To: Lane3 who wrote (54638 ) 8/15/2002 12:14:20 AM From: Neocon Read Replies (1) | Respond to As long as secular humanism is identified with the metaphysics of mechanistic materialism, there will necessarily be residual antagonism between it and the religious, even those who are not fanatic or malevolent. There is an unbridgeable gap between people who think that chaos is at the center of things, and that order is incidental; that the significant drama of human life is measured in terms of the fate of the species, not the individual; that our ultimate concerns for truth, beauty, and the good are merely subjective, and have no meaning in the ultimate scheme of things; and that we are, in the end, not much different than a very, very sophisticated abacus----- and those who believe otherwise. One can work with secularists, but it would be a mistake to assume that they, rather than the more enlightened members of the various religious denominations, are natural allies. The ideas that are promulgated by most secularists are not at all conducive to celebrating the value of the individual or enhancing human dignity, however much they may be committed to the improvement of life on earth. Heck, with secularism one is largely left with socio-biology, the idea that human history is a sideshow, and its underlying meaning is to find various strategies to maximize the transmission of our genetic material. When people who are not especially pious express support for keeping the phrase "under God" in the pledge, they are not being snooty and exclusive, they are affirming that in the universe they inhabit, all of our striving and suffering as individuals has some kind of point, and they are hostile to those they perceive as wanting to deny that.......
