The Dangers of Secularism

As an aside, the reason your original examples didn't work is that they really weren't about "secularism". Everyone has pretty much done this to death already though the communism thing keeps hanging on. The problem with communism (assuming the Soviet-Marxist) version is that it is not secular, it is anti-religious.There is a difference between saying I will not deal with the religious, and I will oppose the religious. Yes, for most people, when religion is removed as a "truth" used to back an absolute morality, and believe morality must be the backbone of gov't, they will seek another prop.The problem is moral absolutism, and the belief that gov't must be based, or reflect, morality. Thus atheists who believe their moral system is best or better than those of Xians, can be just as rude and dominating with their system (not even questioning its bases), just like the Xians. This has been quite evident at EvC.As long as moral absolutism exists, as well as the feeling that gov't must reflect morality, there must be atrocities as a "secular" system will not exist and an anti- system will be practiced.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I didn't mean the overall topic. What I meant is that many people had already addressed (before I got around to replying) why the list of "secular" atrocities were not really "secular". For example WW2, was not the result of secularism.My one additional comment was to point out that Soviet "communism", whether it was actually communist or not is beside the point, was not a secular movement at all.Secularism is without appeal to gods or faiths. Soviet Russia, and Marxism as many interpret it, is basically anti-religious. Ironically Stalin ended up using Xianity when it suited his ends, but your point is taken that it was mainly anti-religious. Our gov't and the post Revolutionary French gov't were secular from their inception. I can't say for sure for all other nations and what the breakdown is.If we saw changes coming within last century, it is not because of secular gov'ts, but rather changes within the population as a whole.As far as I can tell fundamentalism is on the rise as people are tired of life and living and seeking an easy answer for everything. It also gives one an easy way to justify whatever moral actions one wants to make. I suppose one might call it escapism.We could be dealing with actual issues rationally, it is much easier to choose not to.This is not to slam religion, or spirituality, which I think separate from militant fundamentalism.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Uhhhhh... the poster had a point which undercuts what you have just argued here. Secular morality cannot be "grounded" on the idea of being a "good" person because its the "right" thing to do. Because as the poster pointed out there is no grounding for "good" and "right" without another set of premises.The initial premises will end up being subjective and so not applying to everyone. Indeed there are moral systems without "good" (in the sense that you mean it) and without appeals to "right".Religious people can appeal to an objective sense of right and goodness as they are appealing to a set of moral laws by a creator. Now how they know that creator exists, how they know what those laws are for sure, and especially since there are many other religious people claiming something else how one detects the right one from the many, is a valid question.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'm not so sure you can make that claim. The racial motivations were religious in nature. The idea of a pure aryan race was religious in nature.I can buy that Soviet Russia was acting on secular reasons, but NAZI germany (at least the targets of their greatest fury and their greatest aspirations) were spiritual if not religious in nature. That's an interesting concept, but not an accurate one. I believe there was a small trend toward secularism which required some people to switch what they used as their "absolute" when justifying their actions, but it seems odd to claim that there are fewer believers in established religion or that the religious are not the ones bending more toward extremism.The current "culture war" in the US, which has just been spread around the world, is a product of the religious community, not the secular one. Jews seem to be dreaming of a return to several thousand years ago, Xians for a few years later than that, and Muslims a few years later than that, and all are willing to oppress or kill secularists and pagans as well as each other, to achieve that goal.Most secularists I know simply want to live as they did 5-30 years ago, before religion became a fixture in the executive branch, with a live and let live attitude.