tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post8077461934104164608..comments2024-03-22T06:22:08.010+00:00Comments on Stephen Law: Secularism - a simple testStephen Lawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-33200005036337787522008-04-16T19:00:00.000+00:002008-04-16T19:00:00.000+00:00Hi StephenAren't you running a classic slippery sl...Hi Stephen<BR/><BR/>Aren't you running a classic slippery slope argument here?<BR/><BR/>Compare: "Suppose I do lend you a pound. How do I know that tomorrow it won't be two pounds, then ten pounds, then hundreds and then thousands?"<BR/><BR/>This kind of argument is weak, unless you can come up with some grounds for supposing the slide is likely to happen.<BR/><BR/>Ditto re the slide from secularism to a sort of intolerant, totalitarian humanism (which I think may be an oxymoron, actually - all depends what you mean by 'humanism': what do you mean by it?)Stephen Lawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-82506549936843629982008-04-16T18:11:00.000+00:002008-04-16T18:11:00.000+00:00Balanced article and a balanced view. However, and...Balanced article and a balanced view. However, and I speak with little knowledge, what concerns me is how, when you oppose the privilege of 'religion' in society, so as to secure secularism's position, you can be sure that, say you won the day, your balanced position would not degenerate into strident humanism that says 'all religion should be private and there is no place for it in the public domain'? Or, for some, is the strategy to achieve balanced secularism, then closed minded humanism? "Taxpayer’s money should be used to fund humanist schools that are then permitted to discriminate against both teachers and pupils on the basis of their humanist beliefs." I would find such an outcome deeply worrying.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-23565961478988757812008-04-04T17:08:00.000+00:002008-04-04T17:08:00.000+00:00Stephen,The state may neutral w.r.t. political par...Stephen,<BR/><BR/>The state may neutral w.r.t. political parties but it does tend to treat them all in a privileged way (free election broadcasts etc. ) over and above organizations that are not official political parties. Outside the UK I suspect there are more pronounced examples of this bias. Perhaps there is an analogy here in the number of theists finding common cause with anyone else "of faith"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-86614256486662090622008-04-04T15:32:00.000+00:002008-04-04T15:32:00.000+00:00Hi BB. I hadn't missed that counter claim - just h...Hi BB. I hadn't missed that counter claim - just hadn't addressed it!<BR/><BR/>Neutrality doesn't entail irrelevancy, surely. The State is neutral between political parties. That doesn't mean it treats them as, or considers them, irrelevant.Stephen Lawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-38537164441235690322008-04-04T15:29:00.000+00:002008-04-04T15:29:00.000+00:00Hi Kyle - No I don't mind people expressing a reli...Hi Kyle - No I don't mind people expressing a religious point of view or using it to justify their position. That's a far stricter sort of secularism. Not what I'm arguing for...<BR/><BR/>Of course we may have problems getting everyone to sign up to the same core principles. But, particularly in a society where a large proportion of the public is not religious, it's important these core principles, while no doubt compatible with many religious beliefs, are not made to rest on them.Stephen Lawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-17132874979786886062008-04-04T14:59:00.000+00:002008-04-04T14:59:00.000+00:00Hi Stephen,rather uncharacteristically I agree wit...Hi Stephen,<BR/><BR/>rather uncharacteristically I agree with some of the points you make.<BR/><BR/>I don't think certain beliefs of any kind should be institutionally priveleged. I would be in favour of disestablishing the church (that is, I would be ideologically in favour of it, in practice I think it might be too difficult to do because it has been that way for centuries, and it would require such an extreme overhaul of politics in this country.) However, the place that I disagree with you is about whether religious discourse is appropriate for public debate.<BR/><BR/>I think that it is a profoundly good thing if religious people are forced to argue for their viewpoints, rather than having a free ride. But, you seem to be suggesting that they keep it private. i think it would be very dishonest of a public figure not to say what they believe simply because their justification is grounded on principles that their listeners do not share.<BR/><BR/>Also, I think your viewpoint demonstrates an idealised picture of politics. It is not simply based on entirely shared principles, and it doesn't seem possible that this could be achieved.<BR/><BR/>Also, do you propose that people should base their voting on purely 'secular' principles, or just debate? Is it wrong for me to vote for something if i cannot justify that position on shared principles?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-16962898396089500562008-04-04T14:50:00.000+00:002008-04-04T14:50:00.000+00:00sinan: ... This is clearly fact.Maybe/Maybe not. L...sinan: <I>... This is clearly fact.</I><BR/><BR/>Maybe/Maybe not. Lots of things are facts, does not make them right.<BR/><BR/>sinan: <I>Anyone who continues to hawk secularism as the answer to our ills after the lesson of the 20th century is in my opinion a dangerous person, and a deluded person.</I><BR/><BR/>Why?<BR/><BR/>In what ways has secularism - as defined by Stephen - led to any failures/dangers of the 20th Century?