humanism

humanism
A very wide-ranging set of philosophies that have at their core the belief that human interests and dignity should be of primary importance. Its roots are usually traced to ancient Greece, but seeds are also observed elsewhere: in the Renaissance concern with directing attention away from God and spirituality towards the study of ‘men’ and their work in art, literature, and history; in the progressive Enlightenment concerns with rationality; and in the Modernist movement with its belief in the death of God.

With variations, the humanist philosophies stress with Protagoras that ‘man is the measure of all things’, or with Alexander Pope that ‘the proper study of mankind is man’. Most commonly, humanism involves a rejection of religions which place a God at the centre of their thought. Humanist Associations throughout the world (as embodied, for example, in the journal the...

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