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Humanism is not a religion. Why is the MeetingHouse presenting commentary on secular Humanism in this presentation about world religions? This is because there are countless millions on Earth who do not believe in God but they do profess a set of beliefs that guide them in daily life. History has shown that often the religious are dependent upon the godless-spirited-ones to protect their right to worship freely. Therefore, the secular humanist's right to believe as he or she does is an important right that we ought to take seriously.

Can we take rights seriously? Are Humans capable of creating and sustaining a non-violent world in which the rights of individual humans are taken seriously? As the 21st century unfolds the United Nation's Commission on Human Rights and the UN's World Health Organization say there are more slaves today than at any time in human history. Most are individuals held against there will in households who use them for menial tasks, but there are worse conditions in which slavery prevails. The world religions are doing nothing.

Secular Humanism is speaking out against such gross injustice. Secular Humanism is any movement in society directed away from otherworldliness to life on earth. In the European Middle Ages there was a strong tendency for religious persons to despise human affairs and to meditate on God and the afterlife. As a reaction to this medieval tendency, secularism, at the time of the Renaissance, exhibited itself in the development of Humanism, when people began to show more interest in human cultural achievements and the possibilities of their fulfillment in this world. The movement toward secularism has been in progress during the entire course of modern history and has often been viewed as being anti-Christian and antireligious. However, as the 21st Century starts up some theologians are advocating secular Christianity. They suggest that Christianity should not focus its concern solely on the sacred and the otherworldly and always escapists belief in a repeating End Time, that never comes, instead, people should find in the world opportunities to promote a good with an ethical God who wants humans with compassionate values. These theologians maintain that the real meaning of the message of Jesus, Mohammad, the Buddha, Lao Tze, Gandhi, Yahweh's' Rabbis, and others who "walked with God", can be discovered and fulfilled in the everyday affairs of secular urban/rural living.

Can we identify the rights that we must take seriously if the Earth is survive the warlike excesses of those who want advances in technology because it can be done. How do we awaken a concern for the impact of these changes on human endeavors? Can we find a way to encourage family planning that will put a damper on this ongoing abuse of the God given energy of baby lust? Our good Earth is groaning under the overburden of too many mouths to feed, cloth, and shelter, and the concomitant result of too much human waste from our humane caring for the human population increase that is overwhelming the Earth capacity to cope.

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* This essay has some unconventional – free flowing - grammatical structuring.Please go with the flow. We are striking a blow for freedom, please, go with the flow.

The world religions' leadership has failed to do anything more than try to feed, cloth and shelter them. This is like feeding the fires of an advancing fire storm. It is the secular humanist who must lead us out of this swamp. It is a delusion to think that the birth of a child is always a blessing.

This label Humanism is freely applied to a variety of beliefs, methods, and philosophies that place central emphasis on the human realm. Many who do not understand it say it is necessarily agnostic or even atheistic. But, in the USA, most of the Founding Fathers were Deistic Humanists who believed in a secular government that would protect the freedom of all religions. We do not reject the possibility that some humans after careful study might conclude there is No God. But, as the MeeitngHouse has observed , in recorded history, no one has proven that God does NOT exist. Obviously there are some people who have a felt need to believe there is a God to be able to cope with the chaos of life. Certainly, those who are sure there is no God have failed to replace such a comforting idea with success in human progress. Still, we are quick to add that those who believe can not prove there is a God. Shall we give up this unproductive debate? Humanists are more interested in human beings within the universe where they live rather than a life spent searching for God. Why would any person who believes in basic human rights want to oppose the right of humanists to believe as they do? Clearly, there is no certainty about the existence of God on either side of these confrontational views. Those who are spiritual but not religious should take the time to better understand why humanists are faithful and loyal to their philosophy , Humanism. We hope that fundamentalists will learn respect and toleration for adverse world views.

A SHORT HISTORY OF HUMANISM

At one time, the term, Humanism, was used by academics with reference to a system of education and mode of inquiry that developed in northern Italy during the 14th century and later spread through Europe and England. Alternately, it was known as "Renaissance Humanism,".

This program of thought and inquiry was so broadly and profoundly influential that it is one of the chief reasons why the Renaissance is viewed as a distinct historical period. Indeed, though the word Renaissance is of more recent coinage, the fundamental idea of that period as one of renewal and reawakening is humanistic in origin. But Humanism sought its own philosophical bases in far earlier times and, moreover, continued to exert some of its power long after the end of the Renaissance. In the time of the Enlightenment, most .of the leaders of that progressive movement were humanist and deists some what like the Taoist philosophy though they probably never heard of Taoism. In modern times, the fundamentalists, such as evangelical Christians use "Humanist" virtually as a curse word to describe what they see as the blasphemous free inquiry into the timeless questions: What is God? Who is God? Where is God? Is There a God? The fundamentalists use literalist interpretations of the Bible to prohibit questioning its authority. (Questioning the accuracy of the inspired Word to them is prohibited.) Humanist feels that intellectual inquiry is an essential characteristic of the human mind if we are to have progress in dealing with poverty and other human misery.

ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE TERM HUMANISM

The Ideal of Humanitas

The term Humanism is strongly related to the enlightening developing complex of thought of the 17th century forward to today. It was first employed by 19th-century German scholars to the Renaissance emphasis on classical studies in education. These studies were endorsed by educators as early as the late 15th century. In those days a course of classical studies was of grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy. The forum was held to be the equivalent of the Greek paideia. The name itself was based on the Latin humanitas, an educational and political ideal that was the intellectual basis of the entire movement. Renaissance Humanism in all its forms defined itself by straining toward this ideal. A discussion of Humanism can have validity by, first, understanding humanitas.

Humanitas meant the full development of human virtue, (See the MeetingHouse Homepage for a discussion Virtues and Homilies) in all its forms.

Humanism as a way of life implies not only such qualities as are associated with the modern word humanity, but, also, understanding, benevolence, compassion and mercy. For most humanists it includes the more aggressive (non-violent) characteristics as fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honor.

In consequence, the possessor of humanitas could not be merely a sedentary and isolated philosopher or man of letters but of necessity ought to be a participant in active life. Action without insight was held to be aimless and barbaric; insight without action was rejected as barren and imperfect. Humanitas calls for a fine balance of action and contemplation, a balance born not of compromise but of complementarity. The goal of such fulfilled and balanced virtue was political in the broadest sense of the word. The purview of Renaissance Humanism included not only the education of the young but also the guidance of adults (including rulers) via philosophical poetry and strategic rhetoric. It includes not only realistic social criticism but also utopian hypotheses, not only painstaking reassessments of history but also bold proposals to re-shape the future.

In short, Humanism called for a progressive, continuous and comprehensive reform of culture. Humanist seek the transfiguration of what humanists term the passive and ignorant society of the "dark" age (which may still be ongoing) into a new order that would reflect and encourage the best in human potentialities. At one time, zealous humanists had an evangelical dimension. The life and actions of Thomas Paine come to mind. The action-oriented among humanists seek to project humanitas from the individual into the state at large. The direct confrontation between this non-violent secular faith and fundamentalists is painfully obvious. The militant violence of some of the fundamentalists may be undemocratic, but their raging against Humanism is heart felt fear-filled, and authentic. Humanists propose debate to find a common friendly ground; believing sweet reason will prevail in the give and take of the colloquy. The fundamentalist feel persecuted and speak of the coming End Time. If democracy as a secular form of government is to be workable all religions must be respected and tolerated. The humanists get no respect from the vast majority of fundamentalists who quell the peaceful and timid amongst them into silence by their belligerent attitudes.

The wellspring of humanitas continues to be classical literature. It was once read in the Greek and Latin. This was because such knowledge became available in a flood of rediscovered or newly translated manuscripts which provided Humanism with much of its basic structure and method. For Renaissance humanists, there was nothing dated or outworn about the writings of Plato, Cicero, or Livy. Compared with the typical productions of Christianity, these pagan works still have a fresh, radical, almost avant-garde tonality. During the 20th century, In the USA, the Encyclopedia Britannica produced and edited Great Books, Multi-Volume Set, that continues to be used in colleges and universities along with more recently edited materials to expose those who have eyes to read and ears to hear to this wisdom. Recovering the classics was to Humanism tantamount to recovering "Reality." St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas used these sources to reform the foundation of Pauline Christianity. For centuries, classical philosophy, rhetoric, and history have been seen to provide models of proper method. Humanism provided the rationalists a systematic way, without preconceptions of any kind, to perceive human experience.

More importantly, classical thought considered ethics qua ethics, politics qua politics: thus it lacked the inhibiting dualism occasioned in medieval thought by the often conflicting demands of secularism and Christianity (Our apologies to adherent to other World Religions for the emphasis, here, on Christianity as the paradigm opposite of Humanism. We do it for rhetorical purposes).

