Everything about Secularism totally explained
Secularism is generally the assertion that certain practices or institutions should exist separately from
religion or religious belief. Alternatively, it's a principle of promoting
secular ideas or values in either public or private settings over religious ways of thought.
In one sense, secularism may assert the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, and freedom from the government imposition of religion upon the people, within a state that's neutral on matters of belief, and gives no state privileges or subsidies to religions. (See also
Separation of church and state and
Laïcité.) In another sense, it refers to a belief that human activities and decisions, especially
political ones, should be based on evidence and fact rather than religious influence. (See also
public reason.)
The purposes and arguments in support of secularism vary widely. In European
laicism, it has been argued that secularism is a movement toward
modernization, and away from traditional religious values. This type of secularism, on a social or philosophical level, has often occurred while maintaining an official
state church or other state support of religion. In the
United States, some argue that state secularism has served to a greater extent to protect religion from governmental interference, while secularism on a social level is less prevalent. Within countries as well, differing political movements support secularism for varying reasons.
Definition
The term "secularism" was first used by the
British writer
George Holyoake in 1846. Although the term was new, the general notions of
freethought on which it was based had existed throughout
history. In particular, early secular ideas involving the separation of
philosophy and
religion can be traced back to
Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and the
Averroism school of philosophy. Holyoake invented the term "secularism" to describe his views of promoting a social order separate from religion, without actively dismissing or criticizing religious belief. An
agnostic himself, Holyoake argued that "Secularism isn't an argument against Christianity, it's one independent of it. It doesn't question the pretensions of Christianity; it advances others. Secularism doesn't say there's no light or guidance elsewhere, but maintains that there's light and guidance in secular truth, whose conditions and sanctions exist independently, and act forever. Secular knowledge is manifestly that kind of knowledge which is founded in this life, which relates to the conduct of this life, conduces to the welfare of this life, and is capable of being tested by the experience of this life."
Barry Kosmin of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture breaks modern secularism into two types: hard and soft secularism. According to Kosmin, "the hard secularist considers religious propositions to be
epistemologically illegitimate, warranted by neither religion nor experience." However, in the view of soft secularism, "the attainment of absolute truth was impossible and therefore skepticism and tolerance should be the principle and overriding values in the discussion of science and religion."
State secularism
In political terms, secularism is a movement towards the separation of religion and government (often termed the
separation of church and state). This can refer to reducing ties between a government and a
state religion, replacing laws based on scripture (such as the
Ten Commandments and
Sharia law) with civil laws, and eliminating discrimination on the basis of religion. This is said to add to democracy by protecting the rights of religious minorities.
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 religion and government has also existed in
India since ancient times. An attempt was made (at least on paper and laws) to build the modern
Indian society on these values and to a certain extent, this attempt has been successful as well. Secular states also existed in the
Islamic world during the later
Middle Ages.
Due in part to the belief in the separation of church and state, secularists tend to prefer that politicians make decisions for secular rather than religious reasons. In this respect, policy decisions pertaining to topics like
abortion,
embryonic stem cell research,
same-sex marriage, and
sex education are prominently focused upon by American secularist organizations like, the
Center for Inquiry.
Most major religions accept the primacy of the rules of secular, democratic society but may still seek to influence political decisions or achieve specific privileges or influence through church-state agreements such as a
concordat. Many Christians support a secular state, and may acknowledge that the idea has support in biblical teachings, particularly Jesus' statement, "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." (See
article). However, some
Christian fundamentalists (notably in the United States) oppose secularism, often claiming that there's a "radical secularism" ideology being adopted in current days and see secularism as a threat to "Christian rights" and national security. The most significant forces of religious fundamentalism in the contemporary world are
Fundamentalist Christianity and
fundamentalist Islam. At the same time, one significant stream of secularism has come from religious minorities who see governmental and political secularism as integral to preserving equal rights.
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.
