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and hagiography: the lives of real human by means of the freedom to whose John Gray, in Straw Dogs (London
beings became the subject for writers and power I have entrusted you. I have 2002), attacks humanists as merely
painters. Nor was it any accident that placed you at the centre of the world the inheritors of the Christian belief
perspective in painting was a Renaissance so that from that point you might in the superiority of human beings
innovation. True knowledge, true see better what is in the world. I over all other forms of life and in their
understanding, the humanists argued, have made you … so that, like a free ability “to be masters of their own
depended on seeing objects, individuals, and sovereign artificer, you might destiny”. This is a catchy opening to an
events, ideas in their proper time and mold and fashion yourself into that otherwise insightful and challenging
place. Thus history was restored as an form you yourself shall have chosen. study of what it means to be human,
important component of the human but its attempt to dismiss humanism as
quest. By rejecting the scriptural Love of This ‘heretical’ declaration must just another form of anthropocentric
Money is the root of all Evil (1 Timothy have struck the Europe of its time religion is simplistic, erroneous and
6:10), and recognizing money not only as like a cannon shot. God had been ignorant of the diversity and complexity
a necessary means of exchange but as a removed from the centre of the world of modern humanist thought, an
legitimate means of social advancement, and replaced by Man. The discovery of unfortunate exercise in shadow-boxing.
the humanists even set the study and America and Copernicus’ heliocentric However, such a misreading is
application of economics on course. system of the planets, Newton’s laws of inherent in the origins of humanism
Humanism was not in its inception physics and Darwin’s discovery of the and in its name. After all, Pico della
anti-religious. Most of the early humanist evolutionary processes in nature, the Mirandola does claim that we, unlike the
thinkers were devout Christians. But works of Shakespeare, the Reformation, other creatures, are free and sovereign
they opposed the tyranny of the Catholic capitalism, communism, existentialism, artificers who take and possess our place
Church and its interpretation of the atheism, feminism – all have their in the world and fashion ourselves by
Bible with its depressing doctrine of the origin in this first humanist revolution. our own decision and choice … without
world as a valley of tears and human The shift from a God-centered to a restraint from any barrier. This is a
life as a path of suffering to atone for Man-centered universe was a swing of the secular restatement of the Christian
some imagined original sin in hope pendulum from one extreme to another. view of the supremacy of Man, and I
of a better life in the hereafter. They It was a necessary step in the history daresay many humanists still harbour
insisted that God had endowed human of our species, but like all extremes such notions since a commitment to
beings with intelligence and a free it was bound to end up undermining human self-determination by the power
will so that they should exercise them. the very foundations of the new world of reason is central to their philosophy.
Only later, when Protestantism with order it set out to create. Everything In the absence of any clear statement to
its obsessive puritanism proved itself as implies its opposite and to the same the contrary, outsiders can therefore be
repressive as the Roman church, and it extent. The conviction that humanity is forgiven if they see humanists in this
became clear that the God manifest in the creator of its own world – in effect, anthropocentric light. The fact is
the Bible was irreconcilable with the the deification of Man – has brought that the rigorous rational
world as it gradually revealed itself to upon us a crisis of such catastrophic pursuit of knowledge and
the disciplined inquiry of the human proportions that it now rivals the truth which humanism
mind, did humanism turn away from Cretaceous terminal cataclysm around itself launched has,
all forms of institutionalized religion. 67 million years ago when all life forms ironically, brought us not
Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), weighing more than 25 kg became extinct full-, but half-circle around to a
in his Oration on the Dignity of and the rest was radically decimated. position that negates some of the original
Man, still puts what I consider to The current one, which is of our own humanist assumptions, and we must
be the first Humanist Manifesto making, has the potential of putting now summon the courage to confront
in the mouth of God: an end to the human species itself just this second revolution in our ideas.
as the Cretaceous extinction wiped out The seeds for the reversal of our view
I have given you, Adam, neither a the dinosaur. The complete freedom we of humanity’s importance were inherent
predetermined place nor a particular reached for has made us prisoners of our in our self-aggrandisement. As Pico della
aspect nor any special prerogatives in own technological achievements. It is Mirandola placed Man at the centre of
order that you may take and possess time for the second humanist revolution the world, the new astronomy removed
these through your own decision and to restore a larger perspective to our the planet earth from the centre of the
choice. The limitations on the nature understanding of the world we inhabit solar system and eventually the solar
of other creatures are contained and our place in it. Reason and its system far from any imaginable centre
within my prescribed laws. You disciplined application to observation of the universe, thereby effectively
shall determine your own nature and experiment, on which we rest our undercutting any claim to human
without restraint from any barrier, case as humanists, demand no less of us. supremacy. From the beginning, the