Year One

Session One: Essential Humanism

• What brings us here? Goals and Question
• Classical Greece and the Renaissance
• The Enlightenment: Europe and Britain
• Deism and Transcendentalism: U.S. colonial to civil war
• Civil war to Manifesto I to now
• Various Humanist Organizations I
• Various Humanist Organizations II
• Contemporary Problems
• Definitions of Humanism
• Review of future curriculum and project planning

Session Two: Being Human

• Perspectives on the roots of religion in human behavior
• Moral development theory
• Ethical theories and problems
• Family values, human sexuality, and gender identity
• Theories of counseling

Session Three: Humanist Ideas in World Religions

• Early religions -Myth, cosmos, and connection; what is it to be human?
• Hinduism -Epistemology; what is reality? How do we know?
• Buddhism -Ethics and non-violence; what is the right path?
• Confucianism -Society based on ethics; what does this constitute?
• Taoism -Harmony with the natural world; how is this achieved?
• Judaism -Practice and covenant; what is community?
• Islam -Al-Andalus; what does tolerance mean?
• Christianity -The demographic challenge?