Secular society
In studies of religion, modern
Western societies are generally recognized as secular. This is due to the near-complete
freedom of religion (one may believe in one religion, many religions or none at all, with little legal or social sanction), as well as the general belief that religion doesn't ultimately dictate political decisions. Nevertheless, the moral views originating in religious traditions remain politically important in many of these countries, such as
Canada,
France,
Turkey,
United States and others (see
Laïcité). In some, religious references are considered out-of-place in mainstream politics.
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 include
Max Weber,
Carl L. Becker,
Karl Löwith,
Hans Blumenberg,
M.H. Abrams,
Peter L. Berger, and
Paul Bénichou, among others.
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. As such, an advocate of secularism in one sense may not be a secularist in any other sense. Secularism doesn't necessarily equate to
atheism; many secularists are religious, while atheists often accept the influence of religion on government or society. Secularism is an essential component of a
secular humanist social and political ideology.
Some societies become increasingly secular as the result of social processes, rather than through the actions of a dedicated secular movement; this process is known as
secularization.
Secular ethics
George Holyoake's 1896 publication
English Secularism defines secularism as:
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's good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it's 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 wasn't necessary or desirable and those who argued that it was.
Arguments for and against secularism
Proponents of secularism have long argued that the general rise of secularism in all the senses enumerated above, and corresponding general decline of
religion in
secular states, is the inevitable result of the
Age of Enlightenment, as people turn towards
science and
rationalism and away from religion and
superstition.
Opponents argue that secular government creates more problems than it solves, and that a government with a religious (or at least not a secular) ethos is better. Some Christian opponents contend that a Christian state can give more freedom of religion than a secular one. For evidence, they cite
Norway,
Iceland,
Finland and
Denmark, all with constitutional links between church and state and yet also recognized as more progressive and liberal 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. Some cite the counterexample of the Netherlands and, more recently, Sweden, it being both a secular state and socio-politically progressive although having
disestablished its state church in 2000.
Proponents of secularism also note that the
Scandinavian countries are socially among the most secular in the world, with particularly 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 have 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
religious conservatives in the
United States.
Pope Benedict XVI has declared ongoing secularization to be a fundamental problem of modern society, and has made it the
goal of his papacy to counteract secularism and moral relativism. Though the goal of a secularist state is to be religiously neutral, some argue that it's repressive of some aspects of religion. Ostensibly, it's equally repressive toward all religions in order to equally protect all from interference by others.
Some political philosophies, such as
Marxism, generally hold that any religious influence in a state or society is negative. In nations that have officially embraced such beliefs, such as the former
Eastern European
Communist Bloc countries, the religious institution was made subject to the secular state, in the public interest. Freedom to worship was subject to licensure and other restrictions, and the doctrine of the church was monitored to assure conformity to secular law, or even the official public philosophy. In the
Western democracies, it's generally agreed that these policies contravened full freedom of religion.
Some secularists believe that the state should be kept entirely separate from religion, and that religious institutions should be entirely free from governmental interference. Churches that exercise their
authority completely apart from government endorsement, whose foundations are not in the state, are conventionally called
"Free" churches.
Some secularists would allow the state to encourage religion (such as by providing exemptions from taxation, or providing funds for education and charities, including those that are "faith based"), but insist the state shouldn't establish one religion as the
state religion, require religious observance, or legislate
dogma.
Classical liberals would assert that the state can't rightfully 'exempt' a religious organization from
taxation since it has no authority to tax or regulate it in the first place. This reflects the view that temporal authority and spiritual authority operate in complimentary spheres and where they overlap such as in
moral values or
property rights, neither should take authority over the other but should offer a framework in which society can work these issues out without subjugating a religion to the state or vice versa.
Secularist organizations
Groups such as the
National Secular Society (United Kingdom) and
Americans United campaign for secularism and are often supported by
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's 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. The
Secular Student Alliance is an educational nonprofit that organizes and aids such high school and college secular student groups.
In Turkey, most prominent and active secularist organization is
Atatürk's Thought Association (ADD), which is credited for organizing demonstrations in four largest cities in Turkey in 2007, where over 2 million people, mostly women, defended their concern in and support of secularist principles introduced by
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Leicester Secular Society founded in 1851 is the world's oldest secular society.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Secularism'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://secularism.totallyexplained.com">Secularism Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
