On this extract of Existentialism and Human Emotions, Jean-Paul Sartre defends and defines existentialism so to prove that the criticism that the society makes against the doctrine is uneducated and biased by the customs of the time. Unlike the theories proposed by Xun-Zi, Menzi, Hobbes, Mill and Butler who stated that all people had certain characteristics in common that were part of their human nature, Sartre asserts that there are two kinds of existentialists “first those who are Christian [...] and on the other hand the atheistic existentialist.” , (Sartre,1957), Sartre identifies himself as the latter type of existentialist and explains that the only thing that both groups have in common is the belief that existence precedes essence.
Firstly, Sartre explains that Christian existentialism is a doctrine that acknowledges the existence of an all knowing, all powerful, and all present personal Creator, however, it only recognizes this God as the creator and artisan of the human race but not as an entity that dictates the destiny of the people because human beings are autonomous creatures who are
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Atheistic existentialism sustains that humans are thrown into existence without a predetermined nature and only later they construct their nature, or essence, through actions and decisions; the theory also mentions that the human race is the only with the capacity and free will to decide what to do with their life and remarks that neither God nor evolution created the human race for any purpose, but the purpose that each individual chooses for himself. This dogma also comments on subjectivism that is that an individual chooses and makes himself, and in the process of doing so, his actions reflect on the rest of the