defeat

I have finally got around to reading a book a friend of mine gave me titled "A History of God". I highly doubt that the author believes in the unchangeable God, at least not exclusively. It remains to be seen exactly what she believes, but nevertheless the first few pages sparked an idea.

She writes "Other rabbis, priests, and Sufis would have taken me to task for assuming that God was - in any sense - a reality 'out there'; they would have warned me not to expect to experience him as an objective fact that could be discovered by the ordinary process of rational thought. They would have told me that in an important sense God was a product of the creative imagination, like the poetry and music that I found so inspiring. A few highly respected monotheists would have told me quietly and firmly that God did not really exist - and yet that 'he' was the most important reality in the world."

This reminds me a little of Humanism (though in fact the author describes Humanism as a religion without God). If God is not 'out there', then it must be 'in here', in the self. So if God is inside, then you worship yourself. (P.S. the term Humanism may refer to many different things. Here I describe it loosely as seeing humans as the most important thing in the universe, as something to be enjoyed, celebrated, etc as an end in itself. This might be described as Cosmic Humanism).

Now, here we run into a number of notes. I will simply try to list them and see if it makes sense:

1) Focus/worship of the self is not innately a bad thing. If you are worthy of worship, then sure it makes sense. Gods main purpose is to glorify himself. Mans purpose also is to glorify God. (John 17 is a good place to see this. Also see Westminster Shorter Catechism)

2a) However, if you need to be reminded to pay attention to yourself (observe that not all humans are Humanists) then you must be imperfect, and therefore you are focusing on an imperfect thing.
b) I suppose you could say that nothing is perfect and humans are the next best thing, but I think that's a little disappointing (besides being false).
c) Follow up questions might be: Then are some humans better than others? Should we find the best one and worship him/her? If we can improve ourselves (This can be done easily and almost continuously as I should imagine someone with incrementally more knowledge - which can be gained easily - would be considered improved from his/her identical counterpart), then which time versions of ourselves or others do we focus on and how? What bar shall we set? Or will we be always satisfied with the best thing we can find?
Also see the futility arguments linked under 4a.

3a) Some Humanists seem to glorify a more ethereal sense of humanity that is more separate from the self or even humanity as a whole. Ironically Karen Armstrong the author of "A History of God", is among these,  writing "This [worshiping Gods] was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces; these early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seem always to have been an essential component of the human experience of this beautiful yet terrifying world." Wonder and mystery cannot be had of the self-something you already know.
b) Someone could counter that we humans do not know ourselves completely, so  it is quite possible to wonder and be mystified at something that comes from the self. I should like them to read Descartes Meditation V especially the part about wax. Not that I think he disproves them, but that the notion of not knowing oneself completely might negate his proof of things existing other than himself and his proof of God.
c) This concept of not knowing oneself completely is quite interesting to me. There is back and forth to it not being possible [-)] and being possible [+)].
-) I feel this discovery of self might be a misinterpretation of the experiences an individual has when subjected to/in contact with other things. Music and poetry do not necessarily reveal greater parts of the self, you may enjoy them simply because they are congruent with yourself, that you have been made in such a way that you enjoy them. They are after all, in a raw sense, something someone else invented. Even the sound coming from a violin is a physical property/function of the violin, not of the player.
+) On the other hand, we often speak of not knowing ourselves. This is the primary work of psychologists - to show us ourselves by leading us on with questions. What a lucrative business they would have among Humanists if this line of reasoning was followed! They would be well-paid Humanist pastors.
-) However, we humans are capable of communicating ideas larger than ourselves. I do not have to be every player in an orchestra in order to describe to you in some detail what the music sounds like. Talking to psychologists could be dealing with things outside of ourselves.
+) Again on the other hand, we deal largely with things quite inside ourselves when we speak to psychologists.
-) There may be a difference between having something in yourself or knowing it and being able to understand it or communicate it.
+) Regardless of reality, the perception of psychology patients is that they experience new things (sort of).
-) However, this all goes down when we realize these things inside ourselves with psychologists are rarely inspiring in any fashion. Stereotypically we think of them as suppressed painful memories from childhood or from a counseling standpoint, just issues you have with other people. The resolution of these stresses should not lead us to worship in any way. They are only satisfying or insightful in that they bring reality into a state which we enjoy better.
+) Now the only area of originality I see for Humanists (please offer others to me if you can think of them) is in what we call the Humanities: art, movies, music, plays, etc.
-) But this again is not really new material. My humanities class primarily focused on common Archetypes or stories that are retold again and again throughout history. Therefore I should imagine, as I said at first, that this is merely a misinterpretation of good feelings one gets when listening to music or experiencing something else. This might be a legitimate form of worship of the self (or something like that), but it is not discovering anything new within ourselves.
d) Case closed (unless someone has a response, I'd love to hear it), there is nothing new to learn about oneself except perhaps to learn what one enjoys.

4) Humanism may also be interpreted as focusing on humanity as a whole. No one individual is quite so special as to worship him/her, but the collective experience of humanity as it searches to find meaning in this world is so inspiring.
a) I'm not sure how this is different from individual humans. Humanity can also improve and even degrade to some extent. See my post futility of the finite and futility of the finite #2 for the unfortunate limits of finite humanity in a possibly infinite world. The bible on futility is primarily concentrated in Ecclesiastes
b) Humanity is also not perfect. Some even blame social systems for the problem of evil.

5) Whatever the case, the main argument is this: you either worship yourself, which is logically recursive, or end up worshiping something other than yourself, which means you now have to evaluate it compared to other gods. If we ought to worship ourselves then contained within us should be the framework for reality, which includes worshiping ourselves. If we contain the principle for worshiping ourselves, we should not have to convince ourselves or anyone and everyone would be a humanist and no one would discuss the matter, it'd just be a natural part of assumed culture. This assumes that objects of worship ought to contain the framework for making sense of the world. If not see 2b and c and the futility arguments linked under 4a.