Can the Secularists be Trusted?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Let’s break this down: Your original post was riddled with value judgments about secularism, describing it as "a negation with no positive content," accusing secularists of "not thinking very hard," and concluding that secularism logically leads to nihilism. These are not neutral observations—they're attacks steeped in your personal worldview. So, spare us the pretense of impartiality.

My take here is that secularism, popularly defined, will always fall short of sound and fair analysis of religious and theological concerns because of internal, presumptive prejudices that (speaking generally) operate in it.

One has to see modern secularism as a reaction against religious models as it took shape in the 17th century.

It seems to me fair to say that now, after the rejection of religion and those “collapsed” former religious models that can no longer be believed in, that definitions about God, divinity, and what a “proper” and intellectually grounded religiousness should look like in our present, is really up in the air. Religious modalities are always (?) steeped in traditionalism, which means wrapped in layers of symbolic content, that (in my view) confuse “picture” with content and essence. One is surrounded by complex symbols that mean a great deal, but symbolism needing to be understood intellectually.

I do not think that commentary about secularism’s limitations need take the form of “attacks”, except that some defense of religiousness, and definitely Christianity, is needed when attacks on it and its essences are rife.

Is there such a thing as shallow secularism and shallow atheism? It is a fair assertion to make. In my view a synthesizing approach is possible between the opposed viewpoints, but requires a well-prepared intellect to carry it out, and these are uncommon.

Nihilism, now that is a complex predicament and state.

As to “pretenses of impartiality” I find that IC’s argumentation is generally more thorough and better grounded in a wider reading than most who write here. He seems in many instances better informed than many of the depth of the conflicts that dominate our age

[BigMike]

Let’s break this down: Your original post was riddled with value judgments about secularism, describing it as "a negation with no positive content," accusing secularists of "not thinking very hard," and concluding that secularism logically leads to nihilism. These are not neutral observations—they're attacks steeped in your personal worldview. So, spare us the pretense of impartiality.

My take here is that secularism, popularly defined, will always fall short of sound and fair analysis of religious and theological concerns because of internal, presumptive prejudices that (speaking generally) operate in it.

One has to see modern secularism as a reaction against religious models as it took shape in the 17th century.

It seems to me fair to say that now, after the rejection of religion and those “collapsed” former religious models that can no longer be believed in, that definitions about God, divinity, and what a “proper” and intellectually grounded religiousness should look like in our present, is really up in the air. Religious modalities are always (?) steeped in traditionalism, which means wrapped in layers of symbolic content, that (in my view) confuse “picture” with content and essence. One is surrounded by complex symbols that mean a great deal, but symbolism needing to be understood intellectually.

I do not think that commentary about secularism’s limitations need take the form of “attacks”, except that some defense of religiousness, and definitely Christianity, is needed when attacks on it and its essences are rife.

Is there such a thing as shallow secularism and shallow atheism? It is a fair assertion to make. In my view a synthesizing approach is possible between the opposed viewpoints, but requires a well-prepared intellect to carry it out, and these are uncommon.

Nihilism, now that is a complex predicament and state.

As to “pretenses of impartiality” I find that IC’s argumentation is generally more thorough and better grounded in a wider reading than most who write here. He seems in many instances better informed than many of the depth of the conflicts that dominate our age

Alexis, your response is a smokescreen of intellectual posturing, couched in vague platitudes and high-minded abstractions that do little to disguise the hollowness of your argument. You dress up your position with references to "symbolism" and "synthesizing approaches," but the substance is as shallow as the "shallow secularism" you seem so desperate to dismiss.

Let’s call it what it is: an elaborate dance around the fact that you can’t meaningfully engage with the core critique of your worldview. Secularism doesn’t need your approval or your condescending acknowledgment of its limitations. It stands as a framework grounded in reason, evidence, and empathy—not in the crumbling scaffolding of outdated religious dogma or the “symbolic content” you claim to grasp but clearly haven’t wrestled with on anything more than a surface level.

You lament the "collapsed" religious models of the past and pine for some vaguely defined "proper religiousness," yet you offer no coherent vision of what that might entail. Instead, you retreat into an intellectual fog, pontificating about "layers of symbolic content" and "well-prepared intellects" as if that absolves you of the burden of making an actual argument. It doesn’t.

