Edwile Mbameg’s Reviews > The Philosophy of Humanism > Status Update

The philosophy of Humanism, with its conscious
limitation of the human enterprise to this existence, sets us free to concentrate our entire energies, without distraction by either hopes or fears of individual immortality, on that building of the good society that has been the dream of saints and sages since the dawn of history.

No man of any depth of soul has made his prolonged existence the touchstone of his enthusiasms. What a despicable creature must a man be, and sunk below the level of the most barbaric virtue, if he cannot bear to live for his children, for his art, or for country.

George Santayana.

Humanism definitely places the destiny of human beings within the very broad limits of this natural world. We can find plenty of scope and meaning in our lives through freely enjoying the rich and varied potentialities of this luxuriant earth; through preserving, extending, and adding to the values of civilization; through contributing to the progress and happiness of humankind.

For the whole earth is the sepulcher of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of
other men’s lives.

For Humanism the central concern is always the happiness of people in this existence, not in some fanciful never-never land beyond the grave; a happiness worthwhile as an end in itself and not subordinate to or dependent on a Supreme Deity, an invisible King, ruling over the earth and the infinite cosmos.