Classical virtue became vibrant; the literature abounded with examples of it as a way of living and other applications such as science. To humanists it was not an abstract essence but a quality that could be tested in the forum or worse on the battlefield. Finally, classical literature was rich in eloquence. In particular, Cicero was considered to be the pattern of refined and copious discourse. In eloquence humanists found far more than exclusively aesthetic dialogues. As an effective means of moving leaders or fellow citizens toward one political course or another, eloquence at one time akin to pure power. Humanists cultivated rhetoric as the medium through which all other virtues could be communicated and fulfilled. Though classical thought is still held in high repute by the educated, the ascendancy of anti-intellectualism has pushed Humanism to the background as the mad crowd screams that feelings are paramount and they prevail in a milieu of unreason (amplified).

Humanism, to the academic Classicist, then, may be accurately defined as that Renaissance movement which had as its central focus the ideal of humanitas. The narrower definition of the Italian term humanisti not withstanding, all the Renaissance writers who cultivated humanitas, and all their direct "descendants," may be correctly termed humanists. These followers did much to advance the cause of human progress in the face of conservative forces such as the church and those in power.

It is small wonder that a term as broadly elusive as Humanism. Of the various applications (excepting the historical movement described above) there are three basic types: Humanism that is very similar to classicism: Humanism as referring to the modern concept of the humanities, and Humanism as human-centered activities.

Accepting the notion that Renaissance Humanism was simply a return to the classics, some historians and philologists have reasoned that classical revivals occurring anywhere in history should be called humanistic. St. Augustine, Alcuin, and the scholars of 12th-century Chartres have thus been referred to as humanists. In this sense the term can also be used self-consciously, as in the New Humanism movement in literary criticism. The word humanities, which like the word humanisti derived from the Latin studia humanitatis, is often used to designate the nonscientific scholarly disciplines: language, literature, rhetoric, philosophy, art history, and so forth. Thus it is customary to refer to scholars in these fields as humanists and to their activities as humanistic.

Humanism and related terms are frequently applied to modern doctrines and techniques that are based on the centrality of human experience. In the 20th century the pragmatic Humanism of Ferdinand C.S. Schiller, the Christian Humanism of Jacques Maritain, and the movement known as secular Humanism, though differing from each other all show this anthropocentric emphasis. There is no reason to call all classical revivals humanistic when the word classical could suffice. The definition of Humanism as anthropocentricity or human-centeredness has a firm claim to correctness. For obvious reasons, however, it is confusing to some to apply this word to classical literature.

 
HUMANISM - BASIC PRINCIPLES AND ATTITUDES

Classicism

Early humanists returned to the classics less with nostalgia or awe than with a sense of deep familiarity, an impression of having been brought newly into contact with expressions of an intrinsic and permanent human reality. Petrarch, the acknowledged founder of the humanistic movement, dramatized his feeling of intimacy with the classics by writing "letters" to long dead Cicero and Livy.

Niccolo Machiavelli would later immortalize this experience in a letter that described his own reading habits in ritualistic terms. Machiavelli's term a ("humanity") means more than kindness; it is a direct translation of the Latin humanitas. Machiavelli implies that he shared with the ancients a sovereign wisdom of human affairs. He also describes that theory of reading as an active and even aggressive pursuit that was common among humanists. Classical thought offered insight into the heart of things.umanita In addition, the classics suggested methods by which, once known, human reality could be transformed from an accident of history into an artifact of will. Antiquity was rich in examples, actual or poetic, of epic action, victorious eloquence, and applied understanding. Carefully studied and well employed, classical rhetoric could implement enlightened policy, while classical poetics could carry enlightenment into the very souls of men. In a manner that might seem paradoxical to more modern minds, humanists associated classicism with the future. The life of the mind seems to become real.

Early Humanists' Realism

Early humanists shared in large part a realism that rejected traditional assumptions and aimed instead at the objective analysis of perceived experience. To Humanism is owed the rise of modern social science. It was used as a practical instrument of social self-inquiry. Humanists avidly read history, taught it to their young, and, perhaps most importantly, wrote it themselves. They were confident that proper historical method, by extending across time their grasp of human reality, would enhance their active role in the present. For Machiavelli, who avowed to treat of men as they were and not as they ought to be, history would become the basis of a new political science. Similarly, direct experience took precedence over traditional wisdom, real wisdom could be found only "at the public marketplace, in the theatre, and in people's homes."

Renaissance realism insisted on an unblinking examination of human uncertainty, folly, and immorality. Critical treatments of society from a humanistic perspective would be produced later by Erasmus, More, Castiglione, Rabelais, and Montaigne.It was typical of Humanism that this moral criticism did not postulate an ideal of absolute purity. Humanists asserted the dignity of normal earthly activities and even endorsed the pursuit of fame and the acquisition of wealth. The emphasis on a mature and healthy balance between mind and body was implicit. It is embodied eloquently in Montaigne's final essay, "Of Experience." Humanistic tradition, rather than revolutionary inspiration, would lead Francis Bacon to assert in the early 17th century that the passions should become objects of systematic investigation. The realism of the humanists was, finally, brought to bear on the Roman Catholic Church, which they called into question not as a theological structure but as a political institution. The intention was neither radical nor destructive. Humanism did not aim to remake humanity but rather to reform social order through an understanding of what was basically and inalienably human.

The productions of early Humanism constituted a manifesto of independence of body, mind, and spirit, at least in the secular world. There developed a profound concern with the precise details of perceived phenomena. This concern for truth took hold across the arts and the literary and historical disciplines and would have profound effects on the rise of modern science. The increasing prominence of mathematics as an artistic principle and academic discipline was a testament to this development.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SECULAR IDEA OF THE DIGNITY OF MAN

This democratic attitude took shape in accordance with a growing sense of personal autonomy. Later it was to characterize secular Humanism as a whole. A human intelligence capable of critical scrutiny, self-inquiry, was by definition a free intelligence. The intellectual's virtue that could analyze experience was an integral part of a more extensive virtue that could go far in conquering the vicissitudes of life and gain fortune. The emergence of Renaissance individualism was not without its darker aspects a grim world in which some well equipped individuals exploit the weakness of the crowd or fall victim to their self-made indignities. But happy or sad, the experience of the individual had taken on a more heroic tone. Humanist began to assault the idea that humans had a fixed character, limited by God. Instead, they saw that humans were free to seek their own level and create each his (but not her) own future. This drive suggests a straining toward absolutes that would characterize major elements of later Humanism. This motivation is askew from the original quest for a golden balance.

THE FRENCH HUMANISTS

France had native influential humanists important in fostering the new learning about the autonomy of man (but not women). The diversity and energy of French Humanism is apparent in the dynamic relationship between humanistic scholarship and church reform. Hampered by repression by the church and its influence on the state they were treated more severely in time. Yet, in Francois Rabelais and Michel de Montaigne, the development of humanistic methods and themes resulted in unique and memorable achievements. The French humanists had great influence on the, Founding Fathers of the American Revolution and the masses, insistence on the USA's Bill of Rights.

Francois Rabelais (c. 1490,1533)

Rabelais ranks with Boccaccio as a founding father of Western realism. As a satirist and stylist (in his hands French prose became a free, poetic form), he influenced writers as important as Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne, and James Joyce. He may be seen as a major precursor of modernism. His five books constitute a treasury of social criticism, an articulate statement of humanistic values, and a forceful, if often outrageous, manifesto of human rights. Rabelaisian satire took aim at every social institution and every intellectual discipline. He focused on dogmas that fetter creativity; institutional structures that reward hypocrisy, educational traditions that inspire laziness and philosophical methodologies that obscure elemental reality. Characteristically overstated and never wholly free of irony, Rabelais's work is a far cry from the earnest moral and educational programs of the early humanists. Rather than rebuild society, he seeks to amuse, edify, and refine it. His qualified endorsement of human dignity is based on the healthy balance of mind and body, the sanctity of all true learning, and the authenticity of direct experience.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92 CE)

Montaigne's famous Essays are a reevaluation of humanistic motives but also a milestone in the humanistic project of self-inquiry. Scholar, traveler, soldier, and statesman, he perceived in human events a diversity so overwhelming as to deny theoretical analysis. Montaigne's use of typical humanistic modalities appeals to direct experience, exclusive emphasis on the human realm, and universal curiosity. Montaigne's thoughts led him to the refutation of a typical humanistic premise: that knowledge of the intellectual arts could teach one a sovereign art of life. In an effort to make his inquiry more inclusive and unsparing, Montaigne made himself the subject of his book, demonstrating through hundreds of personal anecdotes and admissions the ineluctable diversity of a single human spirit. His essays seem to move freely from one subject to another, are often in fact carefully organized dialectical structures that draw the reader, through thesis and antithesis, stated subject and relevant association, toward a multidimensional understanding of morality and history. The final essay, grandly titled "Of Experience," counsels a mature acceptance of life in all its contradictions. Human dignity, he implies, is indeed possible, but it lays less in heroic achievement than in painfully won self-knowledge. In this sense Montaigne's attitude toward the humanistic tradition generally takes issue with a number of the more extreme humanistic contentions. Yet, he retained and justified the basic attitudes that gave the movement its form.

