dmb said to Steve:
.... Secularism is the notion that religion needs to be stamped out? According
to my dictionary, that's just not what the word means. "secular, adjective 1
denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or
spiritual basis : secular buildings | secular moral theory. Contrasted with
sacred .2 Christian Church (of clergy) not subject to or bound by religious
rule; not belonging to or living in a monastic or other order. Contrasted with
regular."
Steve replied:
Looking up "secular" because you want to understand what it means to be a
secularist is something like looking up "material" because you want to know
what it is to be a materialist, isn't it?
dmb says:
Not at all. I'm saying that you have a very distrorted idea of secularism, that
it simply does not mean what you say it means. I'm saying that you have
invented a straw man. You are doing battle with a position held by no one.
Steve said:
... To be charitable toward your sensibilities I will discuss the issue as
"militant secularism" to distinguish it from whatever more innocuous version of
secularism you may have in mind. By militant secularism I am referring to the
worst possible implications of Sam Harris's claim that we have lost the right
to our myths. I am not sure that it is what Harris intends, but a militant
secularist would be willing to use the coersive power of the government to
enforce limits on political discourse.
dmb says:
There's the straw man again. Can you think of an example of an actual "militant
secularist"? I can't. And I suspect that there is no such person. Not to
mention the fact that you've slandered Sam Harris, who very far from being a
militant anything. I think he's a perfectly reasonable man who has no intention
of picking up a gun. Like I said, the definition you've used as a premise is
actually quite biased. It is not really a definition so much as a paranoid
distortion and a slanderous attack.
Steve said:
Is the establishment clause all that is needed to protect government and
religion from one another? Both the militant secularists and the theocrats say,
"no." The militant secularist thinks that religion itself is a grave threat to
democracy. ...These are the extremes of the debate. Both sides think that
democracy will not be safe until the other side is erradicated. Both exist in
part as a response to the other.
dmb says:
Sorry but I just don't believe you. Who are these militant secularists? Can you
name anyone or anything in particular? Seriously. I think you're just making
stuff up. The most outspoken atheist in the country, Sam Harris, is no where
near the extreme position you've painted. If there is someone who can rightly
be described the way you have described "militant atheism", I'd surely like to
know about it.
Steve said:
I agree completely. I think the new theocrats are delusional when they paint
Christians as a persecuted minority. Nevertheless, there it is, and we feed
into this delusion when we atheists complain about the prez saying "God Bless
America" and take credit for the degree of secularization of political
discourse that has occurred. ... If atheists are seen as militant secularists,
as seeking to actively oppose religion as such, is it any wonder that an
atheist who is honest about her lack of belief cannot be elected? Why would a
broadly religious populace want to elect someone who will work on their behalf
to destroy all religion? Do you see why we can't be seen in that light? I am
saying that we need to concern ourselves with the perception of being militant
secularists if we can hope for an honest atheist in high office.
dmb says:
If the perception of persecution is delusional - and I definitely think it is
delusional - then why should we be concerned? Why buy into a view that simply
doesn't comport with reality? Sorry, Steve, but I think your position on this
is unhelpful and even a bit irrational. I think Sam Harris has it right. He
wants us to put conversational pressure on religious people. He wants them to
be held to the same standard as everyone else because, as he sees it, they have
been given preferential treatment for too long already. It's simply not fair to
cut them so much slack as if there views were automatically above reproach.
Accommodating their paranoid delusions is probably the worst way to respond,
for example. If they're talking nonsense, why in the world is it wrong to say
so?
Steve said:
DMB, you must be aware of bigotry toward nonbelievers? We often call them
irrational and delusional, weak minded and cowardly, no? Dawkins has said all
those things and more. Haven't some of us delighted in Voltaire's imagine of
the last king being strangled by the entrails of the last priest?
dmb says:
It seems you meant to ask about the atheists bigotry toward believers. Sorry,
but I think you're buying into their distortions in this case too. Name-calling
aside, is it really fair to say your political opponents are bigoted? By
definition, he's your opponent because he thinks you're wrong. Are the two
political parties just different kinds of bigots? And if an atheist can never
win political office in this country, then whose bigotry is more effective? No,
my friend. We are allowed to disagree with and even disrespect each other's
views. In fact, if we're going to have an honest debate then these unpleasant
things are inevitable. I think that part of Sam Harris's point is that certain
views have been artificially protected from scrutiny by a demand for tolerance
and respect for religious views. To that end, open disagreement is construed as
"bigotry". That's not fair. Sure wish I could declare all your disagreements as
bigotry. That would make things real easy for me but
that's just not how it works. See, I think the establishment clause sits right
there next to the rights of free speech and of the press for a reason.
Secularism means ideas - religious or otherwise - have to compete on their own
merits. Nobody get the laws or armies or cops to back up their views. They
persuade or they don't. They work or they don't. They make sense or they don't.
