“Religious people” is pretty vague I think. I don’t know how many are against secularism. Do they fear it or do they think that the state doesn’t care enough about people and they themselves are marginalised in terms of input?

"Religious" people are as diverse as the day is long, for starters. So let's consider that. However, the common element is that they usually believe there is a Creator God who wishes us to live and conduct ourselves in a certain way, or at least to avoid certain egregious things. Sometimes, again depending on doctrine, certain failures to do so result in either lack of reward or often punishment. So that's bad. It's not hard to understand.

Without going on too much about what is and what isn't, what's realistic and what's not, etc, I offer the following simple and understandable anecdotes. A long time ago, before science, medicine, technology, and any of that, when the first civilizations and societies first started taking root, observations and patterns that could not be explained where noticed. For example, if you were uncleanly or kept garbage and rotting organic matter around or otherwise did a poor job at sanitation, you most likely were more at risk of becoming sick or contracting an infection. How else could someone explain this at such a time? Perhaps, God wants us to be clean, tidy, and orderly, and avoid the deadly sin of Sloth, otherwise we would be punished, often severely, perhaps even fatally. It made sense, and dang it it worked and saved lives.

Now, these days with all the science and knowledge readily available, such knowledge that (I recall hearing this quote once and though it is memorable enough for me to deem it worthy and relevant of posting here and now, cannot seem to recall from where it was from..) "the average schoolboy is now familiar with facts that Archimedes would have gave his life for"... there seems to be less room for faith. Now, imagine, today in some third world country. A man is being attacked by a larger assailant and is about to be fatally killed in front of many shocked onlookers frozen and pacified by fear. He screams out to the Heavens, and the assailant is struck dead by an inexplicable bolt of lightning from the sky. What are the odds? Slim to none. Therefore, a miracle. Proof of God. Even the most educated, snobbish, and otherwise rational man couldn't help but ponder for at least a moment over the phenomenal chances such an event would occur. This is how legends are born. Granted, most self-determined affirmations of faith are far less remarkable than this. Often a simple predicament solved unexpectedly or slightly annoying situation turned in ones favor. However, faith is faith.

So, it depends on what one believes is the will of said higher power. I suppose more importantly, what is the punishment dealt when certain commandments are broken. It's an act and viewpoint of compassion more so than not. Save for those who just like to milk and cattle-prod the gullible. Of which there are many.

What I suppose is going on is that religious folks draw part of their identity from religion whichever among the many thousands that may be. Religion is part of who they are - it defines them so to speak. Naturally criticizing religion would be taken as a personal affront.

Secularism, as per Wikipedia, is a vague concept but one thing is for certain, it demands the separation of church and state. Assuming the religious take an interest in that particular secular stipulation and they might very well do since such can be construed as the first step in the encroachment of the secular front into their lives which they would, predictably, regard as the beginning of the end of their way of life. In a sense the separation of church and state is kinda like the fort that sits right on the disputed border between religious and secular folks and the natural instinct is for one side to capture it and the other side to defend it (to the death I presume).

The question is

What might religious people have against secularism? — TiredThinker

There are certainly religious people who have disliked secular life. Some examples I'm aware of:

1. Totalitarianism, especially in the American Midwest and some countries in the Middle East: the religious person believes that everyone should be of their religion and is affronted by non-believers. See apostasy.

2. Blasphemy: the religious person believes that the moral laws regarding their religion apply to all and are offended by failure to adopt them. This is more incidental than (1). See jihad.

3. Power: the religious person believes secular changes or expansion are an existential threat to their religion's perceived authority. See the Holy Inquisition.

4. Cultural conservativism: the religious person believes secular changes or expansionism are an existential threat to their culture. See Intelligent Design.

5. Personal continuity: disagreement fails to reinforce the beliefs one has in the way that consensus does.

Every single one of these exists entirely within secular life as well. Soccer fans assaulting one another because they support different teams. Post-genderists attacking people for using gendered pronouns. American hysteria about communists under their beds. The Welsh. Even the Welsh don't *want* to speak Welsh -- who would? -- they just don't want to speak English even more. Pretty much every argument on the internet ever.

The problem with religious people is largely that they're people.

As noted above, "secularism" and "religious" are vague terms. "religious" can cover everything from people who are vaguely and slightly spiritual to the rigidly devout who pray, attend religious services daily, and read scripture. "Secular" runs the same gamut on the other side.

Actually, though, a lot of secular people are religious and a lot of religious people are secular. Conundrum? Contradiction in terms? Nonsense? No, because in (most) western societies secularism is the dominant principle of society which, by design, leaves room for religious practice--as long as it doesn't impinge on secularism. So, in France the largely secular society keeps religious out of state affairs (no crucifixes or hijabs in school, for instance). In the US, where religious participation is higher than in most states, the borders between religion and state are policed by both sides.

How can religious people be secular? They don't expect the state to fulfill specific religious objectives, such as evangelizing the population or restricting activities they consider sinful (like drinking, gambling, non-marital and gay sex, etc.). What religious people can do, and sometimes do quite vigorously, is pressure the state to perform social programs that benefit the whole.

That said, there are exceptions; the biggest one is the struggle to allow, or deny, abortions which on one side is a secular principle, and on the other side a decidedly spiritual one. Gay rights, even gay tolerance, is another secular-religious fight.

The religious

secularism is the dominant principle of society which, by design, leaves room for religious practice — Bitter Crank

This is the meat of the issue. Secularism tolerates and makes room for religion which it regards as just another one of the many different human perspectives on life. Religion is, in the eyes of secularism, no different than communism or socialism - it's just one of the many ideologies that are around. In true secular spirit religion is then not just tolerated as I said before but also encouraged to flourish in every sense of that word.