THE ENGLISH HUMANISTS

English Humanism flourished in two stages: the first a basically academic movement that culminated in the work of Sir Thomas More, and others. The second was a poetic revolution led by Sir Philip Sidney and William Shakespeare.

English Humanism was, at first, a distinctly academic phenomenon that emerged late in the 15th century. The humanistic contributions of the Oxford Group were philological and institutional rather than philosophical or literary. Some of them collaborated with the first headmaster of St. Paul's, Erasmus, in writing that school's constitution. Together they produced a Latin grammar (known alternately as "Lily's Grammar" and the "Eton Grammar") that would be central to English education for decades to come.

In Sir Thomas More (1478-1535 CE), English Humanism bore fruit in major literary achievement. Educated at Oxford, More was also influenced by Erasmus, who wrote The Praise of Folly at More's house. More's famous Utopia, is satirical of traditional institutions but offers, as an imaginary alternative, a model society based on reason and nature. More's Utopians eschew a too rigorous cultivation of virtue and enjoy moderate pleasures, believing that "Nature herself prescribes a life of joy (that is, pleasure)." They see no contradiction between earthly enjoyment and religious piety. Significantly indebted both to classical thought and European Humanism, the Utopia is also humanistic. Its implied thesis is that politics begins and ends with humanity: that politics should be based exclusively on human nature and aimed exclusively at human happiness. Finally, the humanistic educational program set up at the turn of the century was vigorously supported by More's colleague Roger Ascham.

A Pedagogical manual, The Schoolmaster, offered a complete program of humanistic education but also an evocation of the ideals toward which that education was directed. Ascham, to the world's good fortune was tutor to the young princess, Elizabeth, whose personal education was a model of humanistic pedagogy. Her own writings and patronage bespoke great love of learning. Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603 CE) saw the concerted expression of humanistic ideas. Elizabethan Humanism, which added a unique element to the history of the movement, was the product not of teachers but of poets, playwrights and of the student who became queen.

Major English writers created medleys of humanistic themes they reasserted the theory of poetry as moral doctrine that had been articulated by the seminal humanists, Petrarch and Boccaccio. They focused on the dualities of contemplation and action, reason and passion, and theory and practice. To some these works are a characteristically humanistic synthesis of classical philosophy, Christian doctrine, psychological realism, and practical politics. How, it was asked, could Humanism be politically active or "civic" in a Europe that was almost exclusively monarchic in structure? Many humanists had counseled retirement from active life. As leaders, Sidney and his friend Edmund Spenser (1553-1599 CE) sought to resolve this dilemma by creating a form of chivalric Humanism.

The image (taken on personally by Sidney and elaborated upon by Spenser in The Faerie Queene ) is that of the hero as questing knight as a humanist who can achieve a valid form of activism by refining, upholding, and representing the values of a just and noble court. Spenser's poetic development of this humanistic program. Spenser asserted that his purpose in The Faerie Queene is "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." As with Sidney, however, this moral didacticism is neither self-righteous nor pedantic. The prescriptive content of The Faerie Queene is qualified by a strong emphasis on moral autonomy and a mature sense of the ambiguity of experience.

Playwrights and Poets - Chapman, Jonson, and Shakespeare

The poetry and drama of Shakespeare's time were a concourse of themes, ancient and modern, continental and English. Prominent among these motives were the characteristic topics of Humanism. The masses became aware of the major themes of secular Humanism through their works. George Chapman (1559-1634 CE), the translator of Homer, was a forthright exponent of the theory of poetry as moral wisdom, holding that it surpassed all other intellectual pursuits. Ben Jonson (1572-1637 CE) described his own humanistic mission when he wrote that a good poet was able "to inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover them to their first strength" and that the poet was "the interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human, a master in manners." Jonson, who sought this moral goal both in his tragedies and in his comedies, paid tribute to the humanistic tradition in Catiline, a tragedy in which Cicero's civic eloquence is portrayed in heroic terms.

Less overtly humanistic, William Shakespeare (1564-1616 CE). Thoroughly versed (probably at his grammar school) in classical poetic and rhetorical practice, Shakespeare early in his career produced strikingly effective imitations of Ovid and Plautus (Venus and Adonis and The Comedy of Errors, respectively) and drew on Ovid and Livy for his poem The Rape of Lucretia. In Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus he developed Plutarchan biography into drama that, though Elizabethan in structure, is sharply classical in tone. Shakespeare clearly did not accept the precepts of English Humanism at face value. He grappled repeatedly with the problem of reconciling Christian doctrine with effective political action, and for a while (e.g., in Henry V) seemed inclined toward the Machiavellian alternative.

In Troilus and Cressida, moreover, he broadly satirized Chapman's Homeric revival and, more generally, the humanistic habit of idolizing classical heroism. Finally, he eschewed the moralism, rationalism, and self-conscious erudition of the humanists. Yet, like the earlier great humanists he delighted in presenting the issues with critical awareness. His plays reflect an inquiry into human character entirely in accord with the humanistic emphasis on the dignity of the emotions. Indeed it may be said that his unprecedented use of language as a means of psychological revelation gave striking support to the humanistic contention that language was the heart of culture and the index of the soul. He was a modernist who confronted the fundamentalist's strong tendency to try and make too simple complex issues. Similarly, Shakespeare's unparalleled realism may be seen as the ultimate embodiment, in poetic terms, of an intense concern for specificity, be it in description, measurement, or imitation. He endorsed (by way of fair use) humanists from Boccaccio, Plutarch, and others.

Shakespearean drama is a treasury of the disputes that frustrated and delighted Humanism. He included (among many others) action versus contemplation, theory versus practice, res versus verbum, monarchy versus republic, human dignity versus human depravity, and individualism versus communality. In blank verse and poetry he treated these polarities in balanced contraries rather than syllogistic endorsements of one side or another. In so doing, he achieved a higher realism. Since the achievement of such psychological and cultural self-awareness was the primary goal of humanistic inquiry, and since humanists agreed that poetry was an uncommonly effective medium for this achievement, Shakespeare must be acknowledged as a preeminent humanist.

One should not leave Shakespeare and the phenomenon of English Humanism without reference to a highly important aspect of his later drama. Throughout his career, Shakespeare had shown a keen interest in the concept of art The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, developed this concept into strongly doctrinal implications. Major characters in both plays practice a moral artistry, a kind of humanitas compounded of awareness, experience, imagination, compassion, and craft. These attributes enables them to beguile and dominate other characters and to achieve enduring justice. This special skill that Shakespeare portrayed with his own dramatic art, suggests a sort of solution to many of the dilemmas posed in his earlier works. It implies that problems unavailable to political or religious remedy may be solved by creative innovation. That the art by which things are known and expressed may constitute, in and of itself, a valid field of inquiry and an instrument for cultural renewal. Herein, displayed was the idea of the sovereignty of art, Shakespeare made the final major contribution the humanistic traditions.

Humanism and the Visual Arts

Humanistic themes and techniques were woven deeply into the development of Italian Renaissance art; conversely, the general theme of "art" was a prominent humanistic discourse. The mutually enriching character of the two disciplines is evident in a variety of areas. The vast majority of Today's readers seem unaware that like Galileo painters risked the deadly ire of the censoring Roman Catholic Church when they took on humanistic themes, such as freedom and liberty. Of course, Humanists paid conscious tribute to realistic techniques in art that developed independently of Humanism. Florentine artists took from Nature, as the mother and ruling force of all created things, themes that they could paint with stylus, pen, or brush original works with perspectives that were not merely reproductions. Many times, the visual sense of viewers would err, taking what was painted to be the very thing itself. This realism was the means for regaining touch with the sovereign creative principle of Nature.

Humanism, Art, and Science

To speak competently, about Renaissance science, first we address the Renaissance concept of art. The Latin ars (inflected as artis) was applied indiscriminately to the verbal disciplines, mathematics, music, and science (the "liberal arts"), as well as to painting, sculpture, and architecture. Art could refer to technological expertise, to magic, and to alchemy. Any discipline involving the cultivation of skill and excellence was de facto an art. To the Renaissance, moreover, all arts were "liberal" arts in their capacity to "free" their practitioners to function effectively. The art of rhetoric empowered the rhetorician to convince; the art of perspective empowered the painter to create visual illusion; the art of physics empowered the scientist to predict the force and motion of objects. "Art," in effect, was no more or less than articulate power; the technical or intellectual analogy to the political power of the monarch and the divine power of the god.

It was this definition of art as power that gave unity to the culture. With this definition in mind, one may understand why Renaissance humanists and painters assigned themselves such self-consciously heroic roles: in their artistic ability to delight, to captivate, to convince. All these disciplines were components of an encompassing art.

Machiavelli wrote a book about the "art" of warfare. He used history and logic to develop an art of government. The brilliant polymath Paracelsus spent his whole career perfecting an art that would comprehend all matter and all spirit. With the equation of art and power in mind, one may understand why a revolutionary scientist like Galileo (1564-1642 CE) challenged the traditionalists of classical and medieval science by keeping only those components that allowed for physically reproducible results in his experiments. . Since it was Renaissance art that had power it was completely appropriate that science should leave its previously contemplative role and focus upon the conquest of nature.

