The Centrality of Human Existence

By Steve Rensberry

    Sometimes I wake up and think to myself, I'm going to work on a plan to save the world today. Only I'm not sure that most of humanity actually wants saving.

    Human civilization is thousands of years old and where are we? Cave dweller #1 is still hitting cave dweller #2 over the head because he, or she, has something he wants or doesn't like. We just have a lot more people and tribes, and more sophisticated caves and tools.

    Don't you think it's time to let go of all those sacred cows and antiquated ideas that have failed to work? I vote for embarking on a Second Great Enlightenment, rather than returning to the Dark Ages of failed traditions, superstition and death. Humans ought to put humans first, recognize the centrality of human existence, and get to work on the problems we face in the hear and now.

    The picture is a public domain pic of the reading of Voltaire's tragedy of the Orphan of China in the salon of Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin in 1755, by Lemonnier, c. 1812. Voltaire (actual name: François-Marie Arouet), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity . . . and of slavery, as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Wikipedia: The Great Enlightenment

Voltaire reads Orphan of China (pub domain pic)