Your previous thoughtful criticisms inspired me to write an article in response. It's tentatively called, "Is Secular Modernity as Hypocritical as Christendom?" So that one will address some of what you say here.

If I understand you correctly, I agree with your point that we outgrew early modern kinds of imperialism and hypocrisy. For instance, the early modernists talked about the dignity of people even though they gave a pass to slavery. Or they compared natural processes to machines to justify harming animals as if animals don't feel pain.

Sure, we outgrew old hypocrisies and imperialisms, but that doesn't mean we didn't replace them with late-modern ones. So-called "wokeness," as a form of infantile political correctness is hypocrisy since we focus on bogus micro-aggressions while again giving a pass to the ecological catastrophe we're perpetrating in our developed societies. Or we say we're opposed to the downside of secular progress, but few of us dedicate our lives like Greta Thunberg to the problem.

Hypocrisy is the human norm, which is to say that self-deception is all too common. What's abnormal is the freedom from delusion, since that would amount to enlightenment. That's why ancient philosophers said the main task is to know ourselves. It's not as easy as it sounds.

As I say in the upcoming article, I'm not interested in the intentions of scientists. My argument isn't ad hominem. And the intentions are irrelevant because of the prevalence of self-deception or hypocrisy. We might say or think we're doing one thing even though we're doing another, and we don't recognize it because we don't understand ourselves very well. Moreover, I'm interested in the effects of institutions, not in collective sales pitches. Our collective actions, including our roles in society can speak for themselves.