Secularism
Secularism is a philosophical movement that advocates for the separation of religion from government, education, and law. It promotes the idea that religious institutions and practices should not receive special treatment or consideration in public life. Originating from the Enlightenment and evolving through historical revolutions, secularism has been influential in shaping modern democracies, where the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution underscores the principle of no government establishment of religion.
Secularists are typically categorized into "hard" and "soft" factions. Hard secularists seek to eliminate all public expressions of religion, while soft secularists favor a more tolerant approach, believing in the coexistence of various beliefs. Secularism is often linked to promoting individual human rights and freedoms, distancing society from religious dogma. While some nations strictly adhere to secular principles, others, like the U.S., still intertwine certain religious holidays and practices within their public sphere.
Research suggests that secular societies often experience lower rates of crime and higher levels of altruism compared to more religious counterparts. Overall, secularism emphasizes pluralism, valuing diverse beliefs while advocating for the rights of individuals to practice or refrain from religion freely.
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Secularism
Secularism is a philosophical movement indifferent to or opposing religion. Secularism argues for strict separation between religion and government, education, and the law. Secularism rejects special considerations for religious institutions and practices. The provenance of US secularism is the First Amendment in the Constitution that declares, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." For example, some secularists find religious schools divisive and a threat to democratic principles. There are "hard" and "soft" secularists. Some want an end to all public expressions of religious faith such as Christmas trees and Menorahs placed on government property. Other secularists lobby to end government funding of faith-based community social welfare programs and tax breaks for religious institutions and organizations. In general, secularism does not oppose freedom of religion but rather promulgates freedom from religion, believing in the sanctity of individual human rights.
Background
Seeds of secularism are found in the thinking of early Greek philosophers, but it was not until the eighteenth century and the Age of Enlightenment that secularism took root. In 1851, British writer George Holyoake, coined the word secularism following the American and French Revolutions. The separation of religion and state was embedded in documents written by their nations’ founding fathers. The last French absolute monarch, Louis XIV, claimed to rule by divine right, which was a doctrine asserting the legitimacy of royal authority because it was the will of the supreme deity. King Louis claimed his decrees were divinely inspired and blessed. He used religion to justify the monarch’s abusive and coercive actions.
French revolutionaries and philosophers such as Voltaire and Rousseau of the eighteenth century based their politics on a precept of rule by reason rather than faith. Secularism rejected religious authoritarianism and any involvement of religious leaders in government. Bishops were banned from the British parliament. Authority transferred from religious leaders to the people through democratic voting and parliament’s bringing an end to the alliance between religion and state.
Secularism was becoming a global movement. A nineteenth-century Sikh maharaja turned his state of Punjab into a secular one. In 1863 he founded the Scientific Society for translating European scientific and literary works into Indian languages. In a speech before members of the Society, he stressed the importance of spreading western knowledge to improve India’s standard of living and political progress. He worked to eliminate religious education from colleges and state institutions. Secularism around the world came to be viewed by its proponents as the engine driving nations toward modernization.
The burgeoning new discoveries in science and medicine in this period encouraged the popularity of secularism as an attempt to make sense of human existence. Scientific impartiality is what keeps order and reason among people, according to secularism. Secularism grew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, giving preference to the arts, literature, sciences, and imaginative education over religious education. The end of slavery in America and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement added a new dimension to secularism. No longer would the Bible be used to justify White superiority; secularism promoted democratic ideals and rejected discrimination.
An ironic example of the extensive influence of secularism occurred in 1980 when Pope John Paul II ordered Father Robert Drinan and another priest elected to Congress to leave. Their positions on public policies ran contrary to those of the Catholic Church and many US citizens, causing a fuss over religion and public policies. The two priests complied and removed themselves from politics and were the last Roman Catholic priests to serve in the US Congress. By the end of the twentieth century, secularism continued to minimize rule by religious dogma, replacing it with values of religious tolerance and individual freedom in many political arenas.
Secularism Today
Most modern democracies rule on the principle of separation between religion and government, but the lines are never absolute. There are two camps of secularists: the "hard secularists" believe religious-based proposals are completely illegitimate. Science, reason, and respect for individual civil rights, but not religious rights, are their guiding principles. "Soft secularists" hold there are no absolute truths, so skepticism and tolerance influence them. The twentieth-century revolutions in Russia and China are the purest examples of governments ruled by hard secularism. Religions and religious practices were banned and the faithful severely punished.
Modern democracies are examples of soft secular states. England has not disestablished the Church of England. Catholicism and the Catholic Church remain very influential in the governments of France, Mexico, and South America. The US government recognizes official Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter by closing government offices, courts, and public schools; limiting public transportation; and curtailing mail service. Civil courts manage marriage and divorce, but they recognize — or at least consider — rulings in such matters from Jewish and Muslim religious courts. Congress and the Supreme Court begin with a prayer led by a religious leader at their opening sessions.
Hard secularists advocate for distance between religion and state by employing strategies such as the 2015 lawsuit brought to remove the language "one nation under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. The suit was dismissed in a New Jersey court. They have been more successful on other fronts pushing the philosophy of secularism in everyday life. Teacher-led prayer is banned in public schools. A witness need not swear to tell the truth with his hand on a Bible in court. Blasphemy laws hardly exist and are almost never enforced. Same sex marriage, a sexual union that forbidden by most religious doctirnes, is federally protected in the US. According to some secularists, religion is one way individuals seek good for themselves, which is why they work to protect freedom of religion.
Secularism does not seem to translate into social chaos as the religious faithful have feared. Four different recent studies conclude that murder rates are lower in secular rather than more religious nations, and the fifty safest cities in the world are in relatively nonreligious countries. Societies with higher rates of altruism and lower rates of nationalism and racism are reported to be in countries considered more secular than religious. As its proponents assert, secularism today takes the shape of an irreducible pluralism of beliefs, values, and commitments that give primacy to freedom of religion and egalitarian liberalism.
Bibliography
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