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This is true. Religion is one way to do this. Well I should point out that not all religions believe in "heaven". This is false. Moral systems do not require religion. They only do so if they want to try and appeal for an objective absolute status, but one does not need to do this in order to have a functioning moral system.However even without moral systems (specifically the kind you are meaning) one can still have a civil society. Secular gov'ts, such as the US gov't based their laws not on moral foundations, but on logical "contractual" concepts of civil rights. I do not need a moral system telling me that it is wrong to murder or to steal to understand I do not want to be murdered or my things stolen. As such I will work to create a system with others whereby we agree not to do these things to each other as they violate our civil rights, and thus our laws will form.If you have a particular problem with sodomy, I'm not sure I can help you with that. I suppose one can find a community where everyone doesn't want it and so create a set of laws for it, but "victimless" crimes are harder to keep up in a secular state.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I am certainly not claiming that Presidents have not been religious, did not use faith in some manner or another to support themselves, or did not mention or support some religious "moments" in public ceremony. I guess I am a bit confused by calling Thanksgiving a religious day, but maybe you can show this is true.There have been periods in the past where religion has been a greater or lesser part of the US gov't. The late forties to early fifties was a major turning point in the forcing of religious iconography into gov't, in order to separate us from "atheist" Russia.However, what is new is a presence of overt proselytization within the executive branch and what's worse an expectation of its support of a specific style of faith. That is very new and even the religious leaders have pointed this out so I am a bit confused why you would suggest otherwise.Well to be truthful, many of the fundie leaders claim the early presidents and founding fathers were overtly religious in their leadership (which is not substantiated by factual evidence outside of careful quotemining) and after a brief loss of religion in gov't, has finally come back to the political stage.Their point (and it was their doc so I tend to assume this is their position) was that Jimmy Carter was the first openly Xian president, and they had high hopes for him. Later they were disappointed by his refusal to push his faith through legislation, and so went on to back Reagan, then Bush (with varying degrees of happiness and disappointment)... fought Clinton, and then are back with Bush.The end result was a change for overt religious nature of the presidency. Even Clinton, who was opposed by the fundies, ended up having to continually express religious convictions. It is now almost a mandatory exercise for presidential candidates. I am calling you on this assertion. The founding fathers were pretty specific in teh secular nature of our gov't. What are the recent trends which you consider "secular" on the gov't?I will agree that there have been actions (or even an overreaction) by secularists, and anti religious people (who are not the same as secularists), that are aggressive and even offensive to religion (that means fighting its existence). As a secularist I do not like these actions. But they are the reaction, not the initial action.You need to research the "culture war", its foundations and history. It was begun unilaterally by fundamentalist Xians and waged against a generally surprised secular nation. The reaction has been to pick up arms and fight the fundies as they have suggested. To believe that secularism forced a reaction by Xians is to buy into propaganda.I defy the culture war, and want both sides to put down arms. I am a secularist. I find this new twist amusing since it without an overt usurping of the legislative by the judicial, Bush never would have been in office in 2000.But lets get this straight, the judicial is the check on the legislative. They do not usurp, they check. To say that a law is not adequate, which forces a legislature to rewrite is not the same thing as drafting a piece of legislation. Even when they return a law as inadequate and suggest the only way it will fill Constitutionality, is not a form of legislation.The Court cannot create laws and they haven't as of yet (with the possible exception of the Bush decision, which practically amended the constitution).Perhaps it is the legislature which continually tries to create laws which are unconstitutional which is the problem. As such they keep finding the courts a hindrance, and so are now trying to usurp the role of the courts and allow themselves to judge constitutionality by whether they happen to vote for it.That is a dangerous precedent. We are served by checks and balances.I might add that your statement does not refute my original position. If anything it supports it. You have identified the executive office as the religious supporter, and the judicial branch as secular or anti-religious in nature. My statement regarded the nature of the executive.I hope to impress upon you that secular does not mean anti-religious. The idea that if one is not prosyletizing, or fighting that action by gov't, one is anti-religious is a fallacy. Secularism is a movement to deal with nonreligious issues, without appeals to religious mechanisms. One can actually be religious and support secularism.