THE HUMANIST-NATURALIST

IDEA OF MAN
HUMANIST NATURALIST IDEA OF MAN

Man is the highest creation of nature, through a long period of

evolution, he developed mental powers.
Unlike the rest of living creatures on earth, it is only man that has the
capacity to transform his environment and to recreate his life.
Because of his highly developed mental faculties self-consciousness,
memory and intelligence.
 Man lives in a self-existing world
Man should face life with a Promethean will.
Man should stop looking for a cosmic support, or for
supernatural intervention in charting his own destiny.
 Nothing above and beyond him except his aspirations, man must focus his
attention to his life here on earth.
Instead of reaching for a a paradise in the sky, man must have faith in the
possibility of improving human condition, and in building a world of justice,
brotherhood and peace.
The task of every man and woman is to work, regardless of color, class and
creed can have the freedom to grow and develop their potentialities, for the
goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and
intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanist demand a shared life in a
shared world.
 The concept of man from the naturalist-humanist perspective is neither religious (in
the conventional sense) nor purely scientific. It is not religious, because it does not
make humanity depend for its origin and destiny on a supernatural being.
It is not scientific, because it does not reduce humanity ta a purely natural being
with other living organisms. It sees man as a creator with enormous possibilities for
progress, with a moral sense and responsibility, and most importantly with the ability
to make himself even without the God-hypothesis The naturalist humanist claims
that man, is not only the measure of all things but also master of his own destiny.
That man rather than God is the creator of his nature and the master of what
He will be was already voice out by the Renaissance philosopher, Picco della
Mirandola (1463-1494), in his work: Oration on the Dignity of Man, when he
declaimed. neither heavenly nor earthly have we created you, so that by your
own free will (freedom) you may shape your own being, and fashion yourself in
the form you may prefer.
THE EXISTENTIALIST
VIEW OF MAN
EXISTENTIALIST VIEW OF MAN

Premised on the contention that we human beings exist in this

world without justification.
What makes our existence an absurdity is the fact that, in our
efforts to be more than what we are at birth, death awaits us at
the end of our struggle.
 What makes our existence an absurdity is the fact that, in our efforts to be more than
what we are at birth, death awaits us at the end of our struggle. Or, as Jean Paul Sartre
has put it, man is a useless passion, because in his desire to be, he ceases to be.
 Given the meaninglessness of human existence, we have to exist or
to stand out, otherwise we would be swallowed in the yawning abyss
of nothingness.
Life is, from the Existentialist point of view, a choice, an Either/or.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855)

He claimed that, while we recognize

the absurdity of our having been born
without our consent, we must
understand that only a decisive leap
of faith to God can give meaning to
our existence.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900)

He argued that we can overcome our

meaninglessness, our anxiety and despair,
not by restoring the faith in God, but by
affirming life, or our will to live and to
conquer all that stands in the way to the
full actualization of our potentialities.
 For Nietzsche, our "coming of age" requires that we abandon "childish
dependencies" (religion) and "adolescent illusion" (metaphysics) so we
could stand alone and face life courageously.
WHAT IS CIVILIZATION NEEDS TODAY?

What civilization needs todayis a new breed of men and women who
have the courage themselves to become gods in a world without God! .