"Then, as an adolescent, I learned to put childish things away, and became a happy atheist. In addition to the healthy independence of a mind unfettered by wishful thinking, it seemed to me obvious that a secular society, a project inaugurated by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment but threatened ever since by theocratic bullies from all corners, was the only just and rational way to organize communal life."
"I discovered that the presumptions of atheism in particular and secularism in general were not only incoherent, but also based on earlier religious errors, a foundational contradiction that gave rise to all manner of intractable problems. Secular society, it seemed obvious to me, was a society that did not know itself, and atheism, as I had lived it, was a way of not knowing myself, either."
A personal religious trajectory moved from childhood Catholicism to adolescent atheism, then returned to Catholicism in young adulthood. Adolescence brought a conviction that secular society and Enlightenment values were the only just way to organize communal life. Returning to Catholicism offered an antidote to social fragmentation and personal malaise and exposed the unsustainability of prior living. The presumptions of atheism and secularism were found incoherent and rooted in earlier religious errors, creating foundational contradictions and intractable problems. Later, renewed Catholic commitment coexists with cherishing secularism and recognizing that earnest humane atheism can better witness truth than cynical faith. Simple oppositions were abandoned.
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