Secularism, Separatism, and Intolerance
God is invisible. And yet, with refined manners, humanity has judged Him as the principal fundamentalist force of civilization. No other idea has divided men more grievously, nor inflicted wounds deeper on the body of history. So declare the self-proclaimed enlightened sages of our times. The masses, meanwhile, are no more than pawns — Haridas Pals, carried along by tides of belief and disbelief alike. From disbelief in God arose the new secularism: a conjurer’s box, a talisman, that is said to have delivered the world from His tyranny. A world without it, we are told, would have collapsed entirely into sectarian strife, unfit for liberal habitation. And what, then, of those lecture-laden works of “progressive literature” which promised: “We shall make this earth a dwelling for newborn ideals” ? I have a friend — an analyst, a philosopher, a steadfast atheist. He once told me that sometimes in the middle of the night he would wake, trembling, and weave together a litany of ultima...