The Quiet Displacement
In pursuit of neutrality, have we subtly redirected the question of existence into categories that make it unanswerable?
Modern secular societies often pride themselves on their commitment to objectivity. In science, law, medicine, and education, objectivity is upheld as a core value, a commitment to seeing the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. This dedication has helped protect knowledge from superstition, bias, and ideological distortion.
But a quieter shift has occurred beneath this surface, a redirection of the most essential questions of human existence into categories that appear neutral but may quietly rule out objective answers. In particular, secularism often displaces the question of existence itself—its origin, meaning, and purpose—by relegating it to the realm of “theology”, a field it treats as inherently subjective or optional.
This essay reflects on the dissonance that emerges when a society insists on objectivity in most fields but subtly withholds it at the most fundamental level of human inquiry: Why do we exist? And what, if anything, grants that existence meaning?
Objectivity in Form, Subjectivity in Foundation
In most domains, objectivity is framed as the ability to observe, test, and verify. We expect consistency in logic, empirical evidence, and reason. This is healthy, it grounds our interactions with the world in shared methods of understanding.
But when it comes to existential questions, questions about meaning, morality, origin, and purpose, modern secular frameworks tend to shift the conversation. Instead of inviting the same pursuit of objective reality, these questions are reclassified. They're no longer matters of reason, but of personal belief or private spirituality.
Here, objectivity seems to pause. We’re taught to ask what is true in biology or ethics, but when we ask what is true about being itself, we are directed elsewhere, toward subjective experience, or the comparative study of religions.
The Compartmentalization of Theology
One of the more subtle effects of secularism is how it redefines the study of existence itself as theology, a domain presumed to be beyond the reach of rational objectivity. It becomes a “faith-based” field, safely cordoned off from the sciences or philosophy of law or education. In many institutions, theology is treated more as a cultural artifact than a serious philosophical inquiry into what is real.
This isn’t just a matter of academic boundaries. It represents a deeper societal pattern of sidestepping the existential question: What is existence and does it have an objective metric unto which the universe can be measured? This question is no longer treated as a universal pursuit in order to share reality fairly, but has been co-opted into a private preference.
And yet, the very idea of “human rights,” “dignity,” or even “consciousness” still rests quietly on some assumption of objective human value. It’s as if the foundational question is both too serious to answer and too sensitive to ask.
The Illusion of Existential Neutrality
By positioning existential inquiry as theological (and therefore subjective), secularism often conveys the impression that neutrality is the absence of belief. But neutrality is not the same as objectivity. In fact, by refusing to engage existential questions through an objective lens, secularism can inadvertently promote a specific belief: that existence has no inherent meaning, and therefore, no value.
This belief, however implicit, shapes institutions. It informs how we understand law, ethics, human development, and education. And because it is not recognized as a belief but as a neutral stance, it escapes critique.
What results is a quiet but potent contradiction: society values objectivity, but subtly barters away objectivity at the very level that makes other truths meaningful.
A Warped Sense of the “Right to Exist”
When existence itself is removed from objective inquiry, the concept of the “right to exist” can become abstract or unstable. If our value as beings is not grounded in something real—something that precedes and transcends us, upon which human consciousness can build true impartiality—then our rights become a matter of consensus rather than truth.
This isn't an argument for any specific religious worldview. Rather, it is a gentle observation: when the most foundational truths are treated as subjective, the frameworks built upon them—rights, morality, autonomy—risk becoming performative.
We begin to live in a reality shaped more by preference than principle. And while this may feel freeing, it also leaves us unmoored.
Reintegrating the Existential Question
The goal is not to return to a society where belief is imposed. It is, rather, to reopen the conversation about existence itself, not as a matter of opinion, but as a genuine question of truth grounded both epistemologically and ontologically. This doesn’t mean turning institutions into pulpits. It means recognizing that objectivity doesn’t stop at the microscope or the courtroom. It must reach the soul as well.
To restore existential coherence, societies must acknowledge that the question of why we exist is not merely religious, it is rational, urgent, and universal. And if we are sincere in our love of objectivity, we should want this question to be examined with the same rigor we demand elsewhere.
