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Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 17:09:23 +0530
From: "Sandeep Heble" <[email protected]>
This is the path that most modern progressive Western democracies followed when
they adopted a model of secularism that was essentially anti-religion and if we
want to prevent communal clashes from happening this is the path that India
will need to emulate.
Mario responds:
Sandeep,
Buried deep within your philosophical ruminations I often find some gratuitous
chaff among the wheat that are whimsically created out of whole cloth. Your
sentiments may not rise to the level of religious antipathy, but they come
awfully close. I pointed out one instance recently where you turned an
anti-religious insult completely on its head, using your personal presumptions
to try and explain what another poster had not said. Another example is shown
above.
Secularism is the notion that religion should be excluded from official
governmental decision-making and institutions. This is a good thing. Nowhere
in true secularism is there any hint of an essential "anti-religious"
sentiment. In fact, true secularism allows unfettered religious practice but
keeps it out of the public domain.
For example, in a modern cradle of implacable secularism, religion makes only
one direct and obvious appearance in the original US Constitution that seems to
point to a desire for some degree of religious freedom. That appearance is in
Article 6, at the end of the third clause:
"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or
public Trust under the United States."
The First Amendment to the US Constitution refers to religion thus:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."
That's it. Short aand sweet but saying it all.
Thus a) a person's religion is not permitted as a qualification for any public
office, and b) the US legislature can pass no law establishing any particular
religion, or prohibiting the free excercise of a citizen's choice of a
religion, or, by extension, atheism.
I wouldn't consider any of this anti-religion, just the opposite; it prohibits
government from interfering in a citizen's religious choice or practice.
