Guidelines for Constructive Secularism
Secularism and science have a strong link. From that secularism, can try to work out what seems to be the best for society.
Science is about evidence. Evidence is valid for it is random and random is bigger than us. I mean we cannot control it for it is not about being controlled. If God is truth and made all things then we are saying that as God is trustworthy, evidence then must be trustworthy too for he does not set up things to fool us. Evidence given by God depends on circular reasoning. Evidence is right for God says so and God is right for God is trustworthy and evidence shows us that. That is not reasoning. A secularist cannot be asked to trust an intelligence that supposedly gives evidence. The secularist would be giving in and having religious faith to do that. The secularist may act neutral with God and faith and religion but the secularist cannot be neutral inside.
Church and state being combined is a bad combination. Let the state be independent of religion. In a conflict of loyalty, if you are torn between loyalty to state law and Church law you must be loyal to the former at the expense of the second.
Religion needs the state to be secular but not too secular. It and the laziness of lawmakers could be behind how secularism is too selective and inconsistent. For example, any museum lying about its artifacts will suffer penalties. Religion can lie all it wants. Take its veneration of relics. The Turin Shroud was forged to help the local economy and bring pilgrims. How many nails are there in the world that Jesus was supposedly nailed with? What about the locks of his mother's hair? Did he get nailed on a cross big enough to make a ship going by all the splinters of the cross that are there?
There is the problem of how certain religions get into the
private space better than any civil law does. Abortion bans
kill but religious abortion bans kill more effectively.
It is simply false that the secular methodology protects the rights of the state
and the Church equally. It mainly protects the rights of the secular state. If
religion gets rights or at least permission this is only a side-effect.
Learn the principles of secularism and promote them. Concentrate on enlightening
the politically active religionists. The indispensible principles are down
below.
1 Secularism merely requires that the state must not favour or help any
religious view, that there be no state religion. The state will not take sides
in religious matters. This is to safeguard religious freedom - i.e. to avoid one
religion exercising control over those who do not believe in it. Secular means
without religion. The secularist is unable to take account of a person's
religious beliefs - that leads to inequality. And the religious do not take
account of the non-religious person's beliefs. For example, atheists will not be
allowed to become popes even if they believe they should. Beliefs do not have
rights. Secularism is not exactly the same as separation of Church and state.
Church and state can be separate but the state may still be religious.
2 Secularism is a method not a belief. We should really speak of it as legal
secularism. The "religion" of secularism must not be favoured in the secular
state.
3 Secularism requires that religion get no exemptions from obeying the law. This
is the principle of one law for all people.
4 Secularism is against stopping freedom of expression on religious grounds. For
example, you don't ban black masses just because Catholics object to them.
5 Secularism is when the state acts as if it has no religious preferences.
6 The state must not fund the promotion of religion in schools. The parents and
the Church should have their own self-funded system for evangelising.
7 Secularism forbids the state to compel the people to belong to religion or any
specific religion and allows people the freedom to convert from one religion to
another.
8 Freedom of speech matters more than religious taboos about what we are allowed
to say and not to say.
9 Secularism is the only way to be fair to all.
10 There is an adage, "Although there is much immorality/evil that is not
punished by the law, there is none that is encouraged or approved by the law."
This needs to be based on the fact that you cannot punish everything. If the
state starts endorsing religious morality that complicates things and breaks the
adage. Secularism is a fundamental human right. Thus religion that denies that
is fundamentally trouble.
