That said, I’m not sure that the line is so clearly drawn. Bilgrami certainly has a point that the way the world is is the way we experience it from the perspective of an agent. It’s impossible to police the boundary between the way the world is and the way we experience it without supposing that everything bottoms out in the Ding an sich. I think that Bilgrami may be on to something, but I don’t think that it can be solved by supposing that values are among the ingredients of an object like vitamin B12 is a part of my morning breakfast.

Yes, it takes a Minyan for a consensus. However, this honorable Minyan needs work: it may consist of a Noah’s arktype (whoops) communion of creatures: Two human beings (male and female); two goldfish; two pit bulls; two pythons, and two black widow spiders.

Hmmm, let’s simplify and just deal with DNA. A DNA Minyan – that’ll do it?

We can think in ratios of the four nucleotides (ebbtide and hightide): AGTC – A(Adelaide); G (Guantanemo); C (Cytocosine ) and T (TyrannosaurexHex) – pick your ratio, pick your species – there we go.

So here’s my problem: What if the word “secular” meant ziltch to those of us for whom God is the Head of the Pack, whatever Pack that is, and wherever it is. Not so much transcendence in the form of hierarchy (even Anselm’s pushing the envelope as far as it will go – beyond all parentheses, Jacob yelling at the angel, “I ain’t lettin’ go until you bless me, baby,” or Jesus choosing to commit his spirit to God (my choice, Dad). Common term – I think is “other.” Nondescript but necessarily true, not logically but ethically. Solipsism is a logical construct applicable to any noun. But logic and life don’t mesh, once language leaves off and ethics begins (Wittgenstein’ self professed intepretation in the last lines of his Tractatus.) And as soon as we have action, we implicate the “other’s agency” and transcendence as really real. Indeed, there may be no God, but there is, it seems, relationship.

So who needs secular?