The Dangers of Secularism

I have been reading many comments on this forum about how bad religions are for society, and in response to that I
would like to propose the following historical argument.I’m not the greatest historian around, so I am open to
correction but here’s my view:Secularism is a recent phenomenon. It really got going in the early 20th century. It was an experiment in doing
without religions in which no one could believe anymore (God is dead, etc.)What happened to fill the vacuum of this lack of religious belief?Communism
Fascism.
2 world wars.
The HolocaustTherefore, I conclude that secularism has its own special dangers, perhaps even worse than problems caused by religious cultures.Comments?This message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-13-2005 06:25 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-13-2005 07:25 PM

Surely communism, which is officially atheistic, is about as secular as one can get.

The point of this thread was to suggest that all this talk about religion being the root of all evil is perhaps a little unbalanced.
Some have suggested that my topic was flawed in that I was attributing causes to secularism when actually the causes of these events such as wars were quite different. Might we also say the same about the causes of evil during periods dominated by religious belief?Now as regards to my idea that secularism was an "experiment." I think that is precisely true as regards Soviet communism. Here we have an idea that is purposely and systematically anti-religious.We see the result.You can blame the Soviet failure on a flawed economic theory, but might the same logic be applied to those periods that were dominated by religion and produced evil, as the Soviet Union produced evil?Now I'm all for secular humanism as practiced in Europe today but what we must realize is that secular humanism is a fragile concept, easily turned into something lethal.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-15-2005 03:41 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-15-2005 03:43 PM

I agree, Ifen, but the point is that secularism is just as prone to evil as a religious culture.

Don't you think it rather significant that a man should replace God?After all, we have no direct instructions from God, but we have some very definite instructions if we have a man substituting for a God.

I love your comments, Ifen, and I think you understand that I'm not on this side or that side. But no, I don't believe that religious morality is more objective than secular morality. Neither is it less objective.My point is that a non-religious system doesn't solve any problems, as we saw in the first half of the 20th century.

I'm all for the freethinkers, and I really do not understand how the USA went from Deism to the stuff we see today. But it seems to me that Jefferson (and others) were far more educated than W. Bush.But here's the point: it does not matter if a regime is religious or not as regards the evil that they do.So let's stop saying that religion is the most prevelant cause of evil.

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The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.---Milton

"Unfortunately though, looking at history, religion has all too often been used destructively."Yes, and recently so has secularism.

As regards whether or not there is a "vacuum" in the absence of religious belief, on a theoretical level I can certainly understand the idea that a religion or substitute for a religion is not necessary.But in actual fact, it seems to be the case that when a religion is abolished something has to take its place. I recall reading Bertrand Russell's comments about Soviet Russia: he said that they treated the writings of Marx like sacred scripture.

I didn't know this had been "done to death." All I've been reading is how bad religion is for the world. My point is that secular systems can be just as bad.I take secular to mean "non-religious." I certainly understand your point about the difference between atheistic communism and your ordinary secular government such as in Europe or the US, but still call both Soviet Union and, say, England, secular as opposed to Iran, say, which is not secular.Most governments used to be religious; now most governments are secular. During the period of time we've been discussing (1st half of 20th century), there was an increasing trend toward the secular, both in governments and in culture. After WWII, the churches began emptying in Europe even more rapidly than before (at least that's what I read), but not, for some unfathomable reason, in the US.Since then there has been a fundamentalist backlash in all three Western religions.I'm not sure if there is something in the very nature of communism that makes it vicious, but it certainly has been. I am well aware, of course, that communism as practiced in the Soviet Union was not really "communism," but since they called themselves communists, it's proper to use the term.

Fascism is obviously more complicated in its relationship to religion, but to call the Fascist governments of WWII "religious" seems rather misleading to me. I'm not sure about the Japanese Empire or Italy, but I think I can say something about Hitler's "religion."If this is religion, then this is something very different. I am aware of his references to the Christian church in his political speeches but I certainly don't think he was a sincere Christian.From what I can gather he believed in something along the lines of Creative Evolution, of which he was the spearhead. Mankind would evolve into the Superman, eliminating inferior races along the way--this was something that was destined by the evolutionary Will.His moral system consisted of the following: What's good is what's powerful and what's bad is what's weak.In a technical sense, this, I suppose, is a religion but it's totally different from the traditional sense of religion. It is not other worldly at all.We have to add, though, that he liked the Church because (a)Christians hated Jews (traditionally) and (b)the church was anti-communist. So he did have that in common with the Christians.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-16-2005 02:20 PM

The motive that you are describing, Jar, obviously cannot be my motive since I am not a Christian.I said what I said about Hiter's beliefs because I think it's true.

I guess it depends on what you mean by a "real Christian." I used the word "sincere Christian" in regard to Hitler by which I mean that he did not really believe in Christian doctrine. I suppose by your definition, a real Christian is anyone who claims to be a Christian.

Jar, do you think that the Nazi regime as a whole was Christian? Was this a religious or a secular movement?

I think what I am beginning to figure out is that my definition of "secular" is vague as regards governments, which leads to confusion. I never thought of WWII as a "religious" war or a war about religion. I thought it was racial, mostly, and the nationalism that accompanies that. Germany was racist; Japan was racist. So I was thinking in terms of it being about some races thinking they deserved to dominate other races.But I wasn't thinking that the reasons in back of this racism were religious. So if not religious, then secular.I understand that there are other factors (economics, for example), but WWII was not a religious war in the sense that the Crusades were.However, maybe 90% of all wars have been "secular."Perhaps I should have claimed something like this:The early 20th century was a time of increasing secularism in world society generally,in the sense that fewer people were believers in the established religions. This tendency freed people to think of all sorts of possible solutions to problems that they had not thought of before. That was a liberalizing trend but it had a side effect which we can characterize as "extremism" whether we want to label the extremists as "secular" or not. In that way, Darwinism, let us say, helped boost Marxism.Does that make sense?