A Re-Enlightenment

  Long ago, back in the eighteenth century, people began to realize that human’s had certain natural rights.  Religion faltered and science became a way of exploring the world around us.  People realized that governments gained legitimacy through the people, not divine intervention.  It was with these ideas in mind, that monarchy and tyranny began to give way to democracy.  It was with these ideas that the United States was born.

More than two centuries have come and gone since the formation of the
United States, and the end of the Age of Enlightenment.  Yet all seems to be forgotten.  In the
United States 59% (Political Science, Roskin, 2008) of people say religion plays an important role in their lives.  Of all the industrialized nations, the
United States is the most religious.  This nation of god-fearing individuals has digressed from its original intentions.  Religion hinders scientific research and social progress.  It is religion that has constantly blocked stem-cell research, which could be used to find cures to any number of diseases.  The civil rights of homosexuals, transgenders, and other “misfits” have been trampled repeatedly by the
United States as a whole.

In this age of religious warfare, science and society have suffered.  The government no longer works for the people; the people are mere puppets of the institution they granted more and more power too by blindly obeying it.  The ideas of the Enlightenment are all but dead.  It is for this reason that I call for a re-Enlightenment.  The people of the
United States need to understand the complexity of humanity, of science, and of the world.  Times have changed dramatically from the Enlightenment, and for nearly two-hundred years, progress continued, slow as it was.  Now is the time to revive those teachings of society and freedom, of toleration, and of knowledge and wisdom.  It is time for change, it is time for progress, and it is time to create a new age of Enlightenment.