ABSTRACT
Robert Coles claims in The Secular Mind that the origins of secularism and its recent upsurge are not to be found so much in scientific thought but in the nature of religious faith itself. The displacement of religion from our civic life is largely the effect of technological ubiquity and power rather than result of direct cultural and intellectual causes, a phenomenon that may be termed "techno-secularism." Techno-secularism is fearful even before the point of death, fearing the incompetence and dependence of old age, while sequestering death, unseen, to hospital rooms and the ministration of experts on death and dying. The controversy was made instantly contentious when a panel of ethicians relied on by George W. Bush claimed that infant stem cell research, since it destroyed human embryos that otherwise could be matured into live human beings, was an assault on the intrinsic dignity of human beings.