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Although I found your argument to be errant, it was certainly a thing of beauty. Indeed it harkened back to some very early (ancient) arguments regarding moral reasoning. This is ultimately a circular argument, as well as ad hominem. But like I said, I do understand its appeal. But do look closer to analyze the argument, broken down you are saying...Humans do X (a property you are taking to be true), and since there are few (at this point in time) who disagree and do not do X or agree humans do X, we can dismiss them as "cranks" who lack the ability to comprehend that humans do X.Not good.I can agree that there are people with variable abilities in logic and comprehension, and thus some may fill that category you are describing, but to say that anyone who disagrees with you must have the mark of those with low logic and comprehension, is a bit self-serving. What happens to the people who simply disagree with you?Indeed I can even make an opposing argument. Just as there are fewer people with low levels of logic and comprehension, there are also smaller numbers with exteremely high levels of logic and comprehension. Thus it could be that the few are not the cranks... who are likely to go along with the crowd anyway... but rather the geniuses who correctly figured out how things work.Frankly I don't believe people intuit that killing is wrong. First people have to understand what death is, what purposely killing someone is, and finally a conception of justice. Usually people don't have a problem with killing, until they have a conception of Justness and how that relates to specific acts of killing.Of course this is separate from people who feel that they themselves should not be killed. Generally everyone has an "intuitive" feeling that that is wrong, but I would argue that comes from an inate instinct toward self-preservation.As an aside, I could start detailing what we mean by unjustified or "with no good reason", or how a moral system could work without any code which says killing is wrong (mine doesn't have that)... but that is wildly outside the scope of this thread.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Is this serious? I'll bite but I think I'm sticking my foot into some kind of gag.How is life the merging of matter and energy? Matter is energy and energy is matter. They are related by e=mc^2. I have not been privvy to any findings regarding life and that equation.But lets assume this is true and life is the combination of matter and energy, and it has a momentum. You ask how does that make it not wrong to block the momentum of a life?Well I would answer you using your own words. If indeed moral laws are the same as "laws which govern everything in the universe" then there is NO sense that it is wrong to block the momentum of a life. The only laws we have are descriptive and not proscriptive.For example, an object which is in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by a force. Are you telling me that that law indicates that it is immoral to block the momentum of a moving object? And thus is the crux of the problem. Like the religious fundamentalist, atheist moral fundemantalists argue they have an understanding better than those who are religious because they understand the world, and thus THEIR moral schemes must be absolute. Fight and bicker and oppress.If one actually notes how the world works one will be a relativist. That does not mean you cannot have a moral system, or argue why you hold it, but its nature will be reigned in to a proper degree.Math and science work because they are descriptive, and their laws are descriptive in nature. The fact that you will not be able to bend, and if you can then you get some kudos, is that you cannot get to an "ought" from a series of "is" statements.Scientific laws link facts ("is" statements) with logic to a greater conclusion about what "is". There is no "should be", without a subjective premise, and thus such things cannot be an absolute nor work as an objective counter to another moral system.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Thanks for the compliment, but do take my comments seriously. Your argument was seductive and elegant in its own way. By total coincidence I just got done reading a very similar argument from a popular Greek philosopher, thus I was prepared when you stated your argument.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'm sort of surprised. I thought you supported secular gov't. You do understand that a secular gov't is almost by definition relativist?What problems are produced by purely relativist gov't? I can only think of deeper problems emerging with nonrelativist gov't. What manner of morals and/or religion do you feel should be imposed as the basis for gov't?

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well I hope it is wavering otherwise gays will never get any rights. But in any case you are exhibiting yet another problem.In a secular gov't laws are not based on morality. Thus it can look at the case you outlined in a relativist way and say, yes we understand WHY it occured. However, because of the civil rights of individuals which the gov't must protect... not from morality regarding killing... the action is illegal.It really seems to me that the biggest problems we are having, on all sides, is that people believe their moral systems really are objective, and that laws must be based in morality, rather than on addressing conflicts between the rights of individuals such that the rights of individuals are maximized (which is NOT a moral statement).

