ScreamingEagle said:
Man, you can really run with your analyzing. :clap1: Great response, however the short reply is, despite your attempts, I can't really see where you actually disproved my theory. It appears to me that you just basically sidestepped it - quite adroitly. You did this by assuming your "option" of variation of meaning to the word secularism, built on that, and thus wiggled free. The fact that secularism has different variations of meaning is something I mentioned a while back, I might add.
I'll try again--shorter version, less rambling.
ScreamingEagle said:
If you think Atheism is a religion, then why can't we also define Secularism as a religion?
Definitions:
religion: A personal set of formalized attitudes, beliefs, and practices based on a statement of faith.
faith: Firm belief in something for which there is no proof.
secularism: (per Webster)
1. worldly spirit, views, or the like: esp., a system of doctrines and practices that disregards or rejects any form of religious faith and worship
2. the belief that religion and ecclesiastical affairs should not enter into the functions of the state, esp. into public education.
Line if reasoning:
Secularism is a doctrine based on worldly spirit or views, and rejects - without any proof - that God does not exist within that worldly spirit or views.
You have faith, or a firm belief, in secularism - which has no basis of proof.
Therefore secularism is a form of religion.
I reject your definition thus: In order for secularism to be religion by the definitions of religion and faith you provided--and I am constrained to agree with--"[rejection of] any form of religious faith and worship" must be rejected upon a statement of faith. Besides being internally contradictory (a religion that rejects religion), your definition fails to provide the statement of faith neccessary to assert secularism as a religion. I doubt you can come up with one that won't beg the question.
I disprove your theory thus: Your insistence that secularism neccessarily rejects religion is inconsistent with the verifiable fact that secularists practice various religions--including those that assert God exists. As secularists do not necessarily reject religion, your theory that secularism is a religion-the religion that rejects religion-fails the test of proof that merely requires the existence of those who practice religion and believe on faith that God exists,
and on rational grounds, that religion has limits--even if they believe God doesn't.
MissileMan said:
The incorrect assumption by one person that secularism is a religion doesn't make it so. Calling the "desire to maintain a separation of religion and government" a "government sanctioned religion" is the epitome of contradiction.
Well spoken. I don't know who Robert Green Ingersoll is. And his authority, premises for his assertion that
"Secularism is the religion of humanity;...", and his definitions are all in question--is he using the same definitions you and I are using? Is he an Atheist extremeist hijacking secularism in the manner
white-supremacists hijack Christianity? I don't know--but I
do know that assholes using rational argument doesn't make rational people assholes.
ScreamingEagle said:
That Other Church
"For each element in the Judeo-Christian family of faiths, secularism has its counterpart: a strict ethical code, albeit focusing on health issues ("Thou shalt not smoke," etc.); the use of shame when individuals disregard ethical rules (e.g. fat people); a related promise of eternal life through medical advances; a creation story (Darwinian evolution); and so forth. All that's missing is a deity, but not every religion has one, as the case of Zen Buddhism attests."
Allow me to presume it's not neccessary for me to deconstruct this bullshit for you now.
ScreamingEagle said:
The government, by favoring Secularism, is actually establishing a religion. And by doing this, it is also violating our Constitutional right to free expression of our various personal religions.
Nope.
Hobbit said:
Secularism fits the dictionary definition of a religion. The fact that all secularists refute this fact because being in a religion is supposedly evil is the joke.
You have fallen into the trap of the dumbs. Would you assert that apostates using Christian arguments for apostacy are Christians? If not, why would you assert that secularists using Atheist arguments for secularism are Atheists?
rtwngAvngr said:
This whole discussion has gotten bogged down in definitions.
The POINT is we have a public set of rules, I loosely call them morals, public morals. Where do PUBLIC morals come from?
Rational principles.
