Secularism: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively ← Previous edit Next edit →Content deleted Content addedVisual WikitextInline

Revision as of 14:17, 9 January 2007 editGetaway (talk \| contribs)3,917 edits →State secularism: There are a heck of lot more religious minorities than atheists.← Previous edit		Revision as of 14:18, 9 January 2007 edit undoGetaway (talk \| contribs)3,917 edits →Government secularism: Sounds like the BS commentary of a Wikipedian. When is stem cell research policy based upon religion alone? BS, BS.Next edit →
Line 19:		Line 19:

	===Government secularism===		===Government secularism===
	In this sense, secularists would prefer that politicians make decisions based on secular reasons, rather than religious ones. Decisions about many contemporary issues, such as ] and ], are often made on the basis of religious belief.		In this sense, secularists would prefer that politicians make decisions based on secular reasons, rather than religious ones. Decisions about many contemporary issues, such as ] and ], are often made on the basis of religious belief.{{fact}}

	===Societal secularism===		===Societal secularism===

Revision as of 14:18, 9 January 2007

Secularism generally refers to an ideology or ideological inclination that promotes the secular, as opposed to the religious, particularly within the public sphere. In current usage there are at least two distinct ways of defining the term.

Definitions

Secularism, in the more moderate sense, asserts the freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, within a state that is neutral on matters of belief, and gives no state privileges or subsidies to religions. (See also Separation of church and state; see also Laïcité.)
Secularism, in the more extreme sense, refers to a belief that human activities and decisions, especially political ones, should be based on evidence and fact, not on beliefs that secularists consider superstitious. Secularists hold that public policy should be free from religious influence. For example, a society deciding whether to promote condom use might consider the issues of disease prevention, family planning, and women's rights. A secularist would argue that such issues are relevant to public policy-making, whereas Biblical interpretation or church doctrine are irrelevant. Secularists believe that all activities falling outside of the private sphere should be secular, i.e. not religious (see also anticlericalism).

Secularist movements

Its proponents argue secularism is the concept that societies should be governed by a process of reasoning rather than religious belief. Its opponents argue that secularism is a concept which, instead of presenting freedom of religion, actually holds all religions in contempt.

State secularism

In political terms, secularism is a movement towards the separation of church and state. This is the idea that religion should not interfere with or be integrated into the public affairs of a society. This can refer to reducing ties between a government and a state religion, replacing laws based on scripture (such as the Ten Commandments, Manu Smriti and Sharia law) with civil laws, and eliminating discrimination on the basis of religion.

Secularism is often associated with the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, and plays a major role in Western society. The principles, but not necessarily practices, of Separation of church and state in the United States and Laïcité in France draw heavily on secularism. As in the West, the idea of separation of the Church from the state has also existed in India since ancient times. Hindu traditions lend strong support to the idea that the functions of the priest and king are to be separated. Modern Indian society is built on these values.

It is claimed to be an essential component of a secular-humanist political ideology, the justification being that it adds to democracy by protecting the rights of religious minorities and atheists.

Government secularism

In this sense, secularists would prefer that politicians make decisions based on secular reasons, rather than religious ones. Decisions about many contemporary issues, such as stem cell research and sex education, are often made on the basis of religious belief.

Societal secularism

Secularism can also be the social ideology in which religion and supernatural beliefs are not seen as the key to understanding the world and are instead segregated from matters of governance and reasoning. In this sense, secularism can be involved in the promotion of science, reason, and naturalistic thinking.

Secularism can also mean the practice of working to promote any of those three forms of secularism. It should not be assumed that an advocate of secularism in one sense will also be a secularist in any other sense. Secularism does not necessarily equate to atheism; indeed, many secularists have counted themselves among the religious.

Some societies become increasingly secular as the result of social processes, rather than through the actions of a dedicated secular movement; see secularization.

Secularist ethics

Main article: Secular ethics

Holyoake's 1896 publication English Secularism defines secularism as follows:

Secularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life, founded on considerations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable. Its essential principles are three: (1) The improvement of this life by material means. (2) That science is the available Providence of man. (3) That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.

Holyoake held that secularism and secular ethics should take no interest at all in religious questions (as they were irrelevant), and was thus to be distinguished from strong freethought and atheism. In this he disagreed with Charles Bradlaugh, and the disagreement split the secularist movement between those who argued that anti-religious movements and activism was not necessary or desirable and those who argued that it was.

Secular society

In studies of religion, modern Western societies are generally recognized as secular. Generally, there is near-complete freedom of religion (one may believe in any religion or none at all, with little legal or social sanction). In the West, it is believed religion does not dictate political decisions, though the moral views originating in religious traditions remain important in political debate in some countries, such as Canada, France, United States and others (see Laïcité). Religious references are considered out-of-place in mainstream politics. Religious influence is also largely minimised in the public sphere, and religion no longer holds the same importance in people's lives as it used to.

