Degree of Baccalaureate in Theology

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The Dignity of Human Person the Morality of Human Act and the Problem of Moral Judgment: A Catholic Perspective.
(Tangaza University College, 2011) Sendabo, Dawit Daniel
Social Darwinism was foremost amongst the philosophies impacting views of human dignity in the decades leading up to Nazi power in Germany. Charles Darwinism's evolutionary theory was quickly applied to human beings and social structures. The term 'survival of the fittest' was coined and seen to be applicable to humans. Belief in the inherent dignity of all humans was rejected by social Darwinists. Influential authors of the theory proclaimed that an individual's worth and value were to be determined functionally and materialistically. The popularity of such views ideologically prepared German doctors and nurses to accept Nazi social policies, promoting survival of the fittest humans.' Clearly this ideology ignored that human life possesses an intrinsic dignity and value because it is created by God in his own image for the distinctive destiny of sharing in God's own life. And also a failure to believe that all humans are made in the image and likeness of God, which calls man to respect all humans based on an inherent dignity.2 Pope John Paul II emphasizes in Enavgelium Vitae that "...when the sense of God is lost, the sense of man is threatened and poisoned, as the Second Vatican Council concisely states: "...when God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible."