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H.W. Crocker III in discussing faith notes how secularization in the West has, in effect, become an alternative faith, entirely fictitious, subjective, and driven by short-term self-interest. Even though it poses as progressive – the Science! – it’s instead a path of moral, intellectual, and cultural decadence, where, he argues, largely adolescent attitudes rule, reason is forfeit, objective truth is denied, and moral law is abandoned. One implication of this approach is that intelligent people dismiss Christianity without a second thought, invoking “flying spaghetti monsters” or “Why your God and not the 4,200 other gods?” or “No intelligent person can possibly believe that fairy tale.” Crocker cites various counter examples of intelligent people of faith in his analysis, so that the move of invoking intelligent people comes up short as an argument. He concludes that, "Disbelief in the Christian revelation is, for most people, not a matter of philosophical argument or historical evidence, it is simply a matter of desire: a desire not to believe, and almost invariably not to be judged, especially in matters of sexual morality."

See The Catholic Thing article "Lunatic, Liar, Lord... or Carpenter?"