And your defense of IC is laughable. "Better informed than many"? That's the faintest of faint praise, especially in a space where shallow, self-referential reasoning and unsupported assertions are commonplace. IC's arguments are just as flawed as yours—cloaked in a veneer of intellectualism but ultimately devoid of substance. His smug dismissal of secularism is no more thorough or "better grounded" than your attempt to deflect criticism with appeals to complexity and nuance you haven’t demonstrated.

So let’s drop the pretense: you’re not engaging in honest inquiry here. You’re propping up a worldview you’re too invested in to question, all while taking potshots at secularism because it challenges the foundations of your belief. If your ideas can’t stand on their own merits without hiding behind vague rhetoric and intellectual name-dropping, then maybe they aren’t worth defending.

[attofishpi]

Like any good slave driver, I suppose.

Oh no, owning a shop and employing people (* paying them) is really not a nice thing for people to do, is that it?

If you employ people, then you shouldn't discriminate between people based on their religious affiliations or not.

The reason I'd prefer to employ a Christian rather than an atheist to work in my shop should be obvious. I trust Christians, people that believe in the Commandments more than I trust people that have NO faith.

[Gary Childress]

Oh no, owning a shop and employing people (* paying them) is really not a nice thing for people to do, is that it?

If you employ people, then you shouldn't discriminate between people based on their religious affiliations or not.

The reason I'd prefer to employ a Christian rather than an atheist to work in my shop should be obvious. I trust Christians, people that believe in the Commandments more than I trust people that have NO faith.

Why? Is there something wrong with being atheist? They're all scum?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis, your response is a smokescreen of intellectual posturing, couched in vague platitudes and high-minded abstractions that do little to disguise the hollowness of your argument. You dress up your position with references to "symbolism" and "synthesizing approaches," but the substance is as shallow as the "shallow secularism" you seem so desperate to dismiss.

You employ the same boilerplate formula in nearly all your posts!

[henry quirk]

Alexis, your response is a smokescreen of intellectual posturing, couched in vague platitudes and high-minded abstractions that do little to disguise the hollowness of your argument. You dress up your position with references to "symbolism" and "synthesizing approaches," but the substance is as shallow as the "shallow secularism" you seem so desperate to dismiss.

You employ the same boilerplate formula in nearly all your posts!

He's a meat machine: what choice does he have?

[henry quirk]

You’re propping up a worldview you’re too invested in to question, all while taking potshots at secularism because it challenges the foundations of your belief.

The pot calling the kettle black.

[Immanuel Can]

Then you only need to say it once instead of pretending to pander to me like a child.

Don't say totally goofy and absurdly untrue things about Christians, and I won't have to say, "Gary, Gary, Gary..." Fair deal?

Fair enough. I'll just pretend to be a 'heathen' for you. Will that make you happy?

I don't say you have to be a heathen, or even pretend to. If you were saying things that were true, I wouldn't even object.

I just prefer you don't make wildly inaccurate statements about what you suppose Christians believe, so as to potentially mislead others about that. Would you like it if I was telling people, "All Gary Childresses believe in unicorns?" Or would you maybe reasonably object to such a characterization? I should think you would.

[Immanuel Can]

Here's the question: Which value can secularism ground?

Let's see what you've got.

Immanuel, your attempt to wriggle out of...

So you have no answer. I said as much, I know as much, and you have proved as much. So stop whining, Mikey: everything I said about secularism was quite true.

Secularism doesn’t need to claim divine authority or metaphysical absolutes to ground values—it grounds them in shared human experience, empathy, reason, and a commitment to minimizing harm.

Wait. Do you know what "grounding" means?

It means you have to explain something in such a way that any reasonable person who believes the same basic worldview as you (in this case, secularism) would have to agree. But there's no reason at all that you have given that anybody is duty-bound or rationality-bound to do anything based on "shared human experience," or feelings of "empathy," or "a commitment to minimizing harm." Nietzsche would have said that you're totally wrong about all three, and he certainly qualifies as a secularist.

So how would you go about convincing Nietzsche that any particular value was right? (I'll let you pick the particular value you think secularism warrants.)

