This is, again, inspired by CO's original blog on [Secular Fundamentalism].

I will update this entry soon, but judges are starting to make me sick. 

CO raises the issue of "Secular Fundamentalism," I think it a good idea to delve a little deeper into this topic, simply because it is one of the great fundamentalisms and dangers of our age.

But first, some definitions:
 

fun-da-ment-tal-ism: A movement or point of view characterized by rigid adherence to fundamental or basic principles.

sec-u-lar-ism: 1) Religious skepticism or indifference. 2) The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education

The above definitions come from the American Heritage Dictionary: third edition, no friend of conservatism, but a good source for words.

Let us parse these definitions, just a little. 

It is amazing to see the development of a new 'Secular Fundamentalism' emerging in our country.  It is characterized by:

1) a blind devotion to the myth of Darwinian Evolution.

2) a commitment to censor anything that even questions that myth.

Several events over the past year point to this disturbing trend:

1) The Smithsonian's National Museaum of Natural History pulled out of showing a film called "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe".  Worst of all the Washington Post printed an editorial on this act of censorship that revealed its own secular fundamentalist bias.  Al Mohler describes the entire event well in his blog.

Called the city again today (they must be loving me by now) and asked that if I take of the roof and the cross beams, is that legal. If an arbor is a structure, taking away the cross beams makes it two trellises, not a structure or a fence. My inspector said, "Wow, that's a really good question. Let me go ask my supervisor." When he came back to the line, he said, "We don't know. They are still substantial elements, however, if you get the Planning Dept to sign off on it, you can have it. And while you're at it, try to get them to sign off on the entire arbor."

The inspector then told me who to talk to in planning who might be sympathetic.

I am still outraged at the brutal murder of Nick Berg (which, now appears to have taken place in Iraq, at the hands of al-Zarqawi, perhaps in Fallusia), but the anger is transferring to ... you guessed it ... the US media.

But why?

Let’s take a look at what is not being reported. They have not shown the video. This does not seem like a big deal because it’s on the internet; believe it or not, only 15-20% of Americans are online. Maybe this falls under FCC concerns, graphic violence cannot be shown on network television (however, FCC regulations are so vague that certain words can be used in certain contexts but not in others; generally, a “bad” word cannot be used in reference to sex, defication or referencing body parts, but can be used to express emotion (cf. Bono’s “this is f***ing brilliant)).