ABSTRACT
This desideratum has a special relevance since the events of 9/11, when murderous and evil religious violence, once thought to be an extinct relic of the past, seems to have thawed out from the chill of secular humanism. The hegemony of secular humanism, revealed as a kind of religion in itself, is now over, and at least one other religion, once held in its spell, has rediscovered its old capacity for
hatred. It is thus urgent that some other way of defusing the bloody violence of religious strife be found. Secular humanism, as events in Holland and Britain have shown, is no protection against Wahhabist murderers. Like atheist communist terrorists before them, Islamist terrorists will cheerfully use the freedoms and opportunities offered by civilized democratic societies to try to destroy them. Something stronger than secular humanism must be brought to the defense of decent civil society. Only a new religious spirit, one which is inclusive not out of intellectual uncertainty and confusion, but out of confidence that all genuine human views of things are views of the same thing, will rally us to the great effort of defeating terror.
