Lots of ideas in here. Some are pretty valid, such as the paucity of atomistic orthodoxy in classical liberalism, or the one-sided narrative of enlightenment science and epistemology. Neither are as uncritically accepted as Mr Sellick alleges, with the typical strawman secular university bogeyman, but it is true that the popular narrative fails to credit thinkers in the Scholastic tradition, for example, and does not recognise the regression in some so-called enlightenment thinking.

But I can't help but feel many of the other jabs at secular modernity are just the same tired flailing we're come to expect from certain insular elements in the theological profession, who've long since abandoned any attempt to come to grips with what actually gets taught at philosophy departments.

Mr Sellick rages against the ontology of liberalism, and primacy of rights theories, which ignore the communal preconditions of moral and epistemological horizons, but the same critique is taught in any philosophy department. Anyone reading this wouldn't know, for instance, that Perfectionist Liberals like Joseph Raz and Communitarians like Charles Taylor have demolished the false atomism of Locke more comprehensively than any religious thinker and established a different ontology for liberalism.

But I have little doubt Mr Sellick has never studied those critiques, won't be interested in learning, and will continue to harbour the mistaken assumption that only the parochial religious tradition has a monopoly on methodological holism.

BBoy
Now this is what I am looking for in this section, real comment. I confess that when I read the article as posted I winced at my uninformed bashing of “secular universities” and am glad that they do no live up to my prejudiced comments. I do read Taylor, in fact I am rereading his chapters on Descartes and Locke in “Sources of the Self”. Most of the ideas in the article come from reading for a doctorate in theology which deals with the doctrine of the Trinity in Modernity so I am not surprised that someone with a more professional experience is critical of my faltering and often unformed ideas.

On the other hand I am not as closed as BBoy thinks. My background is in neuroscience and I am still part of a NH&MRC research team. This may explain my ignorance of what goes on in the Humanities depts at Australian Universities, I have never been part of one or taken their courses. Nevertheless I am grateful for any corrective on these lines but without the personal smears. For example I am not sure what BBoy refers to by “parochial religious tradition”. The world scene in theology is far from parochial. For myself I welcome any conversation with the philosophers.

Great to see writer/thinker of this calibre & a learned commentator/poster engaging in debate and explanation in such a constructive & thoughtful way in the spaces of this Forum. Perhaps others could learn from their splendid example ....

Another exercise in dismal left brained reductionism, trying to "prove" that the Biblical parental deity exists or has bad publicity over the past 300 years or so.

1. http://www.dabase.org/rgcbpobk.htm

Not a hint of Lightness, or Happiness, or Radiance, or Grace to be found.

What if all of this is floating in an Infinitely Radiant Sea of Conscious Light?

What does the word en-LIGHTEN-ment really mean?
It means to become en-LIGHTEN-ed, that is to be filled with light.

None of the usual fruitless shouting matchs between the equally reductionist proponents of scientism and the dim-witted exoteric religiosity such as Sells, even begin to talk or even think about Real God and REALITY, including the Reality of what human beings Always Already are altogether, as Radiant Conscious Light.

"Happiness is the now-and-forever Mystery that Is the Real Heart and the Only Real God of every one".

This essay addresses the origins & consequences of this unresolvable war between adolescent scientism and childish (parental deity) exoteric religionists. 1. http://www.dabase.org/noface.htm

Plus related essays.

1. http://www.dabase.org/dht6.htm There Is Only Light
2. http://www.dabase.org/dualsens.htm the Dual Sensitivity
3. http://www.dabase.org/christmc2.htm on Christ as all pervasive Conscious Light/Energy

Which trinity is Sells talking about?
Perhaps the tooth fairy, santa claus and the easter rabbit?
Or Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck?

Speaking of the "trinity", the actual "trinity" that really governs every aspect of each one of us and modern "culture" altogether, including those that prattle on about religion, are these three closely interweaved (and unexamined) presumptions about Humankind and Reality altogether.

Namely that we are inherently separate from:
1. Real God or Reality and Truth
2. The world process altogether
3. All other human and sentient beings.

There is a profound sentence in one of the Upanishads: "Where there is an other, fear arises"

Altogether then we live in a "culture" which is saturated with fear. Every aspect and dimension of our individual body-minds is also saturated with a hell deep fear and trembling.

This fear-filled "trinity" really rules to here and inevitably produces the unspeakably dreadful politics & "culture" described thus:

1. http://www.dabase.org/coop+tol.htm

Thanks for taking the time to respond Mr Sellick. I hope you can excuse my bullish tone. I was in broad agreement with your project to deconstruct the enlightenment, but found it grating when the more nuanced picture at the start began to lose out in the tract against monolithic liberalism. My background is in political philosophy, and particularly contemporary liberalism. Having analysed and written similar critiques myself, but from a liberal secular perspective, I just felt you were being uncharitable about the big tent of liberalism and what can be found in modern Australian universities. I can only really speak for Monash Clayton, of course, but I do not think there is much reason to suspect that the robust treatment of liberalism I encountered there would not be found in the top universities elsewhere.

I am very happy you've read Charles Taylor. I think his essay on atomism stands out as a turning point in my life, which managed to focus my attention on the flaws in doctrinal system with such an asymmetry between the imperatives of rights, without their grounds in duties and community. FYI – I read the piece in a second year politics subject called Modernity in Crisis, although given how many people failed that subject, perhaps it wasn’t understood by all. Anyway, I didn’t truly come to grips with the argument until I was doing political & legal philosophy at 3rd year level later on.