Ever since the Enlightenment, there has been two standard models of progress, both of which are unfriendly to religion. The first one came courtesy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and pits the Church against progress because of their fear that progress will unleash cruelty. Here’s how it goes:

Progress requires inequality. It is possible that a certain rate of progress can depend simply upon natural inequality of talents, but the rate at which this engenders development is slow. In order for a progressive trend to really get rolling, other inequalities have to surface so as to ensure that the people behind this improvement have an incentive to keep at it. Such as private property and, in some cases, special privileges: the monopoly is certainly not unknown in history as an encourager of development, as is the tariff.

So the famous cry in this discourse – “the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody” - belong in the mouth of the reactionary, the man who cannot accept the inequality that goes along with progress. He is the brake.

But there is another one, which Rousseau hints at as he continues his analysis. Because inequality carries with it the potentiality of cruelty, as the solidification of status levels lead to seeing (and treating) one’s fellow man as an animal, a too-great rate of inequality means cruelty by man to man in the name of progress, an ideal usually there because people will not stand for a subordinate role unless they see something beneficial for them in it. To use a homely analogy: children do not mind being subordinate to their parents if they’re taken care of, but if they’re neglected, they wander off.

This model depends upon inequality being tied to leadership, and leadership being harnessed to the goal of making the earth better for future generations. As such, it makes intuitive sense.

As does the linkage between progress and cruelty. Progress comes about as the result of doers, many of which have a cruel streak that they impose upon themselves. Doers don’t have time to explain what they’re up to; they just expect compliance with their plans, and their task-centered minds are narrower than those of others. As the rate of progress increases, the cry of “just do it” and “don’t worry about the boats over on the other side of the harbor; the rising tide will raise them too” intensify.

“Just get your ass in gear.” “What’s the problem now, dummo?” “For God’s sake; can’t you think of anything other than obstacles – such as doing the job?” “Oh right – I did forget about their bad attitude!” “Stop sounding like Buggywhip Grampa and dig your hands in.” “We have a schedule to keep, people!” “For Christ’s sake, boy, are you your mother?”

These are the usual cries of the bird of progress in flight – and the faster it flies, the less “obstructionism” it takes for one of these cries to be squawked. And the more a real complaint, similar in appearance to earlier complaints more dubious, begins to sound like mere obstructionism. Including the one about the flimsy tank truck that “has to get there today! .”

The blank-slate mind would conclude that the natural role of brake would fall to women, as their role as mothers would give them a natural interest in doing so. Unfortunately, the natural egos of men make this restraining force often insufficient, so a few disasters is enough to call forth a mostly-male restraining class with enough authority to stop a trend, having as its aim “the betterment of all humanity,” from damaging some of them as it plays out. In our society, this is the system of law enforcement and the courts; in earlier societies, the aristocracy often served in this capacity.

So if you hear jokes about “skirt-wearing judges” or rougher ones directed against the police, you now know that the person(s) making them are simple-minded progressives. And potential troublemakers.

One of the restraining classes is, of course, religion. A Church sees itself as restraining the brutish side of man, so naturally, it’s an institution easy to peg as “reactionary” simply through counting and cataloguing when they step in, and what they say concerning empty dreams and false hopes.

The above is Rousseau’s model, but there’s a harsher one that comes to us courtesy of the anti- clericals, and is succored by Marxists nowadays. This is the one that sees a Church as proudly reactionary, to the point where they take real pride in being cruel to progressives. This is the stereotype which paints organized religion in the same tar-colors that McCarthyism was painted: the Churches of the world are inhabited by stupid bullies that delight in crushing the smart and the young. Many quiet cruelties take place in that supposedly happy hearth, my children! Don’t be fooled by those seemingly happy grins on the faces of the parishioners!

This, of course, is secular humanism, a haven for those who see themselves as agents of progress but are distressed to the point of blame- boomeranging at the charge that they themselves are the only harbingers of cruelty. The favorite story with this set involves the high death rate – especially the death rate of children – back in pre-Enlightenment times, the blame for which, now that the crowned head is far from being universal, is laid squarely upon organized religion.

You can pick up an intuitive plausibility in this, as the time when body bags were being sold in the local shop was the same time that Church, Baron and King were in charge of society, and it’s natural to blame the leading institutions of society for the miserable conditions in it. In the eighteenth century, this argument was used indiscriminately against any privileged order in society, but what made it collapse into anti-clericalism was the finding, revealing or unfolding of too many counter-examples where Baron and even King were themselves agents of progress. The history of Britain, at the very least, is a dash of cold water on the opinion that any aristocratic class is inherently reactionary.

But it’s not that easy to come up with counter- examples in favor of organized religion, is it? Especially ones that stack up against the many examples of Church opposing technology.

Let’s stop on this for a moment, as there’s a flaw appearing in the above schema. The castigating of the wicked, powerful forces of organized religion stopping progress has taken place in an age where progress has been almost unstoppable. The human race has moved, in the space of two hundred years, from proto-railroad train to space shuttle, from the observation of “animalcules” to the unraveling of the human genome, from smallpox vaccinations to stents, from selective breeding to bio-engineered foods, from one billion people on the Earth to six – and all of this under the shadow of the wicked, reactionary forces of organized religion.

Something doesn’t quite fit. Either the Church’s nefarious designs are being carried out by clod-hopping bumblers – Keystone Kardinals – or else the forces of organized religion don’t seem to be as anti-technology as they’ve been cast. Why would an institution so terrifying, whose every member would tear their beard out when a new advance making human life and happiness on Earth longer and better, be so incompetent at stopping it?

Could it be that the forces of organized religion are nothing more than a sort of loyal opposition to the forces of progress without pause? If so, then why has the secular humanist culture missed this?

And what about the recent gap being filled by the forces of alternate religions - the mainstream of which see the traditional Churches as too pro-reason and pro-technology?