Modern sociology, born of a crisis of legitimation resulting from challenges to traditional Western religious authority, has since Durkheim often been preoccupied with the problem of authority in secularized societies and with secularization as a sociological or historical process. Twentieth-century scholars whose work has contributed to the understanding of these matters are Max Weber, Carl L. Becker, Karl Löwith, Hans Blumenberg, M.H. Abrams, Peter L. Berger, and Paul Bénichou, among others.

Secular state

Main article: Secular state

Most major religions accept the primacy of the rules of secular, democratic society. The majority of Christians are proponents of a secular state, and may acknowledge that the idea has support in biblical teachings, specifically in the book of Luke, chapter 20, verse 25. In this verse, in response to a question about taxes, Jesus said, "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." However, fundamentalism opposes secularism. The most significant forces of religious fundamentalism in the contemporary world are fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Islam.

Some of the well-known constitutionally secular states are Canada, India, France, the United States, Turkey and South Korea, although none of these nations have identical forms of governance.

Criticism of secularism

Proponents of secularism have long held a general rise of secularism in all the senses enumerated above, and corresponding general decline of religion in what are deemed 'secularized' countries, to be the inevitable result of the Enlightenment, as people turn towards science and rationalism and away from religion and superstition.

Motto of the French republic on the tympanum of a church.

Opponents think that this view is arrogant, that secular government creates more problems than it solves, and that a government without a secular ethos is better. Christian opponents contend that a Christian state can give more freedom of religion than a secular one. For evidence, they point to Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark, all have a constitutional link between church and state and are far more progressive and liberal societies than some countries without such a link. For example, Iceland was among the first countries to legalise abortion, and the Finnish government provides funding for the construction of Mosques. Of course Sweden could be used as a counterexample, being both a secular state and socio-politically progressive.

Proponents of secularism, also note that Scandinavian countries in general are de facto among the most secular countries in the world, having low percentages of individuals who hold religious beliefs. Recently this argument has been debated publicly in Norway where movements sought to disestablish the state's Lutheran church.

Some modern commentators criticized secularism by conflating it with anti-religious, atheistic, or even satanic belief systems. The word secularism itself is commonly used as a pejorative by spokesmen for the Religious Right in the United States. (See also Secular Humanism.)

Secularist organizations

Groups such as the National Secular Society (United Kingdom) and Americans United campaign for secularism and are often supported by those who practice secular humanism. However, there is also support from non-humanists. In 2005, the National Secular Society held the inaugural "Secularist of the Year" awards ceremony. Its first winner was Maryam Namazie, of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran.

Another secularist organization is the Secular Coalition for America. While it is linked to many secular humanistic organizations and many secular humanists support it, as with the Secular Society, some non-humanists support it.

Local organizations such as Freethought Association of West Michigan work to raise the profile of secularism in their communities and tend to include secularists, freethinkers, atheists, agnostics, and humanists under their organizational umbrella. Student Organizations, such as the Toronto Secular Alliance, try to popularize nontheism and secularism on campus.

References

Journal of Religion and Society, Volume 7 2005, Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies, A First Look, Gregory S. Paul Baltimore, Maryland.
The Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo; Norway Daily No. 238/02; 16 December 2002.

Bibliography

The secular ethic

Jacoby, Susan (2004). Freethinkers: a history of American secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0-8050-7442-2
Boyer, Pascal (2002). "Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought" ISBN 0-465-00696-5
Nash, David (1992). Secularism, Art and Freedom. London: Continuum International. ISBN 0-7185-1417-3 (paperback published by Continuum, 1994: ISBN 0-7185-2084-X)
Royle, Edward (1974). Victorian Infidels: the origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791-1866. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-0557-4 Online version
Royle, Edward (1980). Radicals, Secularists and Republicans: popular freethought in Britain, 1866-1915. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-0783-6

The secular society

See also the references list in the article on secularization

Berger, Peter L. (1967) The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Chadwick, Owen (1975). The Secularization of the European mind in the nineteenth century. Cambridge University Press.
Cox, Harvey (1996). The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective. NY: Macmillan.
Martin, David (1978). A General Theory of Secularization. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-18960-2
Martin, David (2005). On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-5322-6
McLeod, Hugh (2000). Secularisation in Western Europe, 1848-1914. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-59748-6
Wilson, Bryan (1969). Religion in Secular Society. London: Penguin.

The secular state

Juergensmeyer, Mark (1994). The New cold war?: religious nationalism confronts the secular state. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08651-1

External links

Categories: