Lets Leave The Nazis Out Of It

[poliphilo]

Is it fair to cite Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia or Maoist China as examples of secularism gone mad- as people do when they're debating the merits of secularism v religion?

I don't think it is. Those states are weird. Aberrations. And they all belong to a very brief period of history. The last of them- North Korea- is decaying as we speak. They may be atheistical- which isn't the same a secular- but they look very much like nations in the grip of religion. Or- even more- nations that are being run as religions. All those parades, the ideology, the heresy hunts, the one true Book, the cult of the leader. That's not secularism as I understand it.

 

The secular mind is as unimpressed by the God-king Mao as it is by the God-king Jesus. The secular mind has seen through all of that.

 

Secularism is about keeping religion well away from politics. No Bible, but no Little Red Book or Mein Kampf either. The secular mind has been inoculated against all kinds of mystical and cultic power play.
 

The great dictatorships of the 20th century aren't religious states, but they aren't secular ones either. Lets put them to one side.

 

You want  to highlight the evils of secularism? Then lets talk about modern Russia, or modern Italy or Saddam Hussein's Iraq (though that's borderline). And those of us who want to highlight the evils of theocracy will talk about Iran or Pakistan or Ireland as it was before the Church's power was broken by the child sex scandals.   

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I don't particularly disagree with this, but when it comes to "the evils of secularism" vs "the evils of religion", I think you need to distinguish between evil things that happen in a particular secular society and evil things that happen because that society is secular (and the same with religion). Berlusconi doesn't seem to me the kind of figure that could only have arisen in a society with a separation of church and state. Similarly, many bad things have happened in countries with some sort of state religion, where you'd be hard pressed to say that a state religion was necessary to their coming about. Only in the latter case would it be appropriate to cite them as examples of "the evils of religion".

I'd be interested to know whether you consider the UK (or more specifically England) to be secular or religious, by the way.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any bad thing that could only happen in a society with separation of church and state, but I suppose a certain type of religious person would point to things like abortion rights. I find it much easier to think of bad things that could only happen in a theocracy, but that's because of where I'm coming from.

Interestingly the rights of minority religions are much safer in a secular State than they are in a theocracy.

I think England is deeply secular. Our refusal to get too bothered about head scarves is a sign of this. We tolerate the carryings-on of religions because we (secretly) despise them. Our state church and the presence of Bishops in the Lords are vestiges of a former dispensation. We allow them to continue because we don't feel threatened by them. It's been a long time since any churchman wielded any real power in this country.