Humanism Benefited Science

Humanism benefited the development of science in a number of more specific ways. Such as technological applications of mathematics which showed that mathematics was the key to all sciences. It was humanistic educators who made mathematics a central feature of their educational program. Galileo was fond of a classicist, Meno because his work contained the first statement of the "hypothetical" method, a modus operandi, that characterized Galileo's own scientific practice. Soon this method would come to be known as one of the chief principles of the New Science. But most of all it was the general spirit of Humanism-critical, questing, ebullient, precise, focused on the physical world, and passionate in its quest for results-that fostered the development of the scientific spirit in social studies, the physical sciences, and natural philosophy.

Humanism and Christianity

Though the majority of humanists made firm avowals of faith, the relationship between Christianity and Humanism is complex and not wholly untroubled. First, humanists from Petrarch onward recognized that the Greco-Roman Classical (pagan) direction of Humanism constituted a challenge to the kind of Christianity founded by Constantine at Nicaea. Humanism promoted the idea that semi-autonomous work did not require a priestly intercessor for permission from God. At minimum, this attitude was a departure from the previous totality of Christian devotion. The universality of Christian truth had been acknowledged as comprehending all phenomena, earthly or heavenly. But, now the religious institution, the Church, had to coexist with a classical world view that was overwhelmingly directed toward earthly life. Humanists made efforts to resolve the contradictions implied by these two attitudes. When humanistic pedagogy concentrated on secular subjects it eroded the domain of faith.

This confrontation of values is continuing to be abrasive because the fundamentalists of the 21st century are outraged by secularism and they bitterly oppose modernists. In years past, important Christian writings were seriously challenged by well researched new humanist texts found fault with established commentaries and questioned traditional interpretations. Their discovery that the supposed Dionysius the Areopagite of the Pauline New Testament texts (later called Pseudo-Dionysius) had borrowed some of his material from Plato exemplified the uneasy relationship between Humanism and Catholic-fundamentalist dogma. The essential nature of Humanism's independent and broadly critical attitude could not but threaten the unanimity of Christian belief. Independence of thought, which has never been popular in any church, put particular stress on traditional religions by encouraging a simple faith that alleged universal authority. Finally, Humanism repeatedly fostered the impulse of religious reform. The humanistic emphasis on total authenticity and direct contact with sources is contrary to those who see their religion as based on faith without thinking about it.

Reformers such as Calvin employed humanistic techniques in his own cause. The reform movement, while it may have modernized and thus preserved Christianity, rang the death knell for a culture whose essential characteristic had been participation in a dogmatic universal church. In the 21st century we are replaying this confrontation by fundamentalist doctrinaires who are deadly serious.The fundamentalists are outraged by the humanists' application of rational research and discovery of facts that raise questions about the accuracy of their beliefs. The humanists are mystified. This is because they are not questioning the right of the fundamentalists to believe (as in to have faith). The greatest story ever told remains alive in their minds. Many Americans do not understand what the constitution protects. The USA is in a constitutional crisis because the nation now has millions who do not understand that the U S Constitution protects the rights of minorities. They are avid for majoritarian. They do not understand the difficult concept , Tolerance.

Does Humanism Have a Future? Will it be Destroyed by Happy Fascism?

Shakespeare may be seen as one of the last major literary interpreter of the humanistic program. Francis Bacon tended toward natural science, Milton was avid for theology. If Bacon's rationalism may be seen as a link between Humanism and the Enlightenment, his strong emphasis on nature (rather than humanity) as subject matter presaged the permanent separation of the sciences from the humanities. Philosophers came more and more to define themselves within narrow boundaries. Creative writers and "critics" took up distinct positions and assumed adversarial relationships. This is no longer true in the sense that mass media ignores such writers. There is a profound loss of coherence in humane letters, of course there are exceptions. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745 CE) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716 CE) showed the serious intention and multifarious curiosity that characterized Humanism at its best. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832 CE) was perhaps the last individual whose breadth of achievement and sense of the unity of experience lived up to the beau ideal of Humanism. .

The proliferation of published work in all fields, and the creation of many new fields, made increasingly impractical the development of the comprehensive learning and awareness that were central to the original program. In 1500 the major texts constituting a humanistic education, though numerous, could still be counted; by 1900 they were legion, and people had long ceased agreeing about exactly which ones they were.

Humanism had no effective defense against the attackers, scientists, fundamentalists, materialists, and others, who camped in ever larger numbers on its borders. Lacking an integrated method, finally, Humanism in effect lacked a center. It became prey to the dumbing down by way of universal education The classic method might have unified their efforts. It lay available but unheeded, in translations of texts of Plato and Aristotle. Given this core of rigorous analysis, Humanism might (all other challenges notwithstanding) have retained its basic character for centuries. But, ironically it failed to attract followers, possibly because it lacked promises of material gain and instant success.

Though lacking permanence itself, Humanism in large measure established the climate and provided the medium for the rise of modern thought. An impressive variety of major developments in literature, philosophy, art, religion, social science, and even natural science had their basis in Humanism or were significantly nourished by it. Important spokesmen in all fields regularly made use of humanistic eloquence to further their causes. More generally, the so-called modern awareness,that sense of alienation and freedom that applies to the individual,derives ultimately, for better or worse, from humanistic sources. But with Humanism, one should beware that valid concern about changes, crises, sources, and influences obscure the important issues of human continuity and human value. The 21st century's crisis of: the world population pressures, the misuse of military power, and the eco-spasm of global of warming provide little time for quiet contemplation of the eternal virtues.

The humanistic movement was heroic in its breadth and energy. For human development in all fields. It created a context of seldom-equaled fertility. Its characteristic modalities of serious thought, free speech, and imagery lent themselves to the promptings of genius and became the media for enduring achievement. Its moral program formed the basis for lives that are remembered with admiration, of such lives there are fewer each passing decade. Humanism did not disappear, however, it was the platform for the "Age of the Enlightened", a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and man were synthesized into a world view that gained wide assent and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Central to Enlightenment Thought were the use and the celebration of reason, the power by which man understands the universe and improves his own condition. The goals of rational man were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness in a secular- dominated world with freedom of religion.

The Age of the Enlightenment

The powers and uses of reason were first explored by ancient Greece, and the Taoist of China, who discerned in the ordered regularity of nature the workings of an intelligent mind. Rome adopted and preserved much of Greek culture. However, amid the turmoil of empire, a new concern arose for personal salvation, and the way was paved for the triumph of the Christian religion followed, in time, by Islam. Humanism bred the experimental science of Francis Bacon, Nicolas Copernicus, and Galileo and the mathematical rigor of René Descartes, G.W. Leibniz, and Sir Isaac Newton. The way to truth lay in the application of human reason fortunately received authority, whether of Ptolemy in the sciences or of the church in matters of the spirit, was to be subject to the probing of unfettered minds.

The successful application of reason to any question depends on its correct application—on the development of a methodology of reasoning that would serve as its own guarantee of validity. Such a methodology was most spectacularly achieved in the sciences and mathematics, where the logics of induction and deduction made possible the creation of the sweeping new cosmology derived from Quantum Physics. The success of Newton, in particular, in capturing in a few mathematical equations the laws that govern the motions of the planets had given great impetus to a growing faith in man's capacity to attain knowledge. At the same time, the idea of the universe as a mass, energy mechanism governed by a few simple (and discoverable) laws had a subversive effect on the concepts of a personal God and individual salvation that were central to authoritarian Christianity. Inevitably, the method of reason was applied to religion itself.

The product of a search for a natural, rational, religion was Deism, which, although never an organized cult or movement, conflicted with Christianity for two centuries, especially in England, France, and the American Colonies. For the Deist a very few religious truths sufficed, and they were truths felt to be manifest to all rational beings: the existence of one God, often conceived of as architect or mechanic and in the existence of a system of rewards and punishments administered by that God, and the obligation of men to virtue and piety. Beyond the natural religion of the deists lay the more radical products of the application of reason to religion: skepticism, atheism, and materialism. The Enlightenment fired the inquiring minds of minds of masses that had discovered literacy and the doors to the Age of Reason.

The Enlightenment produced the first modern secularized theories of psychology and ethics. John Locke conceived of the human mind as being at birth a tabula rasa, a blank slate on which experience wrote freely and boldly, created the individual character according to the individual's experience of the world. Supposed innate qualities, such as goodness or original sin, had no reality. In a darker vein, Thomas Hobbes portrayed man as selfish; moved solely by considerations of his own pleasure and pain.

The notion of man as neither good nor bad but interested principally in survival and the maximization of his own pleasure led to radical political theories such as the Objectivism of Ayn Rand. She narrowed human objectives to the selfish ego. Egoism was not simply the driving force behind human endeavor but the only force in the minds of Rand's egotistical followers. She had a peculiar understanding of humans in that though there were both good and evil people, only the evil used deceit and abused power. The good all seemed to have red or blonde hair and white or ruddy complexions and were always more brilliant than the brutish evil-doers. Her world view was not supported by the facts as the life Huey Long, Stalin, and others demonstrated.

