"Animals are our relatives, everybody knows that. They’re here as a result of blind, purposeless forces and so are we. Who is to dictate what is right or wrong for us?"
If man is the result of an impersonal process,
plus time,
plus chance,
Q: what can be said then about his intrinsic worth?
It is not surprising that behaviorists like B.F. Skinner, who have had no small impact on teacher training and education theory, think of the individual as a machine whose net worth depends solely on how ‘it’ is programmed by the environment.
The general theory of evolution serves as the philosophical
foundation of the contemporary humanist.
The general theory of evolution serves as the philosophical
The philosophy of Humanism’s debt to evolution theory can be defined by the following affirmations from the Humanist Manifesto:
---Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
---Humanism believes that man is part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process. ...Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any super-natural or cosmic guarantees of human values. ...
Q:Who is to dictate what is right or wrong for the individual?
---Humanism believes that man is part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process. ...Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any super-natural or cosmic guarantees of human values. ...
Q:Who is to dictate what is right or wrong for the individual?
Q: Without God who is the lawgiver?
It is society or society’s leaders. Humanism is not a passive philosophy hiding in the cloistered halls of higher education waiting prey for some misguided intellectual. As Paul Blanchard, writing in The Humanist magazine, extols:
"I think that the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average American child now acquires a high school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history."
The philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900], was most notably known for his vehement attacks on Christianity and for his ‘God is Dead’ philosophy. He had also developed a philosophy of heredity from Darwin’s postulate of evolution that the fittest for survival dominate the species. In Existentialism — For and Against Paul Raubiczak, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, observes:
Opposed to this view of man as merely animal is the view of Scripture:
‘When I look at the sky, which You have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places—What is man, that You think of him; mere man, that You care for him? Yet You made him inferior only to the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor. You appointed him ruler over everything You made; You placed him over all creation: sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too; the birds and the fish and the creatures in the seas. O Lord, our Lord, Your greatness is seen in all the world!’ [Psalm 8]
"I think that the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average American child now acquires a high school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history."
The philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900], was most notably known for his vehement attacks on Christianity and for his ‘God is Dead’ philosophy. He had also developed a philosophy of heredity from Darwin’s postulate of evolution that the fittest for survival dominate the species. In Existentialism — For and Against Paul Raubiczak, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, observes:
"He {Nietzsche] continually demands the breeding of a new master race and the prohibition for its sake of the reproduction of all the “discontented, the rancorous, and the grudging”, the sterilization of criminals and “the annihilation of millions of misfits”. The spectre of the Nazi gas chambers looms behind such statements… We must not forget that it is not only Nietzsche’s philosophy, but also the theory of evolution which leads to such consequences."
Opposed to this view of man as merely animal is the view of Scripture:
‘When I look at the sky, which You have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places—What is man, that You think of him; mere man, that You care for him? Yet You made him inferior only to the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor. You appointed him ruler over everything You made; You placed him over all creation: sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too; the birds and the fish and the creatures in the seas. O Lord, our Lord, Your greatness is seen in all the world!’ [Psalm 8]
But evolution is not just a philosophy—it is a religion with scientific vestments."
CMI
