Jim: Topic I: Secular Sources of Equality?

Some time after the Reformation & Renaissance Western Civilization began moving toward greater equality for its members. That meant throwing off notions of royalty and a ruling class. Getting rid of slavery and, in the United States, ending Jim Crowe. We've named this move as one of the great values of Western Civilization.

I've proposed two sectarian sources of that idea: (1) The text of the Bible which demands kindness to the stranger and proper treatment of poor, as well as, lifting up all human beings as the intentional creation of God, and (2) the Protestant Reformation which began the process of tearing down church hierarchy.

So, what are the secular sources? Do we start with Thomas Jefferson or Locke? By secular I don't mean atheist writers, we'll never know whether anyone was an atheist. I mean people who did not use religion as the source of their move toward equality, or lets say primary source. You really can't pull the Bible out of Western thinking any more than you could pull the ideas of the Constitution out of American theological thinking.