Objectivity Must Begin Ontologically
Secularism, in its effort to protect freedom and neutrality, often does so by compartmentalizing the question of existence. But in doing so, it risks fragmenting our understanding of reality. The cost of avoiding existential objectivity is subtle, but profound: a quiet dissonance between what we uphold and what we are.
If objectivity matters, it must matter all the way down, to the ground of our being. Not because we must agree on the answer, but because we must have the courage to ask the question as if it has an answer. And we must be free, not just to express opinions, but to pursue what is real, even when it leads us beyond the visible.
The Quiet Displacement – A Response
The question of existence, as you frame it, is unanswerable in principle because “why” questions assume existence. They don’t explain it. Purpose, in the sense you mean, does not inhere in things—it presupposes a mind with the capacity and necessity to rationally choose ends in order to think or act at all. Rocks and fish don’t have chosen purposes.
Objectivity is the relationship between the mind of a subject and the mind-independent objects it perceives. When our ideas accurately describe what is so—both in propositions and in the concepts that comprise them—they are objectively true. Not all concepts require a mind-independent referent to be objective: “Zeus is a mythological god worshipped by ancient Greeks” is objectively true even though Zeus exists only as a mental construct and has no ontological extension. Reality consists of all that is, as it is—which means identifying both the ontological (e.g. rocks, fish, consciousness, volition) and the epistemological (e.g. Zeus, ground of being, phlogiston).
The so-called “origin” of existence violates the hierarchy of knowledge. It seeks to filter a more fundamental concept (existence) through a derivative one (origin), inverting the logical order. Philosophical rigor demands that we start with first things first—in the order of being and the order of knowing.
Meaning is epistemological. It presupposes consciousness of existence, and a mind capable of acquiring conceptual-propositional knowledge, thinking, and acting toward chosen ends. The existence hierarchy tells us what attributes are possible to a given entity based on its nature, preventing the category errors that arise when one assigns meaning to entities incapable of it (ex: “The universe is mathematical/logical).
Asking “what is the something that makes existence possible?” assumes what it attempts to explain. This is metaphysical bootstrapping—trying to justify existence with a higher attribute (volition) that itself presupposes existence and a host of more fundamental metaphysical existents (consciousness, life, physicality).
The foundation of knowledge is never subjective—it is given in direct perception and forms the metaphysical basis, the referent, of all our concepts. The subject-object relationship is the most fundamental relationship in philosophy. Every human being begins their cognitive life at this same point: awareness of things as they are.
You praise empiricism, yet proceed with rationalistic reasoning whose conclusions have no empirical referent—taboo-forward metaphysics that starts with guided questions leading to a “necessity” then named “ground of being.”
Consciousness can only be directly aware of the physical. For a volitional being whose survival depends on conceptual knowledge, it is literally impossible for existence to be “beyond the reach” of objectivity.
Theology may claim “the ground of being” makes existence possible. But philosophy shows that “creation” in reality means rearranging what already exists according to the nature of the materials—while the mystical definition (“something from nothing”) is a floating abstraction. Philosophy undergirds both science and theology—it is not their servant, but their bedrock, as this exchange has clearly demonstrated.
Values are always relationships between ends and means (more broadly), and between ends and goals (ethically). Our nature requires that all values be discovered and earned; no one has a “right” to them apart from the effort of achieving them.
It is precisely the inescapable fact of existence that makes it objective, and the inescapable fact that our survival requires knowledge—which makes value inescapable since we must evaluate options and choose the best course — be it a steak knife or our career.
The irony is that, for all the talk of “reopening the existential question,” my repeated efforts to engage at the level of first principles have been sidestepped by you at every turn. Objectivity must begin ontologically. To evade this is to fragment our understanding of reality.
The cost of avoiding existential objectivity is not merely academic—it is the quiet erosion of coherence between what we uphold and what we are. If objectivity matters, it must matter all the way down. Not because we must agree on the answer, but because we must have the courage to ask it as if it has an answer—and the rigor to ground that answer in reality itself.