Defining Secular

[poliphilo]

A secular society separates Church and State. It's a society in which the priests don't get to make the rules. That is all. Secular does not mean atheistical or irreligious or anti-clerical.  Religion flourishes in the western democracies- all of which are essentially secular. The USA- one of the most religious societies on earth- has a secular constitution. 

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Religious life can only exist in a secular society, actually. Theocracy destroys religion -- nobody can have a genuine religious experience from within when it's imposed from without.

Great Britain and most of the Scandinavian countries are not secular, because you all have state religions. Which everybody ignores, but the Nordic countries are Lutheran, the British commonwealth is Anglican. This is the relationship that the United States explicitly rejected when we founded our country -- which is why the United States is one of the most religious societies on Earth.

Having a state religion restricts your interactions with religion to only two binary options: accept or reject. In most of Great Britain, in most Nordic countries, and among the majority of people in Israel, the prevailing choice has been "reject". When the prevailing choice is "accept", you end up with a theocracy -- which ALSO is an unhealthy interaction with religion, from a religious point of view. When society compels religious expression, either by law or by overpowering social pressure, it eliminates the ability to have "genuine" religious experiences and practices.

And in the bizarre case of Israel, you have a society which is mostly aggressively rational and a-religious, but which has a theocratic strain built into its legal system. I personally believe that this is among the reasons that Israel is so fucked up.

I tell people -- accurately -- that the assistant Rabbi at the shul where I taught came to the United States so that she could freely practice her religion.

She comes from Israel. And she quite literally could not practice Judaism freely and without religious oppression in Israel.

Because Israel is insufficiently secular. Judaism cannot flourish in a place as non-secular as Israel. Israelis can either be Jewish in name only and have NO religious practice, being, in effect, a-religious, or can be dogmatic theocrats and have no connection to modern Judaism.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating about Israel.

I don't think the possession of a national church prevents a society from being secular. The Anglican church in England has very little power and influence- and has been viewed with affectionate disdain for generations. It has never- even in its days of power- stopped us having spiritual experiences. We have a grand tradition of inventing religions and sects from The Society of Friends to Wicca.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The thing is -- having a state religion allows, and encourages -- someone to define themselves by what they are NOT, rather than by what they ARE. But, yeah, that is a good point that England has come up with a fair number of non-Anglican religions of its own devising.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I don't think the possession of a national church prevents a society from being secular.

I think it's much more than that and agree with xiphias: in practice, a national religion kills religion. France is the most obvious example. Making Roman Catholicism the official state religion was the death of Roman influence in France.

Religious freedom in the US, however, is nominal, at best. Where I live, every meeting of the town council begins with prayer and a mass "Pledge of Allegiance". I actually feel discouraged from attending. It feels really awkward to dissent and refuse and I feel sullied by playing along, for the sake of appearances.