I think religious freedom means we're supposed to work it out for ourselves and
we're supposed to slug it out in public too. Harris writes books and gives
speeches. To call him a "militant" anything is just a meaningless insult.
Steve said:
As for anti-democratic leanings, Sam Harris is viewed by many as the poster
child for religious intolerance.
Quotes from the End of Faith: Sam wrote "Intolerance is...intrinsic to every
creed." If _all_ religion is intolerant, ought it not be erradicated? "Should
Mulsims really be _free_ to believe that the Creator of the universe is
concerned about hemlines?"
"We have simply lost the _right_ to our myths?"
Now, I don't think that Harris means that anything coercive ought to be done.
I'm a huge fan of Sam Harris. I am convinced that all Harris wants is
conversation. But can you not see how he and others can often be read as
proposing something more?
dmb says:
The leap from wanting conversation to the eradication of all religion is fairly
ridiculous and we ought not calculate our rhetoric to meet the demands of such
a ridiculous interpreter. Sam is only saying what any reasonable person already
knows. It is simply a fact that any group is defined by the people who are and
are not in it. And since religious deals with ultimate matters like good and
evil, the out-groups are seen as wrong in very fundamental ways. I mean, let's
face facts here Steve. The history of Western civilization is up to it's
eyeballs in blood over this stuff. The first amendment was written with that
history in mind, that's for sure. That's what Sam wants to eradicate. His is a
simple statement of opposition to religious bigotry. And if a guy tells you
what God's preference is with respect to your clothes, I think you are well
within your rights to tell him how crazy that makes him sound. Maybe you even
have a responsibility to challenge such nonsense, especia
lly when it means your obedience to that nonsense. If he's free to say that
and believe that, then the women with the hemlines are not free to say or
believe otherwise. Is that just me imposing my values on them or is it actually
wrong in some real way? I think it really is wrong. And we are wrong if we fail
to stand up against it. It's wrong to respect that or tolerate that. In case
you're tempted to conclude this is a plan for genocide, I'm only talking about
conversational pressure here, and not anything else.
Don't get me wrong. Anyone can see how a certain kind of religious person would
be offended by Sam Harris. He thinks people in our culture can get away with
believing some very unbelievable things and those things also happen to inform
public policies. The Tea Party candidate in Nevada, for example. If her
religious views can impact federal law, why in the world should such views be
off limits? Is it just my liberal bias or is it actually wrong to force women
to bare their rapist's child? Should we just tolerate that view? What sane
person wants to give that view a voice in the U.S. Senate? Nah, I think it's
okay if we say she's not good enough to represent any state in the union. She's
crazy and cruel and not too sharp neither. Why is wrong to say so, especially
when it's true? I really don't that. We can't go along and get along with that
in our politics.
Steve asked if Plutocrats and the bible-thumpers are:
_natural_ bed-fellows? Is there something inherent in religion that makes it
supportive of plutocracy over democracy? Does religion as such need to be
opposed to protect democracy from theocracy and plutocracy? There is something
very unpragmatic about the notion that religion is _essentially_ bad. As
pragmatists, we don't think that religion is _essentially_ anything. Militant
secularism comes in when we start to think that religion as such is the problem
rather than some particular ways of being religious.
dmb says:
Uh, oh. Watch out for those militant essentialist with their radical
secularism. Sorry, but your concerns seem to be coming right out the the
religious right's playbook and I think it's a whole lot of hooey. The
Plutocrats have them in their pockets because they paid good money for them.
The Tea Party itself is basically the product of public relations agency, which
creates fake grassroots movements for any cause that's willing to pay for it.
Republican campaigns have been one long sales pitch since we were babies. When
Johnson backed civil right the Republicans developed their "Southern Strategy",
which meant they were going to win with the bigoted vote. At the time, Johnson
thought his Party had lost the south for a generation. Then Lee Atwater came
along and really cranked things up during the Reagan era and Rove is the
present king of that sort of sleaze. That was almost fifty years ago. It's all
well documented if you're interested. There's an interesting book called "Ho
w the South Finally Won the Civil War" that tells this same story in an even
larger historical context.
Anyway, this is about a certain reactionary style of religion as it relates to
our politics. The question about the inherent worth of religion as religion is
another question altogether. The value and validity of philosophical mysticism,
for example, is not about the influence of social institutions. In politics
it's used to pit people against one another. The phrase "militant secularist"
works for that purpose. It doesn't really represent anything or anyone as far
as I can tell. It's good at conjuring up something scary. You know, like
secular humanism, godless humanism and other phrases, it comes from a group of
believers telling you how bad those unbelievers are, those other guys.
But seriously, is there anyone in this world who sincerely describes himself
that way? Maybe you could find some sassy blogger somewhere but it sounds made
up. If it weren't so implausible I might even think it was produced for buck or
two.
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