I was invited by Professor Ed Firmage to participate in his West High School series on Cultural Diversity October 23, 1995. The University of Utah Professor of Law initiated the forum to heighten the interest of high school students in the great diversity of cultural belief systems in this nation. It was an honor for me to speak about humanism to approximately 200 students.

I explained that 20th Century humanism is a movement to preserve the ideals of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. These two periods of western history saw humans freed from the tyrannies of both governments and religions. The spokesmen for these two periods renewed public interest in the democracy of the Golden Age of the Greeks and the Romans. They spoke out against the divine right of sovereigns and the kingly rights of the divine that had enslaved the human mind for a thousand years from the fall of the Roman Empire about 400AD to the Renaissance of the fourteenth century.

The first great document to declare this revolutionary ideal was the Magna Carta that called upon the king of England to halt the secular and religious tyranny and give the citizens the right to self government. This movement gradually replaced ecclesiastical control with secular control. It inspired growing respect for human dignity that eventually led to the Renaissance and over many years generated such great minds as Francis Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton.

The Renaissance was followed by the Enlightenment, a time of increasing optimism led by such giant intellects as David Hume, Voltaire, Jefferson and Jackson. These individuals stimulated the questioning of superstition and deplored imposed ignorance. Their thinking led to the next great humanist document, the Declaration of Independence, fueled our revolution against British rule, and supported the French revolution against tyranny. The third humanist document was the US Constitution, then came the Bill of Rights and the great French document of humanism, the Rights of Man.

Modern humanism continues to extol the virtues of individualism, freedom, human dignity, equality and the separation of religion and government. Humanists urge a constant vigil to keep both government and religion from re-imposing their tyranny over the human mind.

My remarks received a strong ovation and several students talked with me after class requesting information about humanism. It was an encouraging experience.

--Flo Wineriter