Ayn Rand's objectivism was the platform for the self-centered libertarian school of thought along with modern conservatives who sought to minimize government to enlarge the arena for exploitation of the less intelligent by the self-centered more skilled power mongers of the elite conservative class. They eagerly sought the shriveling of the modern state that had grown out of a compassionate Enlightenment. They feigned compassion for the poor to advance their own self-centered objectives. The Enlightenment had replaced the false illusion of an earthly approximation of an eternal order, with the city of man modeled on the city of God. By the application of reason coupled to compassion and concern for the poor and the uneducated masses the Enlightenment leadership constructed a new socially conscious State that came to be seen as a mutually beneficial arrangement among men aimed at protecting the natural rights and self-interest of each stratum.

This followed from Locke's idea of society as a social contract, however, contrasted sharply with the realities of actual societies. Thus by the 18th century the Enlightenment became critical, reforming, and eventually revolutionary. Locke and Jeremy Bentham in England, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire in France, and Thomas Jefferson in America all contributed to an evolving critique of the arbitrary, authoritarian state they sketched an outline of a higher form of social organization, based on natural rights and functioning as a political democracy. Such powerful ideas found expression as reform in England and as revolution in France and America. The Enlightenment evolved overtime. The more rarefied religion of the deists offered little but human service to those who sought solace or salvation.

The celebration of abstract reason provoked contrary spirits to begin exploring the world of sensation and emotion in the cultural movement known as 19th century's Romanticism. The Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution severely tested the belief that man could govern himself. The high optimism that marked much of Enlightenment thought, however, survived as one of the movement's most enduring legacies: the belief that human history can be a record of general progress so long as reason and ethics prevail. Of course, we still must contend with Zoroaster's age old warning that honest humans should live by the ethics of: honest contracts based on honesty, good judgment integrity, fidelity loyalty, accountability and compassion for others. But the eternal problem of identifying those who are liars, and their toadies, and sycophants who lurk among us posing as ethical while deceiving us will be with us. We must incessantly search out and find these miscreants and drive them out of seats of power. If we are to do so then we must take the rights of the common man very seriously. The spiritual but not religious know that God has provided this good Earth as the forum for this eternal battle between the forces of good and evil on Earth. God as the Good Force in the Universe encounters the dark side and black holes in cosmology why would we think that we are exempted from the contest here on Earth.

Modern secular Humanism is embattled because so many have left the affray. The Ideal of Human Progress seems to have a lower percentage of believers. Perhaps, this is. In part. because Chernobyl and our inability to control human pollution of the biosphere, and other continuing, and worsening problems arising out of what used to be called , "Progress Through Chemistry," seem so intractable that many are giving up and turning to blind faith in Hope. What else is there? Obviously, this plays in to the hands of the power elite who would provide Happy Fascism. Happy Fascism is a state of mindlessness in which the voters in a so-called democracy have given up the power of their vote in return for the promise of consumer materialism. It is a state of mind where one says¨" Poverty? That's not my problem -my TV needs a Tivo? In effect, the power elite trades say, Sports Viewing for the voter vote which they trade off to the power-elite who want the levers of government for their own selfish ends. This critical important ceding of the power of democracy to a self-chosen few who are the power elite arising out of the concentration of wealth that is on-going arises primarily out of the conscience numbing fear of uncertainty by the masses.

They are willing trading away their vote because they have lost their faith in human progress and sold-out their God-driven love and compassion. Altruism has been put in the deep freeze. The "Me" culture is in the ascendancy. The Mega-Church and its preachers are a prime example of this selfishness. They preach about success measured by the accumulation and use of material goods These same "consumer ,voters", and those who praise them for their pledges, often mouth a hypocritical belief in God while avoiding the service to other that gives true meaning to their so-called faith (i.e., the teachings of Jesus and Mohammad's God inspired Koran about care for the poor and unfortunate). The obvious need for a re-awakening of secular Humanism as a driving force in the everyday world is too clear. Happy Fascism works better for the power elite who manipulate the semi-literate, ignorant, voters who have turned LA and the USA into La-La land. The hope that remains is the reawakening of the universal need to nurture and protect human rights and to affirmative duty of the large, wealthy industrial nations to take on the challenge of eliminating poverty as a primary goal of all humans who live on the good Earth. The only way to bring this about is by way of all voters in democracies Taking rights seriously. It would be wiser to vote for enlightened longer term self-interest. Instead of toys today one could bring about a better reality for the children who will be the future for humans.

Choosing Happy Wisdom Instead of Happy Fascism

Secular humanists such as deists and agnostics, as well as those atheists who are not nihilists could provide education for turning humans toward the Happy Wisdom. We will call this change in attitude a kind of wisdom - the happy wisdom of optimistic well-versed human beings guided by love rather than fear. Happy wisdom is the opposite of conventional wisdom. It is deliberate but it swims against the current in order to avoid being swept along by the brain numbing wake of those who compromise their principles by "going along to get along". It is a wisdom that defies gravity. Happy wisdom flouts taboos that are designed to protect the power elite from change. Still, it is not foolishly optimistic. It refuses to avert one's gaze from the sorrows and injustices of the world. Yet, it insists on joyful hope in spite of everything. Happy wisdom finds risk to be bracing and it eschews fear filled security. Happy wisdom sees the turning points that call for epochal change. Apparently, native Africans are very good at this kind of hope for there wretched conditions are discouraging still they hope.

Happily, this wisdom lampoons those anxious neurotics who neither seek authority nor are willing to submit to it. It encourages the pursuit of happiness in a world infected with contagious suffering. We, the People to promote tranquility should use our happy wisdom to demand an open discussion in the forums of democracies of: What Are These Unenumerated Rights of the People That Shall Not Be Denied?

A look at the past of the early USA could help. In the late 1780s, the elite, fearing the ghost of Captain Shay and other Revolutionary War veterans who fought by his side, met in a secret Constitutional Convention. The convention offered its work, the US Constitution, to the states. Their offering had no Bill of Rights. One leader, George Mason, walked out. George Mason and many others led a powerful battle to instruct Madison to add the Bill of Rights at the first meeting of Congress. There was powerful opposition from the conservatives. The ratification was in doubt. Led by George Mason, and others, the power elite, represented by most of USA's founding fathers urged the adoption of the Bill of Rights amendments, which included the peculiar Ninth Amendment. The elected US Congress did this in its first session, over the strenuous objections of many of the power elite known as the Federalists. This action was only after the rabble in the streets of major cities had made it clear, either we have the enactment of the Bill of Rights or the republic will not be borne.

In effect, all Americans would become federal citizens and citizens of the state in which they were domiciled. Some argued that there were privileges and immunities that no state could deny to citizens of others states, regardless of how it treated its own citizens. Many court cases later arose and troubled the court and the nation after the Constitution was amended to provide due process and equal protection in the Fourteenth Amendment. The power elite opposed the idea of a federal citizenry even though the Ninth and Tenth Amendments had made it clear that the ultimate reservoir of power was the people of the United States of America.

It is time for the common sort , throughout the Earth - to demand a national colloquy in the USA about the meaning of a peculiar dormant amendment , The Ninth. Amendment reads:

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people"

What are these rights? Perhaps, one of them is the right to Social Progress within the realm of that which is socially responsible and possible on Earth. Such a networked national debate, assisted by the media, could galvanize the American Electorate and be of wide interest to the world community of non-violent citizens. Many who do not vote would experience a revived interest in going to the polling booths. Today, we should be searching for the meaning of the "other rights" which are not to be denied or disparaged in these USA because they are retained by the people.

Why Do Some Think That the Ninth Amendment's Day Has Come?

Today, seething conflict fractures the USA. What Kind Of Rights Should We Take Seriously? The American Mind is stressed. We take one right as an example of this heart-rending friction that is not supported by peace-building people. The example: in the USA anti-abortion minority is hostile to the millions of peaceful citizens who disagree with them. The majority are threatened by violence because they support a woman's right of choice which is - The right of choice is: A woman's right to decide, for her and no other, whether or not to have an abortion, or by force, be required to deliver an unwanted child for the secular State using its coercive force of law.

This hostile battleground is a prime example of the serious division among our citizens over the nature and quality of the unenumerated rights. Our domestic tranquility is unstable and perturbed. Later, we will further discuss this right in more detail along other unenumerated rights.

Exploring the Nature and Origins of the USA's Ninth Amendment

According to the USA's Ninth Amendment, the reservoir of power is and ought to be the people. Isn't there a pressing need is to make all Americans aware of some of these known natural human rights, which no one should ignore or deny? These rights are within the Ninth Amendment of our Bill of Rights. Wouldn't an educational process about these rights vivify participatory democracy in t he American homeland?

