Everything you need to know about the sectarian/secular divide in a title: “Lord of the Laboratory: Intelligent Design and the War on Enlightenment-” which is the third chapter in Michelle Goldberg’s book, “Kingdom Coming.” The chapter itself chronicles the history and present day intention of the Theory of Intelligent Design, the people behind it, as well as secular resistance to it. After reading the chapter, it occurred to me, that the opportunity here is not in a traditional, rational approach at deconstruction, but rather, a rational approach that attempts to transcend the confines of our typical definitions of both “the enlightenment” and the “conservative religious movement,” in the effort to understand the schism that is at the root of the greater secular/sectarian divide. After all, it seems only fair, that in going after “fundamentalists” in the name of rationality, then in the name of rationality/reason, one must also go after “enlightenment.”
Jason Boulet, in an essay titled in part, “I believe in enmindment,” quotes Peter Dale Scott, while illustrating distinctions between “human rationality itself and the imperfect crystallization of it we call Enlightenment” (p.925). Boulet, then paraphrases Scott while equating "rationalist reformers with religious fundamentalists," pointing out that what both groups are attempting to accomplish is the “establishment of unalterable and absolute Truth upon which to base the reconstruction and regulation of society.” These similarities result in both secular and religious camps achieving, Boulet quoting Scott again, something called “outer enlightenment;” which are “faces of the same mundane necessity, created in the effort to “change the world” (928).
This language game is interesting and it relates to our class discussions about the consequences of certain forms of the sacred. One possible consequence of a person, or a group of people laying claim to the “sacred,” is that in doing so they create the profane. Does the same hold true when terms like, “enlightenment,” or conversely, “conservative” are employed for institutional use? That is, in labeling a cause “enlightened,” do we create ignorance and darkness? When proclaiming ourselves “Conservative,” are we being radical?
References:
Goldberg, Michelle. (2006). Kingdom Coming: the rise of Christian nationalism. W. W. Norton
& Company, Inc. New York, N.Y. 2006.
Boulet, Jason. (2006). I believe in enmindment’: Enlightenments, Taoism, and Language
in Peter Dale Scott’s Minding the Darkness. University Of Toronto Quarterly, Vol.
75 Number 4, Fall. Pp. 925-944. Retrieved October 20th, 2009, from Academic
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Essentially, you are commenting about what extremists bring to such a debate. Being at polar opposites creates a divide so apparent that the other cannot see each other through it, creating darkness, as you describe. Additionally, being at such extremes creates a belief system for secularists (is that a word?) equating themselves with religious fanatics in their own closed-minded views. It is correct that, at that point, they are much the same. Some people simply need to believe in something powerful, and science can be just as strong as religion, being a virtual religion itself when believed blindly.
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