What did enlightened thinkers believe predated society and was superior to the laws of the church or the state

In a speech before the american society of newspaper editors (april 16, 1953), president eisenhower stated: "every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. this world in arms is not spending money alone. it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. this is not a way of life at all in any true sense. under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." do you agree or disagree?