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yeah, so they could then go back to pretending that they actually believe the Federal Gov't shouldn't meddle in State affairs... heheheh.That was certainly a great precedent they just set right there: make a decision violating all of your beliefs and then state it is NOT a precedent so that no future opposing group can avail themselves of it.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Another sweet post, it's like you are channeling certain ancient Greek philosophers, yet also incorrect. Unfortunately if you had been more aware of other Greek philosophies you would not have made the mistake you made. Actually people can disagree with that rule. You are correct in unpacking how a person who believes in that rule may still violate it, despite their moral belief and insistence they did not violate it. However, you are not correct that that rule is some sort of logical absolute.The first part: IF unjustified, THEN murder is merely a definitional statement. I think the history of the term murder is sufficient to say people will generally call it that.The conclusion is where you stumble: IF murder, THEN wrong. Where did the "wrong" come from and why is it something everyone would agree with?Within descriptive systems, or normative "virtue" systems (how lucky you are paralleling a discussion I am having in another thread so I can now use currently used terms) there would be no "wrong" inherent to a murder.Indeed as an example, my own system which is a virtue system, would end at "THEN murder", or maybe even just a recognition that a killing was "unjust"... for example killings in a war are generally excused from the term "murder" though they may in fact be unjust.There is no concept of right or wrong flowing from that. As far as my character goes, I am sort of obsessed with justice and so find unjust acts of any kind distasteful and will oppose them, but I have no illusion that my distaste makes it "wrong".Indeed there are conditions similar to the ones you outlined for the strict moral code, whereby I could recognize that a killing is unjust but also necessary, thus it remains distasteful to me (as much as before) but useful to a degree that even I might avail myself to it. Or I (or rather someone else) might find that there are other values to it, such as while being unjust it showed loyalty and courage. The latter two do not make it more right or less wrong, but show that different values may characterize the same act.Let me use an example...A man joined the US army in order to defend this nation. Perhaps in response to the 9/11 attacks. He is then ordered to Iraq where he is put in a position where he must attack an Iraqi unit and thus kill a number of people, and given the type of weapon he is using, and the enemy's proximity to crowded civilian habitation, is likely to kill some innocent people as well. He is also well aware that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, and does not pose an imminent threat to his nation, such that he is acting in its direct defense. (before anyone disagrees, let us say this is how this particular soldier vies the situation).His attacking the enemy unit would be unjust, and perhaps even unlawful (given international law on pretext for war), and so technically murder... though this may get written off by some as "act of war" and so "not murder".But is it wrong? To your code it would seem so, unless there are other rules that come in to play. For my system it remains not wrong at all, but it could be distasteful to the man and how he chooses to act will determine his moral character.He could choose to move forward, because despite the unjustness of his action, to not act would be disloyal to his nation and his comrades who will now go into combat with less support, and it would also be a courageous thing to do in that he is fightingt our enemy whether they posed an imminent threat or not. Some might claim that he is actually exhibiting cowardice in not standing up for justice, but that would be a matter of debate.In any case his action would be all of these things, and who is to say that it is then wrong because of any one or group of them. The best you can say is that YOU would feel it is wrong, because that is your taste and so your moral character by which we can know you.I hope this all made sense. Right and Wrong are subjective terms which are not necessarily agreed on by anyone, stemming from any specific type of action.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

No it is not a moral statement. I mean it certainly can be one, but in this instance it is not. I am also not trying to imply it is somehow an absolute or objective statement.When we get together as a collection of individuals we bring with us what the founding fathers called "inalienable rights", which are what we generally expect or desire for ourselves.For example, I want to be free to say what I want and worship whatever God I want.There is a trade off however in a practical sense, because something I may want to do can very well prevent you from doing what you want. And of course something people may want to do might prevent the gov't itself from functioning properly. Property rights are a big part of this.Thus as we create a gov't we try and figure out what rights we will guarantee, and then arbitrate the practical disputes between opposing rights as well as between individual rights and the desires of the gov't.There will be arbitrary rules and distinctions, but they are legal and not moral in nature (though certainly a person's moral beliefs will influence them in some cases as to what legal measures are the best).If there was not an agreement between us that your and my rights will be protected, then what practical reason would I have for continuing in a legal arrangement with you?

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I think you may have stated your case better this time. I believe I agree with much of what you said if not all of it.This is why being a relativist does not mean having no moral code, nor being anti-moral code, just observant of what are the limits and uses of moral codes and from what do they derive.Part of this is the recognition that not all moral systems have to have proscriptive or prescriptive conclusions about actions. Thus some are about describing a person's character, rather than labeling actions (even if situational) "right" or "wrong".For those normative systems that do contain labels for guiding conduct such as right/wrong... which I assume you do believe in... they are ultimately groundless and tautological.As long as this is recognized and so the inherent difference this creates between a mathematical formula and a moral formula, I think what you described is correct (i.e. 4=4 compared to 2+2=4).I would hesitate to call what drives the tautologies we create intuition, as that seems to suggest something "higher" than taste or prejudice to me. But I suppose that might be my own bias creeping in. Gut feeling may be the best neutral description.One interesting thing to note, and again this drives at why perhaps intution is not the most accurate term, people can come to understand or feel that their moral system or certain codes within it are wrong. Its hard to change one's mind about something which is intuitive. But at this point I am probably nitpicking.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)