The Shadow Line: Introducing Secular Ideology
“There are invisible ways of conveyance by which some great thing doth touch our souls, and by which we tend to it. Do you not feel yourself drawn by the expectation and desire of some Great Thing?” –Thomas Traherne “…All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part.” –Joseph Conrad Introduction As a practice, religious skepticism and criticism is perfectly okay. In fact, like Thomas Jefferson, I too find it necessary if freedom of speech and the freedom of religion are to thrive. Religious intolerance, along with racial, social, cultural, and sexual intolerance, on the other hand, is not okay. I do not feel, nor would I ever feel, that all religions should be equally tolerated just as all labels of wine should not ...