It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility. One does not have to be highly educated to understand this. It follows directly from the starting point of the humanists' position, namely, that everything is just matter. That is, that which has existed forever and ever is only some form of matter or energy, and everything in our world now is this and only this in a more or less complex form.
Man is a part of nature, in the same sense that a stone is, or a cactus, or a camel.
In this view, men and women are by chance more complex, but not unique. Within this world view there is no room for believing that a human being has any final distinct value above that of an animal or of nonliving matter. People are merely a different ar- rangement of molecules. There are two points, therefore, that need to be made about the humanist world view. The humanists of the Enlightenment two centuries ago thought they were going to find all the answers, but as time has passed, this op- timistic hope has been proven wrong.