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-89067868558351170942008-04-04T14:39:00.000+00:002008-04-04T14:39:00.000+00:00Sinan: For those indoctrinated from birth into a l...Sinan: <I>For those indoctrinated from birth into a limitary rationalism to upbraid religious believers for having been born into their faith is ridiculous.</I><BR/><BR/>I was indoctrinated from birth into Christianity, so I presume that it's okay if I upbraid religious believers?<BR/><BR/><I>Why have such a limitary conception of the scope of the reality of what being is and can be?</I><BR/><BR/>Well, why do you? Presumably you reject the claims of other religious faiths - but why do you limit yourself in this way? <BR/><BR/>Presumably you believe that they are as entitled to their beliefs as you are entitled to yours - if you despise secularism, do you have an alternative suggestion as to how your entitlements can be reconciled within a modern state? Personally I don't see any alternative, but perhaps you do.Paul Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13361948689477122420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-65526770612325207342008-04-04T14:06:00.000+00:002008-04-04T14:06:00.000+00:00It is clear that it is no other than your social a...It is clear that it is no other than your social and cultural circumstances, and the nurture of your environment that has led you to being so utterly unable to apprehend the nature of religious life and the experience of those practising it. Why for example, the vast majority of people in the world who might read and understand your arguments would reject them utterly in favour of what they see as being infinitely better i.e their practice and experience of religion. This is clearly fact. Of course another inheritance of our sorry social and cultural recent-past is the abhorrent notion that people of cultures other than the Occidental are sub-rational beings who would run to accept the assumptions of Western culture if only we could open their minds up enough to allow the Enlightenment to shine through. The sheer folly of ascribing any superiority to the modern Western civilisation over others is evident, except in terms of the physical, production-orientated, which it has sold its soul to achieve. The 'Oriental' civilisations acheived heights of holistic harmony with the natural environment and internal harmony and peace through meditation that the post-Christian world can never acheived, with its gargantuan personal tragedies and egotism, that could only ever manifest themselves in vomitous tracts such as Mein Kampf and the travesties that followed it. The enlightenment has created a situation of unprecedented crisis in the world, from destruction of the environment, barbarism and slaughter on an unheard of scale, to egotism and despair, natural reactions to the insitutionalised negation of the very thing that makes us human. <BR/><BR/>For those indoctrinated from birth into a limitary rationalism to upbraid religious believers for having been born into their faith is ridiculous. A silly argument highlighted by the fact that very significant numbers of people every year in the West are identifying the massive hole in their lives and reverting to the natural human condition of meditation and worship.<BR/><BR/>Secularism is not 'neutral' religiously as you imagine it to be. Rather, it is making the state religion agnosticism - and replacing the natural intuition of moral order stemming from a universal harmony, relative being stemming from supreme being, for a de-spiritualised rationlist neurosis as mediator. <BR/><BR/>Mankind will never be happy until it accepts who it is, and that is a relative expression of Absolute Being. Until then, delusions of personal autonomy will keep us locked into a most vicious circle of selfishness and unfulfillment. Anyone who continues to hawk secularism as the answer to our ills after the lesson of the 20th century is in my opinion a dangerous person, and a deluded person. <BR/><BR/>Why have such a limitary conception of the scope of the reality of what being is and can be? Why reject the testimony of normative humanity? The rejection is pure stupidity, and it is leading us to destruction, personally and collectively. <BR/><BR/>You will thank me for my inspiring speech if only you can slap yourself out of your Northern European conditioning for long enough to grasp something of where it is coming from.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-57705793164805900552008-04-04T13:46:00.000+00:002008-04-04T13:46:00.000+00:00(By "everyone", I mean of course the overwhelming ...(By "everyone", I mean of course the overwhelming majority of people.)Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-33215253986952247872008-04-04T13:45:00.000+00:002008-04-04T13:45:00.000+00:00You've missed a key counter-claim: The idea that a...You've missed a key counter-claim: The idea that a neutral view on religion is impossible, i.e. that so-called secularism is, in itself, a privileged religion. Another way of making this claim is that secularism is tantamount to a certain kind of atheism, the kind of atheism that states that God is <I>irrelevant</I>. Irrelevance is a necessary precondition for neutrality: One is neutral about only those things that don't matter.<BR/><BR/>It's a subtle argument, and it does hold a little bit of water.<BR/><BR/>The rebuttal is that religious neutrality is not itself a principle, it is the consequence of a positive, more fundamental principle: We are better off restricting our public, legal discourse to those principles to which <I>everyone</I> adheres. Since everyone employs perception and logic to gain knowledge — everyone, theist and atheist alike — drives with her eyes open, discourse predicated on these principles is legitimate in this context. Since everyone <I>disagrees</I> about how to talk about God, discourse about God is not legitimate in this context.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.com