The Age of Enlightenment I’ve been reading a book by Ibrahim X. Kendi. The title of the book is Stamped From the Beginning . It is a tough read. The premise of the book is a complete history of racism in recorded history. It is both fascinating and gut-wrenching to understand how we got to where we are concerning race in America and the world today. One of the sections is on The Enlightenment. Oh, the good old days of science and reason. Society started to take a step back from God and did everything to understand that maggots come from flies...not rotten meat. During the 17th and 18th century Europeans started to think outside the Roman Catholic church. Many people began to discover that the world could be explained with reason and thought, and we did not need the Church to explain to us about life and death. Ideas like freedom of speech, liberty of the individual, and separation of Church and State began to unfold. Science thrived and new discoverie