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Humanism

Humanism as a movement that flourished from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries in Europe attempted to base all branches of learning on the classical texts of antiquity, and it is from this movement that we get the term Humanities to describe the arts and study of the liberal arts. In the modern world, humanism describes an approach to life and knowledge founded exclusively on human nature and human experience of the world.

Modern humanism is notable particularly for its reliance on human thought and human science for determining what is true and valuable to humanity. Secular Humanism rejects all theistic religious traditions and beliefs in a supernatural realm of existence. Religious Humanism is embraced by some forms of theism, deism or supernaturalism, and positions itself in the humanist camp by virtue of its reliance on a humane moral value system. Thus there is some confusion engendered by the use of the term by groups at opposite ends of a scale of beliefs about truth and value, as well as beliefs about the origin of what humans consider to be true and valuable.

Web Resources On Humanism

Humanism from iBiblio
Humanism in The Catholic Encyclopedia
British Humanist Association

Book Resources On Humanism

Humanism: An Introduction by Jim Herrick
What is Secular Humanism? by Paul Kurtz
The Arrogance of Humanism by David Ehrenfeld

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