Many of America's conservatives seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the human rights that existed before there was a U.S. Constitution. One clever tactic that they use to prohibit an expansive reading of our rights has been to blur the critical distinction between the words "equalitarian" and "egalitarian".

The U. S. Constitution is "equalitarian" not "egalitarian". The Constitution requires the federal government and the states to protect the political and civil rights as set forth in the document [All men (and women) are equal]. The Ninth Amendment is a fundamental statement of inherent natural rights. It is the English concept of individual liberties inherent in humans irrespective of the form of government. These rights may be called pre-constitutional. They are rights that most would agree every human ought to have. In spite of the advances in knowledge, are we to believe that the quality of these natural unenumerated rights was frozen in time: as a mere philosophical restatement of ideas passed down from the eighteenth century as the "rights of man"? This limiting perception is unworkable.

The idea of universal "human rights" is a very recent concept. Our modern perceptions of the nature of the human being: body, mind, soul and spirit are our guide. Certainly, our knowledge of the relationship of brain chemistry to hormonal flows throughout the body has radically changed our perception of this extraordinary sentient being. Furthermore, we now realize we are dynamic energetic beings greatly affected by natural forces both internal and external such as the subtle electro-magnetic force that permeates both us as humans and all that is on Earth 3. In the sense of quantum physics, we are one with nature, the universe, God. Obviously, it has become necessary for Americans to think much more deeply about what it means to be created equal in the sense of our Constitution's equalitarianism.

Unfortunately, the USA and the rest of the world are in a state of confusion because many mistakenly argue that the "egalitarian" rights to the sharing of income are universal. They are wrong. America's President Roosevelt knew it.

On January 11, 1944 in his annual message to Congress he specifically set forth new rights he felt were necessary. He said (inter alia): "This republic grew …under the protection of certain inalienable political rights (among them) are free speech, free press free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures . . .however, these political rights have proven inadequate . . .true individual freedom can not exist without economic security and independence . . .these economic truths have become self evident. We have, so to speak, accepted a second Bill of Rights . . . to provide a new basis of security and prosperity . . . regardless of station, race, or creed."

President Roosevelt then went on to detail a number of critically important "economic rights" that he believed every citizen ought to have to enable the ordinary citizens to fully participate in any republican form of government. The enactment of these egalitarian so-called rights would be a vast change. Of course, in some nations their legislatures have the lawmaking power to make human society "egalitarian" by use of its existing powers delegated from the people. There are very real questions: Can we afford to pay for them? Can we afford to pay for these economic privileges? especially when huge wealth transfer are being made to the rich by way of large fiscal deficits that are a postponed burden on the next generations. Many nations continue to promote large excessive expenditures for military forces which are self-fulfilling make-work in that the expenditures in and of themselves a threat to the peace and often put military personnel on perilous duty abroad.

In truth, economic "rights" though called rights are really only privileges. They may or may not be the creations of the legislatures. These economic rights result from the exercise of the power of the lawmakers to make legislative acts that redistributes income and expenses in the name of "egalitarianism" Governments do have the power to do it. Such actions may be motivated by the Judeo-Christian consciences (also Ibrahamic Muslims, Hindus, and others) of our legislators but they are not political or civil rights. There is always the question of can the nation afford this re-distribution. Does the economic wealth exist that is being re-distributed? Is it socially responsible to do it, in the sense of how does it affect the work incentives for the citizens and will monies be available for research and development and improving the means of production? Obviously, serious mistakes could be made by a well meaning legislature that errs in its estimates. Unintended consequences could result. .

It should be unmistakably clear that it is proper for liberals and conservatives to do battle over the waxing and waning of these egalitarian rights. Unfortunately, reasoning is muddied by the hot rhetoric of the right and the left. At this time (2001-2008), the USA has been acting in an irresponsible manner that will severely burden future generations until the enormous debit is redeemed. The opposition to re-distributive justice based on simplistic, ideological opposition should be fact based and not because one does not want the government involved in general welfare activities. The long experience of Christians and Muslims is that the rich do not ‘trickle down' the alms that God expects of them.

It is a dangerous mistake of elite conservatives to think they can abolish our individual "natural human rights." They are natural rights that God by any name expects humans to protect from egotistical self-promoters. Some Rights are protected by the "equalitarian" nature of the unenumerated political and civil rights that exists for everyone even though in some nations and locales they are abstract rather than real.

Law, if it is to deserve the name of law must respect that there are at least some basic rights to which every human is entitled, simply because he or she is human. Such rights , for example, the right to privacy and the right to travel-are protected by the Ninth Amendment and ought to be the rights of any world citizen. Of course, there are rights that exist by the law of social justice that large-scale corporations and organizations ignore. Therefore, there are necessary conflicts that are an expression of participatory democracy. Yes, we could have non-violent class conflict resulting from citizens asserting their political and civil rights in the face of an adamantly opposed government and or other social institution. There could be marches, street protests, internet blogging, and an upwelling, even upheaval of a citizenry that is being denied their rights.

Though often glossed over, it is a truism that everyone should acknowledge "class conflict" is built into the U. S. Constitution. Those who prefer government by the few should have no fear of violence by the common sort to enforce their rights so long as they take seriously those political and civil rights that are a part of our natural state and ought to be protected by their governments.

Ordinary people in a democracy prefer peaceful demonstrations, by way of parades and picketing, lawful assembly, as well as the right to petition about their grievances. It should be obvious that these rights, inherent in free speech, will be used to make known to the power elite that they must take seriously the common sorts' rights. To the elite the exercise of political and civil rights is a never-ending source of troublesome friction caused only by the common sort as they try in peaceful ways to get the powerful elite to take seriously their rights that ought to be protected. The elite conservatives seem to feel their resistance to such changes is righteous though they do not provide an explanation of their reasoning.

Are There Dormant Rights That Must Be Taken Seriously?

Is it not true that there are rights that have been silenced that ought to be identified now? Are they not among the unenumerated rights that shall not be denied or disparaged? We propose that secular humanists will be insisting that we have a colloquy on that subject to protect our good Earth from the current depredations. The world cities will be the locale of these protests.

Prigogine, the Nobel Laureate, felt that cities were organic man-made open systems. He urged that over time they would become destabilized as humans sought a qualitatively higher level of equilibrium. It is the human condition that human happiness is balanced by suffering. Achievement of happiness is transitory.

It is the pursuit of happiness that is the game worth playing. The cities add value to the products of the countryside returning the energy to somewhere on our planet in a mutually beneficial exchange. The continuous movement of energy through the global system causes destabilizing fluctuations that may perturb both the open and closed political systems on Earth. This flux will increase the number and quality of novel interactions. In the USA an individual can perturb the open system.

This was done by Martin Luther King, Jr. with his dreams and marches for human political and civil rights. His respectful Non-violent demands insisted that we validate the truth that the US Constitution was an equalitarian document that was being violated. The Reverend King was de-stabilizing. His work resulted in the "creative destruction" of wrong-headed human obstacles. The result, as history observes, is that the USA experienced a burst of productivity that expanded the "new South" Clearly, individual citizens can perturb the open system. Our human rights have much power to motivate the world's citizens to set things right. Their dynamic energy de-stabilizes the status quo. There is a release of energy to enable the cities and the countryside to work together; in a sense to go uphill toward the task of building a better shining city on the hill. Obviously serious conflict can result.

Happily for the USA, its Chief Justice John Marshall found a way for our Constitution to survive these crises. His decision in Marbury vs. Madison empowered the judiciary, upon review of an actual case in controversy, to resolve the conflict between the opposing parties. For example, whenever it was a federal question involving interpretation of the Constitution, Marshall's persuasive logic showed that the courts' should have the exclusive power to interpret the constitution's meaning. The executive and legislative branches may argue and attempt to persuade but only the courts decide. Whenever the Chief Executive asserts that he can ignore the order of the Supreme Judiciary, the will of the people (except for mob rule) is being subverted because they have by prior act (Their Constitution) delegated part of their power to an independent judiciary. The Chief Executive who goes against a just decision of the court ought to be recalled or impeached.

There should be no doubt about the great magnitude of the awesome power that federal judges have to hold while in office, which may be for the remainder of their natural lives. The independent judiciary has been virtually anointed as our guardians of the U.S. Constitution. This is especially true of the "law". When a law impinges on the unlisted powers and rights in the necessary and proper clause, the bill of rights, the fourteenth amendment, et cetera (and the unenumerated rights of the Ninth Amendment) the federal courts have the duty to strike as void such unconstitutional attempts at law making.

There is a potential for abuse by those judges who are guided more by their own ideological agenda than by applying sweet reason. For long, a wrong-headed power-elite, working through such ideological judges who were appointed to office by a power-conserving elite have succeeded in avoiding the mandate of the Ninth Amendment and, instead, have denied or disparaged the rights of the people. In the USA, and those countries with common-law traditions, the "rule of reason by a reasonable man" usually sets the parameters of any proposed national debate on these kinds of issues.