If you can't, you know I'm right.

[Gary Childress]

Don't say totally goofy and absurdly untrue things about Christians, and I won't have to say, "Gary, Gary, Gary..." Fair deal?

Fair enough. I'll just pretend to be a 'heathen' for you. Will that make you happy?

I don't say you have to be a heathen, or even pretend to. If you were saying things that were true, I wouldn't even object.

I just prefer you don't make wildly inaccurate statements about what you suppose Christians believe, so as to potentially mislead others about that. Would you like it if I was telling people, "All Gary Childresses believe in unicorns?" Or would you maybe reasonably object to such a characterization? I should think you would.

Unicorns I don't mind. Telling atheists they can't be moral people is just fucking stupid.

[Immanuel Can]

Unicorns I don't mind. Telling atheists they can't be moral people is just fucking stupid.

Good thing I didn't say that. And if you paid attention, you'd already know that. It's something I have never said, in fact: I've said the following, instead.

Atheists, as people, may well be moral (in, say, somebody else's sense of that word). But there is nothing in Atheism that warrants any particular morality at all. There is no "Atheistic morality." So while Atheists, might arbitrarily sometimes prefer to be moral, if that's what they feel they want to do on a particular occasion, or even on a regular basis, they can't draw on their Atheism to provide them with any kind of reason at all that they ought to do it.

Get it now?

Consequently, an Atheist can be a Stalin or a Mao or a Hitler, or a Manson or a Dahmer, without any contradiction from his Atheism. His worldview gives him no moral guidance at all. He can choose to be a goody-two-shoes, or he can choose to be a mass murderer. Atheism itself has no opinion about the rightness of one over the other, and no information that would help him to choose.

And this is why we can all be thankful that most Atheists don't live in the sorts of ways their Atheism would allow. They can choose to behave morally, despite having no basis from their Atheism for thinking they have to do so.

[Gary Childress]

Unicorns I don't mind. Telling atheists they can't be moral people is just fucking stupid.

Good thing I didn't say that. And if you paid attention, you'd already know that. It's something I have never said, in fact: I've said the following, instead.

Atheists, as people, may well be moral (in, say, somebody else's sense of that word). But there is nothing in Atheism that warrants any particular morality at all. There is no "Atheistic morality." So while Atheists, might arbitrarily sometimes prefer to be moral, if that's what they feel they want to do on a particular occasion, or even on a regular basis, they can't draw on their Atheism to provide them with any kind of reason at all that they ought to do it.

Get it now?

My misunderstanding then. Atheists can have morals. Problem solved. My apologies.

[Immanuel Can]

Unicorns I don't mind. Telling atheists they can't be moral people is just fucking stupid.

Good thing I didn't say that. And if you paid attention, you'd already know that. It's something I have never said, in fact: I've said the following, instead.

Atheists, as people, may well be moral (in, say, somebody else's sense of that word). But there is nothing in Atheism that warrants any particular morality at all. There is no "Atheistic morality." So while Atheists, might arbitrarily sometimes prefer to be moral, if that's what they feel they want to do on a particular occasion, or even on a regular basis, they can't draw on their Atheism to provide them with any kind of reason at all that they ought to do it.

Get it now?

My misunderstanding then. Atheists can have morals. Problem solved. My apologies.

Yes, they can...but none they can ground. They cannot require any moral precepts at all, of anybody...not even of themselves. So their moral behaviour is never a product of their Atheism, but always a product of having some other incentive, or of borrowing some other conception of morality which Atheism knows nothing about.

[attofishpi]

If you employ people, then you shouldn't discriminate between people based on their religious affiliations or not.

The reason I'd prefer to employ a Christian rather than an atheist to work in my shop should be obvious. I trust Christians, people that believe in the Commandments more than I trust people that have NO faith.

Why? Is there something wrong with being atheist? They're all scum?

Logic is not your strong point is it?

[Gary Childress]

The reason I'd prefer to employ a Christian rather than an atheist to work in my shop should be obvious. I trust Christians, people that believe in the Commandments more than I trust people that have NO faith.

Why? Is there something wrong with being atheist? They're all scum?

Logic is not your strong point is it?

It is when I see it. I did well in college on it.