Can secular humanism ever hope to compete with such certainty?
EWING: It’s tough to compete with that. If you look at the planet earth, the division between those secular humanists and those who tend toward fundamentalism, I’m not sure that secular humanists are even the majority. Maybe what’s happening in this countrywhile distasteful, scary, and unpleasant to manymaybe it’s the norm. Maybe the human norm is to strive for the afterlife and live your life on earth with that next life in mind, and we’re just not used to that idea because we’re a young little country of a couple hundred years, and we didn’t expect this to happen here so soon.