This rule of interpretation is embedded in the history of the Anglo-American common law that under girds our federal and state governments, which governments rule by, consent of the governed. The so-called "Right to Privacy" is an excellent example of words not found in the U.S. Constitution which millions believe is a natural right. There are some Supreme Court cases that support the idea of the right to privacy. Yet, all must concede that if there is a right to privacy it has resulted from our judges interpreting the constitution to make law to resolve a particular dispute. It is the rule of reason which has declared the right to privacy arises from principles of equity developed by men and women over the centuries to the present. We the people of this good Earth will need a fair-minded federal judiciary applying the rule of reason to the list of unenumerated rights that shall not be denied or disparaged because the people retain them.

Social organizations in every country ought to promote discussions of what rights ought we to acknowledge as being among those universal rights protected by the ideas behind the American Ninth Amendment. This could result in an international colloquy on the meaning of those rights that should be taken seriously. Some citizens might feel so insecure that they fear to identify these rights because it might make it easier for terrorists. In effect, they feel we should trust in the good motives of our government and large organizations not implement such political and civil rights during a time of danger said to be a national emergency. The long history of elected despots abusing their powers urge that such a course would be folly. Such a stance based on blind faith in the good nature of those in authority could stifle a free and open discussion when world opinion already favors these rights.

Though many ill-informed Americans do not respect the very existence of the United Nations, (and certainly the world needs a revised charter for it.)Nonetheless, it is instructive to observe that in 1948 the United Nations' Charter made a Declaration of Human Rights. It is in two parts the first twenty were political and civil rights: the rights to freedom of movement, to own property, to marry, to equality before the law, to fair public trail if accused of any crime, to religious liberty, to free speech, peaceful assembly, and asylum. Slavery, torture, and arbitrary detention were prohibited. The United Nations General Assembly, never a body to confine itself to a life that is self-supporting, proceeded like a blithe spirit to go forward with a blithe spirit and assert a second part labeled , Other Rights.

These so-called other rights assume a world of plentiful and cheap energy, an efficient system to provide adequate food for everyone and a good, cheap transportation system to get the goods to the place where needed. Furthermore the UN presumed a social organization that could prevent mal-distribution. These unfounded assumptions enabled the UN to proceed to go on to state there were there were "further rights" of an economic and social nature: social security, an adequate standard of living, medical care, rest, leisure, and periodic holidays with pay. Wish and hope had replaced realism.

Americans would be wise to take heed when they consider enumerating their own set of rights from the Ninth Amendment because such action will expand its language. It will be extremely difficult for us to agree to upholding human rights if we try to introduce claims that we cannot afford and therefore would be unable to uphold. Nonetheless, it appears certain we should be able to justify the existence of some sort of set of universal human rights for Americans. But, clearly, our national colloquy must be confined to realism.

Nothing is more important to understanding a right than to acknowledge it is not an ideal. A human right ought to be defined as something no one, anywhere may be deprived of without a grave affront to justice. The process of enumerating some of the USA's Ninth Amendment rights which already exist will require our independent federal judiciary to use the Rule of Reason to apply the law to an actual case in controversy that will certainly follow. It was the federal courts' decisions applying the rule of reason to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which saved this valuable statute which is designed to promote good competition in business.

Current instability indicates we ought to join with others in making a list of the rights that a sophisticated world leader such as the USA ought to acknowledge as rights that should not be denied or disparaged. Obviously no one has a preemptive right to start the discussion. The MeetingHouse makes this humble offer of an improvised list that is not delimiting, in the hopes that it will encourage others to openly debate the nature of the USA's unenumerated rights that the federal judiciary ought to be taking seriously. Perhaps, thereby the USA could return to its former status as the Earth's best hope:

I. A Right to Clean Air to Breathe , In the 20th century it became clear that the byproduct ,throughput- the effluent of advancing technology and the growing population has made sufficient clean air to breathe difficult to find. It is necessary to find air that is non-toxic and healthy containing adequate oxygen. The oxygen supply in the biosphere's atmosphere is declining. These changes brought on by population growth have caused a dormant inherent natural right to awaken. It is now a paramount individual right that we have a fair amount of clean air containing certain essential elements to breathe. Human metabolism and DNA repairs in every human cell require that all of us be able to derive from the atmosphere by inhalation for normal use by our bodies an adequate supply of useable air. Clean air is necessary for the helix of DNA to perform repairs working with enzymes, proteins, and mitochondria to re-create in each human are thirty trillion cells the vital balance. What is the source of this vital human right? It may be that the USA's. ; points the way, especially if Americans recognize it as one of the unenumerated rights of American humans to the quality air we need. It isn't it time for this right to be acknowledged by our federal judges?

II. The Right to Adequate, Clean, Potable Water for a Productive Human Society , Humans have a right to expect their government and large organizations such as corporations to maintain the Earth's hydrological cycle in a state of high quality such that an adequate supply of potable clean water is constantly available to humans. Thereby, unhealthy pollutants from the throughput of human wastes and the byproducts of production could be controlled to prevent the degradation of an essential and adequate water supply. Increasing knowledge has made us aware that each human cell has an immunological system that is under constant attack by oxidants and toxins from ingesting water with impurities. The DNA's healthy repair function requires clean water. Therefore, to perform our duties to society each individual's need for a good quality supply of water is a citizen's imperative right. As this is written, this right has been disparaged and denied for most of us because, overall, the current supply of water is in a deplorable state. It is shaming to our living generations, the way those at the helm of the USA and other nations have ignored the serious challenge of global warming to water quality.

III. The Right to a Safe, Secure, Workplace , It is not to late for the USA to lead the world in acknowledging that because a productive democratic market economy is necessary to sustain a civil political society that individual workers must have a right to a safe, sanitary, decent environment at the work place. The working environment should be free of extraordinary, unnecessary threats of injury and be a process that minimizes stress. We now know that a healthy worker is not only happier but also more productive. Humans and their DNA are one. The helix of the DNA and its companion RNA must be treated with love and a respect for dignity of the person in the process at the workplace if we are to optimize productivity. Workers should have the right to a workplace where the employer has adopted safe practices. Furthermore, the employer should be compelled to be ready willing and able to supply medical services in the event of any injury occurring in the scope and course of employment.

IV. A Woman's Right To A Self-Chosen Abortion In The Exercise Of Her Right Of Choice In The Use Of Her Reproductive Right . . . Perhaps, it will be seen that the USA's Ninth Amendment is the primary source of this right of a woman to the exclusive control of how and when she may use her reproductive rights. A reasonable discussion might qualify that right by saying that an American woman capable of conception shall have the natural right to choose to terminate the natural process of reproduction, if after being provided with an educational process that enables an informed decision it is her sole opinion that she ought to exercise her exclusive right to terminate her own pregnancy by way of a healthy, safe, and sanitary abortion done at a correct time within modern medical facilities. (Note: We have used this particular right, as a platform to explain that the people may well feels that safeguards are necessary to a reasonable exercise of this right and others, as well.)

V. The Right of the Ordinary Citizen to Use the Ancient Common Law Writs to Empower Effective Citizens' Actions to Foster the Growth of Democratic Self-Governance in this Republic and the Earth at large: Ordinary citizens need broad powers to use the ancient Anglo-Saxon and Roman writs to require the executive branch to do what it has been empowered to do, on the one hand, and to force government officials to refrain from using the executive powers in ways the State's executive branch has not been authorized to do (e.g. impounding funds appropriated by the law makers for a particular function of government ). Any Judicial Code should more clearly direct the courts to certify meritorious citizens' suits as class actions because the economics of litigation require that citizens form groups to enforce rights. Some of the ancient writs are Mandamus, Restraining Orders, Qui Tam suits, Quo Warranto, Duces Tecum, Grand Jury investigations, and others, such as Habeas Corpus. Carefully defined Citizens' Suits ought to exist. Fair play urges that the costs of such civil litigation should be born by the taxpayers out of general revenues. Instead of generating windfall awards (net of reasonable fees) probably such award funds should be paid to the State for proper distribution. Genuine citizens' participation will be encouraged by reviving the age old concepts underlying the ancient writs and making them available to citizens' suits in the courts with due process.

VI. The Public's Right to limit Private Funding of Political Campaigning. American citizens and world citizens should have the right to require that private funds shall not be expended in their elections so long as adequate public funding is supplied to all eligible candidates to empower more appropriate discussion of the issues. Candidates should be barred from making access to public's officials after the election as a way to obtain financing of a political campaign. The problem is the bad effects of providing deep pockets with a way to buy political influence over the general public's political process. Since the main objective of campaigning is supposed to be an electorate that is well-informed by way of discussion of the issues, the limiting of the expenditure of funds for political campaigning to minimize the hoopla and negative campaigning could protect the citizen's right to vote. Cooling the hoopla and false-advertising is a desirable end though difficult to bring about. Perhaps limiting the campaigning and expenditures to the 90 days prior to an election night would be salutary; and it could encourage a focus on the issues.

