Why is secularism seen as such a threat?

[technodad]

Why is secularism seen as such a threat, when the very idea is based around protection of the rights of the individual?

Just to be clear before we start, secularism is about making everyone equal, no matter what their belief - simple as that really. It means that no one group (or individual) has greater rights or power in society than everyone else and that everyone has freedom of expression.

So what is it about this concept that is so difficult for some people to accept and support?

Thing is that racial and religious are not the same thing in law or in any other way. I'm not a chasidim, though I know one or two, and their laws are of course at odds with our mainstream laws. therein lies the conflict. By contrast, skin colour has no laws of its own to conflict with ours, no agonising dilemmas of the kind created when a secular society says 'but you must' and religion says 'but you must not.' Therein lies the difference.

We all hate white supremacists - I do, I sit here thinking of them with clenched fists, and I'm even reading Bloody Stupid People - but it doesn't help the discussion to keep animadverting to them. I'm not sure our mutual loathing is a good basis for other moral discussions.

Maybe you don't think they are the same, but I think there is a very similar characteristic in their behaviours.

The only difference is that you have an old book that allows you to think it gets you off the hook. I don't think it should, and I am far from alone in that view!

However, I may not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say it! As, I hope would you defend my and Tim Minchin's right to say our opinion.

Of course, if the recent calls for an anti-blasphemy law in the UK are taken seriously, I would be locked up!

TD, I dismiss the 'old book' argument. It denies rights to Mormons and neopagans . And also I am not a fundamentalist.

And if you are locked up I will come and demonstrate outside the gaol for your release.

I think there is a really important difference between religious and racial discrimination - this of course used not to be a bad word, but a sign that you had some taste. I've said why. What continues to bug me about secularisats is that fine distinctions often seem to get lost in their urge to uphold a central principle. But the central principle is important too.

Have now seen the video- funny - well, mildly funy - and a bit stupid, because like the Dawks tend to, it assumes all Xtians are stupid themselves, thick and easily coaxed into bigotry. There are thick people of all beliefs. But he gets to say this in my book. The existence of thick bigots calls for satire, wherever they may be found.

No song that sounded like that would get me singing along. I absolutely hate and am very bigoted about gospel shout music with acoustic guitars. But this is just class prejudice masquerading as morality - and on Tim's part too.

The difference between race and sexuality is that you are stuck with your race, but a homosexual (or heterosexual) has a choice on whether or not to act on those feelings, even if they have no choice on the feelings themselves.

I am not sure that it is possible to suppress your feelings (unless you yourself are a homosexual who has first hand experience of suppressing your feelings, in which case I will bow to your experience). Being a straight male, I can not imagine that there is any chance that I could walk around not thinking women were attractive to me.

And surely the feelings are a sin (in your view) almost as much the actual sexual act.

Therefore, I am not sure someone has a "choice" in this matter.

Furthermore, you are proposing that you are only willing to accept someone like this in their religion, if they are willing to potentially resign themselves to a life of misery. So, once again, discrimination!

We keep coming back to the fact that you are discriminating against them!

My last two paragraphs are still valid!

TD, while NIghtlurker and I disagree rather strongly about gay and lesbian sex, we would probably agree that having sexual feelings is not sinful in itself.

Let's put this in a different context. Suppose you are unlucky enough to be attracted to young children. (NB. I am NOT saying that gays and lesbians are pedophiles!) We might all agree that it would be wrong to act on the attraction, even by consuming porn made with real children. But the church might add that allowing yourself to dwell on the longing, going on internet forays seeking out stimuli, and consuming even porn without real child actors is unlikely to help. So might anyone with any sense, and those acts are not entirely innocent themselves.

Similarly, it's one thing to quite fancy my subordinate, and another thing to send him or her sexy emails or plague him or her with unwanted overtures, and yet another to try to have sex with him or her by force. There are degrees of harm and therefore degrees of guilt. This does make moral sense in any human society...

I prefer pluralism to secularism. With pluralism it's each to their own, everything expressed freely, anyone (religious or secular) can set up churches, organisations, schools etc. Anyone can wear religious symbols, say prayers publicly, put their opinions forward. By contrast, secularism often wants to stifle religious expression. It sees itself as some kind of "default" position but it's not any more worthy of consideration than any of the other ways of seeing the world. So pluralism is more realistic and fair.

Eh? Seriously Sieglinde you are going there? Not sure what that analogy is meant to show at all.

In what way is consensual sex between adults (or thinking about it or whatever) in any way morally analagous to sexually abusing a minor or sexually harassing an employee or subordinate at work?

It does not make "moral sense" in any human society. Similarly if I was to say it is a sin to wear pink but a lesser sin to think about wearing pink, this does not make "moral sense"'because there is nothing inherently moral or amoral about wearing pink.

"I have a friend who's 5 year old will have to travel long distances to a school in another town, because the 3 non-faith schools are over subscribed and the remaining 10 schools are all faith schools that have selection criteria. How is this right or fair?"

It works both ways as there are also many religious people who don't live near enough to a faith school, to get a place. There are also many people who can't afford to live in the catchment area of their preferred school. Not being able to go to your favoured school can be due to any number of factors.

Hima, I kinda guessed I'd be misunderstood. The analogy you see is NOT the lone I intended

The analogy is that all forms of sexuality begin with desire, often inchoate desire, and only later becomes action.

If you're not comfortable with the pedophilia analogy, take the much simpler one of a woman who loves her husband but thinks about a man at work. She can dwell on the man, go for drinks with him, seek out occasions to be with him, daydream about him. Or she can try her best to put it from her mind. The former, while not in itself sinful, needs some rethinking if she doesn't actually want to sleep with him. Or even less controversially, if you are on a diet, don't keep a stack of Mars Bars in the fridge. It makes your life easier.

