quote
But what it translates to is what I call identity fright—the ethnic majority starts to think: a change here, a change there; what’s going to remain? As terrifying as it probably is, you have to be able to find a way of speaking to these people while at the same time firmly maintaining your basic liberal principles. You can’t simply lecture these people and say, “It says here in Habermas…!
—
Taylor is perhaps the best intellectual defense against the roar of the nouveau-atheists. I suspect his latest work, A Secular Age, defends religion on the same basis he defends multiculturalism—i.e., our culture (or in this case religion) provides “horizons of meaning”, i.e. it provides us with the deep contextual knowledge of the world in which we find ourselves. Knowledge which is needed in order to make meaningful choices about our lives.
Thoughtful stuff.