Secularism is marked by the fragility of belief in transcendence. Its central impulse is the naturalization of all things, the leveling out of reality into a single plane. How secularism arose is a tricky question, but Charles Taylor attempts to explain how we got here. To do so he describes four parallel worlds. He admits they are ideal worlds and, in reality, relate to one another in significant ways. But to describe them well, he suggests, they must be described separately. World #1: An Epistemological World This picture is of a world in which knowledge begins with individuals who build up knowledge of the world in comprehensive theories. Facts about…