It btw isn't a sin to think about wearing pink :) But thinking constantly about someone else as an object of desire, while not sinful, might be bad for both of you some of the time.

But that's the point Sieglinde - one of your analogies is a moral one - cheating on your wife (or thinking about it) since someone could get hurt. the other: cheating on your diet (or thinking about it) is not a situation of morality. They are not the same kind of thing.

Your post seemed to be arguing that "any" society could understand the "moral sense" n questions of sexuality, and what people do with it. But this is not the case any more than there is a moral sense in the offside rule or Kosher laws or the rules of ballroom dancing.

Homosexuality is just like pedophilia!

I bet you are glad that you have got that book! Without it you would be lost for a moral code.

We atheists are such heathland and such hateful people. Eric Pickles is right, the world needs a religious moral compass otherwise we will all turn into hateful people.

Ahem!

Clearly I mean "heathens"

sieg your analogies involve harm to third parties but what harm is consenting homosexual intercourse causing to third parties?

Religions are basically associations or clubs, in which the members may choose to adopt any number of rules and requirements that may seem arbitrary to outsiders but are deeply meaningful to those involved: shave your head and wear orange, dont mix milk and meat, be a surrendered wife, give up the chance to express your sexuality etc...

In a secular society people should be free to do these things as long as they don't harm others. They shouldn't face arbitrary discrimination because of their religion. Reasonable accommodation should be made, particularly because religious and ethnic minorities often overlap.

But at the same time people who are born into, convert, or marry into a religion, or enter into a contract with a religious organisation or person does not loose any of the rights that other people have. This means that secular laws have to be presumed to over rule religious laws. Religious people and their associates have to be protected by the same employment laws, divorce laws, health and safety laws etc... With case by case exceptions, but no blanket exemptions.

TD, I not only didn't say that. I specifically said I wasn't saying that.

I'm so glad YOU are guided by reason . Where would we all be without it? Falsely accused of something because of secularist hysteria, perhaps.

Once more, with added heat... Secularists like you, TD, are crap readers, and that's why I don't trust them. Like the NVKD, you are so busy riffling through texts seeking what you hope hysterically to find that you can't see straight.

One more time... I am not saying gays are like pedophiles. Please go back and read more carefully, and then we can have a rational debate.

Headinhands, some feminists, me included see being turned into an object of desire against one's will as a form of harm. This is true whatever the sex of the parties concerned, surely? That said, I AM NOT SAYING ANYTHING specific to gay or lesbian couples. Gay and het alike may make this error, but it is an error with possible moral impact.

sieg actually no, so long as it doesn't harm me people are free to view me any way they want because they own their mind. I'm not sure I get the last point you make? Do you think it's morally wrong to be in a consenting homosexual relationship?

Seiglinde - I am not really sure what you are saying on this pont at all.

There is the obvious point that thinking about something is different from doing something, and that it you don't want to do something it is probably not a good idea to keep thinking about it.

But then you talk about "degrees of harm and guilt" in the context of a consenting happy gay relationship.

You seem to be saying that there is a moral question involved that is in some way analogous to your examples where a person is harmed.

Anyway I think it's a bit of a sidetrack.

The thing I wanted to pick up on was something you said upthread re:chasisdim (for example) "their laws are of course at odds with our mainstream laws"

This view sees the word as groups of community that are monolithic, and that if there are conflicts they are between believers and secular society. My point is that communities are not monolithic. There is conflict - people get harassed at work, children get abused, people get divorced etc... WITHIN COMMUNITIIES. When this happens people of whatever religion should be able to turn to the same laws and rights as everyone else - not be limited by the rights and customs allowed by their religion. Which means "mainstream" law overruling religious law - most obviously on child marriage, rape within marriage, divorce laws, workplace discrimination.

Ok, all I really mean is this:

1. You can make things harder for yourself and for others by courting temptation, encouraging yourself to overcome reason with desire. This applies in any area, not just sex - running up consumer debt/shopaholism, or overeating, or self-harm - anything where you say 'never again' and then do it anyway. Some of those early actions - going to the mall/sweetshop/looking at scars -n at the very least count as errors of judgement, and anyone sane would advise against them.

1. On the Chasidim, I just want to reiterate that IME secularists are only happy to tolerate religion when it doesn't vary much from their own somewhat dirigiste and even Zdanovite norms and ideas. When it does vary a LOT, they say they can't tolerate it. But why should tolerance be limited thus? You just can't make Chasidic ideas of community fit into a secular world.

Sieglinde hello again.

1. yes, it is tactically not a good idea to dwell on stuff you want to avoid doing as it makes it harder to avoid doing them. But whether this is an error of judgement (or a moral question as you said earlier) depends on whether the thing you want to avoid doing is really bad for you or immoral in the first place. For example for people within an anorexic mindset, following your advice would mean not dwelling on their hunger. For people within certain religious mindsets, following your advice would mean suppressing their sexual feelings. I don't think 'any sane person' would see this as a good move, only those who share the same mindset.

1. You are viewing this as being about one group tolerating the norms and ideas of another group. It really isn't. If is about the principle of individual human rights. People can do whatever they like with their idea of community as long as it doesn't infringe the rights of others (whether members or non-members of that community). It is where ideas of community conflict with individual human rights that there is an issue (for example a community norm that it is legitimate for employers to have an interest in a person's sexuality conflicts with individual's rights to non-discrimination, a community norm that it is a husband's role to physically chastise his wife conflicts with her rights).

Of course some communities/religions don't respect universal individual human rights. But this is not a cause for tolerance.