BELIEF WATCH
Lisa Miller
In Defense of Secularism
'It's red meat for pundits,' concedes Harvard chaplain Greg Epstein, who prefers the word 'humanist.'
In the public school I went to in the 1970s, "secular" was a neutral, descriptive word. Our social-studies teacher taught us that ours was a "secular" government, by which she meant that we lived free of any religion established by the state. We were to be proud of this secular government, she told us; it differentiated us from people in other times and places where those speaking for God made the rules—rules that sometimes were corrupt and unfair. As I understood it then, "secular" had nothing to do with disavowing or disapproving of any particular belief in God.
"Secular" does mean "godless," and its neutral meaning has always fought with the more negative one; recently, though, the word has taken on a lot more freight. Like the words "feminist" and "liberal," "secular" and its derivatives have come to mean extreme versions of themselves. They are code in conservative Christian circles for "atheist" or even "God hating"—they conjure, in a fresh way, all the demons Christian conservatives have been fighting for more than 30 years: liberalism, sexual permissiveness and moral lassitude. The Fox News star Bill O'Reilly frequently frames the culture war as "traditionals versus secular-progressives." Ann Coulter accused "the liberals and the secularists and atheists" of using religion as a wedge. In a speech last year, Newt Gingrich decried the "growing culture of radical secularism," and in a new book the diplomat John Bolton critiques "the High Minded elite who worship at the altar of the Secular Pope." In politics, where it is efficacious to unite people against a common enemy, "secularism" has become that enemy's new name.
To be fair, battles in the war against secularism have been fought for about 150 years, dating back to a time when discoveries in science (especially those of Charles Darwin) and a disenchantment with organized religion led a critical mass of mostly European intellectuals to declare that one could lead a moral life independent of God. By the middle of the 20th century, their heirs had coined the term "secular humanism," to mean a concern with values but not with religion, and the Rev. Jerry Falwell took particular aim at them. In 1986, he proclaimed that secular humanists "challenge every principle on which America was founded," including "abortion on demand, recognition of homosexuals, free use of pornography, legalizing of prostitution and gambling, and free use of drugs." Pope Benedict XVI speaks out frequently against the dangers of secularism.
What's new about the assault on secularism is how, among conservative pundits, it's become almost shorthand. O'Reilly doesn't have to list secularism's sins as Falwell did; he has only to utter the word. And the so-called secularists are hardly helping their own case. Aware that no group is more reviled in America than atheists, and reeling from all the attention atheists have gotten from recent best-selling books, some nonbelievers prefer to wrap themselves in a safer label: "secularist." This rhetorical deflection only makes them targets. Secularist equals nonbeliever; nonbeliever equals immoral God-hater. "It's red meat for the pundits," says Greg Epstein, Harvard's humanist chaplain. He prefers the word "humanist."
Language evolves. "Secular" was first used in the Middle Ages to mean things and people not belonging to the church—as Webster's puts it, "not overtly or specifically religious; not ecclesiastical or clerical." This remains its best and most important meaning. In this great experiment that is American democracy, "secular" is the only word we have to describe the idea, handed down by the Founders, that our leaders do not belong to God, they belong to us.
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: Kirin @ 05/02/2008 5:18:53 AM
Comment: by the way the comment written on 05/02/2008 4:15:22 Am is kinda not mine... i was trying out something.. so sorry johndavidprince... ^^
Posted By: Kirin @ 05/02/2008 4:46:42 AM
Comment: oh my goodness, i plagrise johndavidprince.. sry.. ^^ anyway i wanna comment on his comments.. the values of secularism is decided by man themselves. It changes with the society perception or what humanist likes to say "evolves" with time.. for example in the past abortions tend to be view as evil in the mainstream.. but now people think differently.. they feel that getting your unborn kid killed is just killing a bunch of cells.. perfectly alright.. and now there are laws that legalise abortion.. humans have a tendency to go deeper into immorality.. just like cooking a live frog, you won't cooked it with boiling water straight but you will boil it slowly alive.. thats the same as human beings.. we hardened ourselves to this "little stuff" such as abortion or homosexualism.. next we will consider suicides as a choice in the name of freedom.. finally we degrade ourselves further because what we considered right is wrong now.. Yes, i am a christian and i support the fact of a government that lets the Bible be their rulebook.. i wanna clarify certain stuff regarding having multiple wives... what God intended in the Bible is a man to a woman.. see Genesis which i believe u are very familiar since u can quote so many verses.. He created ONE man and ONE woman for the purpose of marriage and bind into a single entity.. it is never God's intention for a man to have multiple wifes... but u will say what about the jewish patriachs that have mutiple wives.. God never say a single word that he endorse mutiple relationships in his Bible.. although He remain silent towards for example Abraham mutiple wives.. that doesn't mean He approves it.. another example again Abraham lied to one of the pagan kings regarding Sarah his wife.. but God did not bellow his voice and condemn him immediately.. does that mean God promotes deception.. no obviously, the Bible clearly states deception is a sin.. i believe the way of you interpreting the Bible is not taking the entire thing into context.. which is why u are making such erroraneous statements.. i think i spell that error word wrongly ^^
Posted By: Kirin @ 05/02/2008 4:15:22 AM
Comment: This is not in any way an argument for atheism; rather it is an argument for true Liberty.
Christians, Muslims, and Orthodox Jewish religion love to toss around the words secular and atheist as if they are the same thing. This is the height of idiocracy and ignorance. Secularism is a style of government. Atheism is a system of thought or belief in the lack of belief in any higher power or God. Secularism is the separation of God and the State or God and government. Atheists do not separate anything; it is the absolute rejection of any belief in God. Secularism is a methodology, a system, or a form of governance. Secular government separates religion, church, or God from government in order to protect all thought, belief, and religion. The government must remain secular so that Christians can continue to believe as they see fit and the sane applies to Muslims Buddhists, Hindus, and Atheists or Agnostics, any belief. Secular government is not atheistic government; rather it is the removal of religion from government so that all the other rights that we enjoy may exist. Without secular government there would be no free speech, free thought, free expression, free belief (freedom of religion), or even the ability to have fair due process.
Without secular government and the protection of our separation of church and state we will eventually evolve into a Theocracy. When secular government goes the way of the Dinosaurs we loose religious freedom. (Many Christians feel that religious freedom means the freedom of Christianity and nothing else) The dominant religion will always take the positions of power and thus enforce its will or faith (theology) upon the entire population if the state gives up on the restriction in the constitution of government promotion of religion and the establishment of any state religion. Many Christians and Muslims or Jewish followers feel that all other religions are not real, true, or correct versions of faith, which denotes all other religions to the classification of non-religion. This is a sad reality when you converse with religious people you will find that the main three religions share this false religion dogma. The sick fact that all three use terms like heathen, apostate, blasphemer, and non-believer which is the same as infidel.