Is Secularism Innately Weak?

The most emotionally intense regions of the world also tend to be the most religious. The Middle East runs hot with strife fueled by religious disagreement.

The least strife-torn also tends toward the least religious. Sweden is rather atheistic; when was the last time you saw civil strife there?

Does this mean that secularism is inherently weak? I would tend not to believe this.

There is a particular kind of secularism which, I think, admits the need to energize its adherents. In one form, it is the aggressive atheism of the ACLU. In another, it is merely a form of secular humanism.

The West should not forget, in the current divided state of nonreligionism, that the intensity of one's belief may be important for its own future. The degree and generation of intensity is a problem which may not be solved until we determine what the West irreducibly believes, not only in the abstract, but also in reality.