Philippine E-Journals

THE SECULAR CITY,1 AS IT is used in this essay, is not a particular Metropolis, like New York, London, Tokyo, Paris or Manila. The term stands to symbolize a new cultural pattern where science and technology play a vital role in shaping2 the temper and the lifestyle of the technopolis. Being pragmatic and this worldly, the Secular City has no need for metaphysics or what Sigmund Freud calls “the illusion of religion” in dealing with the problem of man’s survival in this world of space and time. Or, to quote Cox,3 the Secular City presents a new setting where the gods of traditional religions are relegated to the background “as private fetishes”; hence, they do not play any significant role anymore in the life of the technopolitan man. In other words, the Secular City is man’s tardy realization that there are more important things in this world than merely dying for the faith.