VII. Protection of the Right-to-Vote and the Right to Have Your Vote counted in the final Tally , Recent experiences have made it clear that the antiquated delegation of the administration of federal elections to the various states is no longer acceptable. The rights of a federal citizen should no longer be subjected to the obvious lack of equal protection before the law and due process. The 50 states are lacking in fair procedures and a lack of uniform administration within the states. In fact, the diversity of election procedures has caused a lack of confidence in the veracity of the results. We sorely need a uniform federalized procedure for federal elections. It is another unenumerated right that modern circumstances have brought to the fore.

If we the USA and other nations, are to have participatory democracys rather than a caricature of it, it is imperative that an American citizen and other citizens shall have a paramount right to have his or her vote counted, tallied, and accrued to the grand total so that the vote is a part of the final certified count of valid election results. The federal courts should ensure due process and equal protection before the law until the valid final count is certified res judicata. The idea that a court may use the power of judicial review to terminate an ongoing vote counting procedure that is designed to make sure citizens' votes are in fact counted is a disparagement and a flagrant denial of one of the fundamental unenumerated rights of the Ninth Amendment. These rights are retained by the people and not the power-elite.

VIII. The Right of Citizens, As an Aggrieved Class, to Regulate the Ethics of Scientists , Scientists have not adopted any universal code of Professional Ethics to guide the conduct of scientific research many scientists believe they may follow scientific curiosity wherever it may lead without regard to the consequences to human life. Governments and large organizations are trying to find a fair way to use the withholding of taxpayer funding as a way to protect humans from those scientists who are nonchalant about adverse affects on human life. We need a better way because technology and science are so advanced today that the application of human knowledge occasionally may appear to be of a sort that is at the edge of infringing on citizens' unenumerated rights.

It appears that American Citizens should be empowered to use the federal courts as a forum to carry out a fair-play fact-finding through an impartial hearing. Perhaps, an international body could act as a master referee in a particular instance involving international ramifications. The objective should be to find if salutary actions could be taken to regulate, restrain, even temporarily prevent the abridgement of a human right until enforceable ethical codes can be enacted and enforced. Thereby we could temporarily prevent overzealous scientists, hoping for a prestigious prize, or wealth, to ignore the new risks to humans that they are creating.

There are too many examples of this wrongful kind of conduct arising out of designer pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, surveillance software, and the like. (Note: I acknowledge that this means an expanded independent federal judiciary. Clearly, this would be a low-cost way to promote tranquility in our county. It would probably do more than anything that Homeland Security can do [It should be noted an efficient operating judiciary, adequately manned with judges who are paid on time is absolutely essential to the ordinary citizens' trust of the courts ability to yield justice.]

The Citizens' Right to Limit the State's Use of the Power of Conscription for Compulsory Military Service. 

Until the world find its way to peaceful relations, a compulsory draft may be necessary from time to time to mobilize our nation to engage in a war effort to protect the way of life guaranteed by its laws such as in America, the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution provided that Congress declares War. Tragically, acting in haste, a Congress could enable an Imperial Presidency to use the language of war and to act belligerently in undeclared war efforts. The legislative body should use its control of the purse to rein in an Executive Branch that takes action without good basis for it. Unfortunately, an expanded volunteer force as the arm of the Commander-in-Chief empowers adventures of the Executive. Prolonged fighting can result in calls for more manpower for the armed forces to continue to do what they have been ordered to do. The use of forced war service on citizens for unilateral adventures of the Executive branch when based on vague and specious resolutions of a supine legislative body may enlarge the power of the Commander-in-Chief beyond the limits imposed by nation's people through their Constitution.

As a result of these modern day adventures some troubled citizens may choose pacificism to express their deep concern about the correctness of the executive in waging a particular war. At this time, it appears beyond question that an American Citizen may refuse to participate in a draft on the grounds of the individual's bona-fide conscientious objections. Obviously, it cannot be wily-nily an act of protest against a specific war. The person claiming exemption from compulsory military service should have the opportunity for due process to demonstrate his or her sincerity in seeking exemption from war service. In the future, it appears likely that we will see many of our citizens promoting a public peaceful patriotism.

To protect domestic tranquility from disturbances it will be necessary to offer the exempted person alternative peaceful service that is compatible with his or her objections and the U.S. Constitution. Refusal of the alternative service ought not to be an option. This is a thorny thicket that calls for open dialogue that vents the disagreements over the propriety of a citizen calling upon the government to exempt him or her from forced war service. Recently, we have experienced attempts by Congress to limit a President's directives for the unauthorized use of federal funds. This may occur when in direct conflict with ex ante directives of Congress that prohibit such a use of federal funds a President's adventures into war diplomacy (e.g. the Boland Amendment in re Nicaraguan Contra-Aid) .

Such unresolved conflicts between the legislative and the executive branches over the use of federal powers shows why it appears more and more likely that citizen will seek deferment from conscription for war service and instead they may seek alternative service duty as one of their inherent rights. They may feel it is equally patriotic to do peaceful service rather than forced war service. A special example is when both branches overreach their constitutional prerogatives. On such occasion when their acts may be in obvious violation of the safeguards built in to the Constitution as it now stands a member of the public may decide that refusal to a do war service is a practical defense of the Constitution. Jingoism can not be a substitute for complying with the clear mandate of our Constitution. On occasion, our Constitution can be a hard task master.

The Right of the American People to Protect:

The Right to Equal Treatment regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, ethnicity, sex and its practice, handicap, and to Prevent the Degradation of Human Dignity, The Right to Protect the Integrity of Personhood, Individual Autonomy, Privacy, and Personal Liberty and other unenumerated human rights of Americans.

Relative to other societies, Americans are very highly stressed by the conflict of their personal expectations about their rights with the current ambience created by the State's response to the threats of terrorism. In spite of the cloak of the Homeland Security office, at this time, there are operating within our borders: secret courts, searches without warrant, imprisonment without indictment, torturous interrogations, refusals of the Writ of Habeas Corpus in cases involving American citizens and registered aliens. This frightening list grows longer. Peaceful citizens are beginning to anxiously wonder who is next. When will they hear the knock on the door and the sudden disappearance of loved ones without legal counsel? Other democracies on Earth have had such dreadful experiences.

There is little, if any, consideration of the stressful effects on the general population of these homeland security tactics by our attorney general in the name of what might be a virtually perpetual war. Americans are taking billions of pills every year to try to alleviate stress so we can continue to be among the most productive people on this Earth. This is in part because advances in our knowledge about the psychology of human personality development have made clear to all of us that stress has serious adverse affects. Part of that stress, comes from our belief in a cherished preconception that all Americans have a right to pursue happiness. Today, Americans are virtually unique among human societies in believing that the pursuit of happiness is a very important correct aim of a lifetime. Our spiritual nature knows that the current pursuit of happiness is not working out. Buying more and better cars and toys is not enough. More and more Americans are abandoning the political process particularly in state and municipal elections because they feel ineffective and helpless. We have made the search for terrorists more important than the protection of the unenumerated rights said to be retained by the people. Such rights are being disparaged and denied.

For over two hundred years the USA's Ninth Amendment has been virtually silent. It is believed it has been standing ready for the day when our nation is no longer protecting individual privacy, personal liberty, the right to the private practice of minority religions, the right to travel and other unenumerated rights. It was the common sort that forced the Bill of Rights on our elite founders. Today's ordinary citizens are now sleepwalking toward confronting a similar situation. Recently, more than one errant imperial presidency has repeated the history of the adventurous British monarchs of seventeenth through the nineteenth century. Our Revolutionary War against the redcoats was in part attributed to His Majesty's government choosing to incur debts for wars while Americans had to pay the taxes without any say in the prosecution of the wars.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is time for a wakeup call by secular humanists and others such as the spiritual but not religious. And those hearty souls among the religious who are willing to standup and be counted by those in authority. Our representative republic is endangered at home. It appears to be the time to call out the American peoples' reserve powers in the Ninth Amendment to set a good example for the rest of the citizens of this good Earth. Lawyers and judges have said they don't know what the Ninth Amendment means. During the next few years, the American people could give it meaning by way of a strong re-affirmation of our citizens' rights.

Many nations are angry at our country at this time. When Lincoln was striving to preserve the union, he said that our Nation was the World's best hope. There is still time for us to re-state our citizens' rights. Such a restatement could once again make us the Earth's best hope in the sense of a nation that promotes individual liberty and places confidence in its citizens to do what is right.

THE END

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Caveat: Atheists and agnostics and some humanists think there is no God. The MeetingHouse has no quarrel with them. According to our Light everyone should be free thinkers.

For those who appreciate some God natured humor, or is that good natured? See:

• http://church.freethought.org/
• The secular web:
  www.infidels.org
• Humanistic Judaism:
  www.shj.org
• International Society for ISLAMic Secularization:
  ISLAM.org" target=_blank designtimesp=3421>www.secularISLAM.org
• Gender , Other
  www.serve.com/tgkindc/11things.html

Acknowledgement: This is a compilation with some sources from the Encyclopedia Britannica which we gratefully acknowledge. Other sources are noted.