Insanity and Pathos
Which belongs to whom?

by Lloyd Harrison Whitling

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As typical of most such writings, he sets the dishonest tone and picks the parameters against which all arguments must play. He plays fast and loose with words put into other people's mouths and his ability to read their minds and feel their emotions. It feels very tempting to, as I have done so often, respond to it point by point. It would feel like trying to explain to a crazy man why what he says is wrong.

All those points would be pointless. We can say it's about Britain and meaningless to us in the ghouled ol' USA, but that is no more correct than the statements he has made. What happens so openly in Britain is also going on here. We just don't talk so much about it. We enjoy looking under the sand, our butts in the air, exposed to everybody but ourselves. "They're telling lies about us! Eek, I'm going to go hide!" Put yer pants on, for Chrissake!

The randy radical right has shown itself to be very creative at the invention of buzz terms they can apply to anything they want to paint with grimy colors. It has even become such a common practice it has earned itself a name: 'Linguicide'. "Secular fundamentalists" is just such a good example, I cannot pass it by without an examination: What does it mean? To whom does it refer? About whom is it made? Richard Dawkins is named. Why, he is one of us…. This is about people like me! Oh, the hoary horrors this whore of raging wrong has presented to us!

To those who insist that religion is a pious form of pathological danger, here is your good example, all wrapped up and packaged in a fruity nutshell. That a nonexistent political condition can be invented by anyone, and then presented to large groups of people who accept it whole without second thoughts demonstrates the nature of this disease. Yes, 'secular' is a religious word. No, Jesus did not invent it as he later states. Its usage is political, originated in church-dominated times to put wayward clergy in their place and keep them there. It refers to pronouncements made by clergy and "lay" persons about religious interests, but that are not approved by religious authority. It is about the "natural" faculties from which common sense arises to give religious bigwigs their well-deserved headaches. It has nothing to do with state/church separation, as religious people have been trying to inform me. It is about natural versus unnatural information. (If the supernatural is not natural, then it is unnatural and I prefer to recognize that in my writing).

We, atheists, agnostics, deists, Brights, humanists and unstriped secular people are named "fundamentalists" if we disagree with any and all religious edicts. When we do not have a religion he can name, he cannot identify us as "Methodist" fundamentalists, "Baptist" fundamentalists, or "Catholic" fundamentalists. No, he has to go outside of religion and into the world of reality and call us, en masse, "secular" fundamentalists. The fact that "secular' is not the name of a cohesive group, a title under which a doctrine parades, a proper noun that names a brand of theology, does not forestall the buzz from sounding.

So, what is up with people whose sense of reality requires them to invent what they cannot find in the real world? Is that a feature of sanity? What is up with those who occupy a browbeating majority position if they run whimpering to a defensive corner when a few of those at whom they have long been tossing bricks and rocks decide to throw a couple back? "Ah, you guys, you guys, you rotten secular fundamentalists! Look at you, crawling out from those piles of bricks, all bloody and ragged. How can you be anything but evil, all broken-looking like that? Don't you throw anything back at me, or I'll scream and make a law or two against you! I'll write a nasty rant and have it posted somewhere. So there, so there!"

Put your self in an insane person's shoes for just a moment, if you can imagine that. Now, answer a few questions: "Do you *feel* insane?-- or do you still believe that what you think is mostly right and proper? If someone challenges you about some aspect of what you hold to be true, will you want to defend yourself and all you feel is sacred? If you recognize that some people are "against" you, won't you try to discern who they are, what they have in common, and how to retaliate? --even if they are imaginary and you know for certain they are not? Do you now wonder why increasing numbers of people are acting like nuts, and why they scoff at you and won't listen to what you say?

In other words, won't you (in your own eyes) behave exactly like a sane person? The dictionary doesn't help us to nail that down:

"To deny a right to the experience of pleasure is immoral unless that denial can be justified by a valid presentation of how pain will result from that experience in an amount that would render the expected pleasure regrettable; or, if it can be shown that pain will be induced in others innocent of any involvement. The role of science in moral issues should be to test that, predict that, and find harmless ways to demonstrate that."

— L. H. Whitling in the eBook, Secular Morality —