The Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Oct 25, 2026 10:53 pm

Yet (you may note) their assignations, in their eyes, in their feelings, have the tone of religious certainty. They condemn evil and the very very bad with a nearly religious zeal. They are certain that they know what is evil and, by logical extension, what is good.

Yes. But if secularism were true, how do they know that evil exists? How do they become so certain, when their own worldview denies it's possible for objective evil even to be real?

That's the three-headed kitten.

That's not my question. My question is simpler: if you really believe your secularism, why don't you act like you do?

But I know the answer......... I wouldn't want secularists to act like secularism requires them to act, or to really believe what it implies they must believe........

Not exactly, IC. You are questioning why secularists are not acting according to how YOU think secularists would be required to act. You are questioning how THEY can be arriving at morality, etc. if they thought like YOU think they would be thinking.

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

The Szenes poem I put up was in this context, your bee in a bonnet of how secularists must be thinking: I'll reinsert it here
There are stars
whose light reaches the earth only after they themselves have disintegrated
and are no more.

And there are people
whose scintillating memory lights the world after they have passed from it.

These lights –
which shine in the darkest night – are those which illumine for us the path.

Now you can disagree with her about "where morality comes from, how can we learn to act rightly" but I want to see why you argue that she is unable to express her belief about that << even though a "secular" --- Szenes was a secular Jew >>