An existential trauma of many traditional atheists or secularists used to be (or still is) the theocentrist accusation that they would have to be totally unprincipled, or that they would have no fundamental respect for universal values. At present we know that so far as normistic denominationalism is concerned, the situation is rather the other way round: it is normistic doctrines that take principles and values most seriously, whereas they are merely of secondary import in theocentric doctrines. But traditional secularists, who call or called themselves "atheists", "agnostics", "humanists" or something else of that ilk, have in this respect always been on the defensive. They have tried hard to underscore their explicit recognition of ethical principles, for example, by organizing themselves in so-called 'ethical societies'. And they have emphatically asserted that ethics can be developed independently of belief in a god. (To understand the historical context, one must not forget what medieval forces they had, or still have, to overcome in religionist countries or subcultures. Ethics, for instance, was, or still is, treated in such countries or subcultures as a branch of theology!)

One of the preparatory conditions of an assertion is that it is not obvious to both the speaker or writer and the listener or reader that the latter knows already what is stated, or does not need to be reminded of it. That is why the best way to obliterate what is self-evident is to assert it. It is by the very assertion of the truth that theism or demonism are no prerequisite for ethics or morality at all, that the traditional secularist takes away the self-evidence of this truth. For by declaring this, 'e must implicitly assume that there are people who listen to or read 'er declaration, and who sincerely believe that it is not obvious that ethics can be developed independently of any form of theodemonism. Thus only to placate a few theocentrist listeners or readers with a morbid bias against nonreligious comprehensive ideologies, who are not capable of rationally coping with a statement against obscurantism and irrationalism anyhow, is the self-evidence of the possibility of non-theodemonist normism obliterated. We ourselves shall not continue to do so.

What is definitely not self-evident is the meaning of terms like secular and secularism. Within the narrow, traditional frame of reference in which merely the religious is distinguished from the irreligious, secular is defined as not religious, not spiritual or not overtly or specifically religious. Traditionally not religious may also be understood as worldly, temporal, or in a narrower sense, as nonclerical.

In the new framework of ideological thought secular is to function on one of the following levels:

1. the general level of ideologies
2. the level of comprehensive ideologies, whether supernaturalistic or non-supernaturalistic, whether theodemonistic or non-theodemonistic
3. the level(s) of religion(s) or theodemonist doctrines.

In the first case its stipulative meaning would be nonideological, in the second case nondenominational, and in the third case nonreligious or non-theodemonist. The first meaning of secular is to be rejected, because political thought and institutions could not be described as "secular" anymore then. The third meaning is to be rejected, because the DNI (the first and only nonreligious, non-theodemonist denominational doctrine of its kind) would then have to be described as "a secular doctrine", inclusive of its neutralistic symbolism (as to be evolved in the Book of Symbols). The concerns of the DNI extend far beyond the purely 'secular', and so do those froms of art which are and will be inspired by, or express, the symbolism of catenical neutrality and the essence of inclusive thinking, feeling and acting. It is not art which is not specifically religious which should be called "secular"; it is art which is neither specifically neutralistic nor religious, that is, which is nondenominational, which should now be called "secular". This meaning of secular should not be confused with interdenominational tho.

An additional advantage of defining secular as nondenominational is that it indirectly more firmly establishes the inclusive meaning of denominational, which differs more from its traditional meaning than ideological and religious. Granted that our stipulative definition of secular is not denominational, secularism does not mean indifference to or exclusion of religious doctrines but something like indifference to or exclusion of denominational doctrines. (Compare interdenominationalism: a theory or practise involving or occurring between different denominations, and in this sense inclusive, but possibly in a very partial way nevertheless.) Whether the doctrines concerned are religious or denominational, the kind of secularism which is an exclusivist theory or practise, antithetical to ideological inclusivity, must be distinguished from the kind of secularism which merely confines itself to the secular, or the kind of secularism which does not reject religion but religionism. Only the former type of secularism is exclusivistic; the latter type is nonexclusivistic or even ideologically inclusive so far as the rejection of religionism is concerned. It is clear that we as adherents of a nonreligious and nonsecular doctrine have to fight religionism, but it must also be clear that (other) 'secularists' can solely join us in this fight so long as they are willing to respect 'nonsecular' denominational considerations. Of course, as always under the conditions of denominational freedom and equality.