The problem is religions claim to be the sole purveryor/source of truths, infallible truths at that and this invariably puts them at odds with other viewpoints including but not limited to their own mindset. This can't be allowed if only for the reason that religion, despite what their proponents loudly proclaim, isn't without flaws, flaws that are, going by the many atheist channels on youtube, too obvious to miss. This is where secularism comes in - as a safeguard against countries becoming theocracies, theocracies founded on and guided misguided by what is an error-ridden take on life.

Pity to cast the question in terms of 'religious people v secular people'. Immediately sets up the whole question as one of identity politics.

Of course for both there is a continuum of views, individual by individual. And secularity vs. religiosity have contended with each other for far longer than identity politics have been in play. Like, French Revolution?

I am unanimously in opposition to theocracies of any kind. I'm equally against religious viewpoints getting their hog's snout into the secular statehouse. Wishy-washy religion (like mainstream-protestantism) is less harm-prone than turbo-catholicism, the fecal-fundamentalism of either Christianity or Islam, not to pardon the religions not mentioned.

Secular governments are not supposed to engage with religion, either to advance or repress it. But the overheated extreme is a risk to secularism, even if there is no risk of theocracy. NGOs, however, are not excluded from engaging with religion. I'd like to see more and vigorous advocacy of secularism to counter the hog snout trying to get the whole pig into statehouses.

Religious people invented the Secular.
After centuries of war, the idea that we could agree to disagree was developed. It was adopted in a grudging manner. Nobody proclaimed it as its own place.
The idea is in need of further development.

But the point is, discussing the issue is one thing, but casting it in terms of 'religious people as opposed to secular people' already injects an air of adversity into the discussion.

At any rate, I have Charles Taylor's enormous A Secular Age, which is pretty near 1,000 pages, and about what it takes to really dissect this issue, which is of interest to me. But a column I often refer to is a NY Times OP from about 10 years ago, Does Reason Know what it is Missing? It discusses Habermas' late-in-life acknowledgement of the continuing role of religion in culture. In his criticism of secularism as a philosophy, he says:

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”

Postmodernism announces (loudly and often) that a supposedly neutral, objective rationality is always a construct informed by interests it neither acknowledges nor knows nor can know. Meanwhile science goes its merry way endlessly inventing and proliferating technological marvels without having the slightest idea of why. The “naive faith” Habermas criticizes is not a faith in what science can do — it can do anything — but a faith in science’s ability to provide reasons, aside from the reason of its own keeping on going, for doing it and for declining to do it in a particular direction because to do so would be wrong.

The counterpart of science in the political world is the modern Liberal state, which, Habermas reminds us, maintains “a neutrality . . . towards world views,” that is, toward comprehensive visions (like religious visions) of what life means, where it is going and what we should be doing to help it get there. The problem is that a political structure that welcomes all worldviews into the marketplace of ideas, but holds itself aloof from any and all of them, will have no basis for judging the outcomes its procedures yield. Worldviews bring with them substantive long-term goals that serve as a check against local desires. Worldviews furnish those who live within them with reasons that are more than merely prudential or strategic for acting in one way rather than another.

The Liberal state, resting on a base of procedural rationality, delivers no such goals or reasons and thus suffers, Habermas says, from a “motivational weakness”; it cannot inspire its citizens to virtuous (as opposed to self-interested) acts because it has lost “its grip on the images, preserved by religion, of the moral whole” and is unable to formulate “collectively binding ideals.” — Stanley Fish

— Stanley Fish — Wayfarer

Is this the same Fish that Camille Paglia characterized as a "totalitarian tinkerbell"?

'religious people as opposed to secular people' already injects an air of adversity into the discussion. — Wayfarer

It seems like secularists and religionists have opposed each other for quite some time.

Granting that humanism is the dominant 'religion,' does it know where it's going? Does it lack self-consciousness? Given the gloomy mood of our times, I'd say that it knows that it doesn't know where it is going. It does not lack self-consciousness. Don't expect thinkers in high places to be too gloomy or vulnerable, though. Part of their job is propping up what's left of this amusement park.

How many people earnestly wrestle with the big issues now and then, suffer a terrible vision of world and their own complicity, and then flee to some private, ultimately narcissistic project in order to stay sane? I think of the world as a gleaming machine that is larger than any of us. We are its teeth and its food.

I have never read anything else by Stanley Fish, although I frequently refer to a great Paglia essay, Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in the American 60’s.

I think of the world as a gleaming machine that is larger than any of us. We are its teeth and its food. — five G

Hi again. Nice moniker.

It seems like secularists and religionists have opposed each other for quite some time. — Bitter Crank

Might be worth saying a few words about the meaning of ‘secular’. According to one scholar, secular means

1) the separation of religious institutions from the institutions of the state; 2) freedom of conscience for all individuals, circumscribed only by the need for public order and the respect of the rights of other individuals; 3) no discrimination by the state against individuals on the basis of their beliefs.

The ‘secular calendar’ was originally distinguished from the ‘religious calendar’, being a calendar used to manage the collections of taxes, mark public holidays without reference to their religious origins, and so on.

Another aspect of the secular state is that it is concerned with providing the economic and physical infrastructure within which citizens are free to practice any religion or none.

However there are also philosophical aspects. There is a kind of ‘evangelical secularism’ typified by atheist intellectuals like Dawkins and Dennett, which is actively hostile to religion. There is also a sense in which ‘secular philosophy’ nowadays marks off certain ideas which are not acceptable to secular sensibilities. The argument over the factuality of re-birth in Buddhism by 'secular Buddhists' is an example.

Personally, I’m all for the secular state, but reserve my right to question secular philosophy from a non-secular perspective.

2) freedom of conscience for all individuals, circumscribed only by the need for public order and the respect of the rights of other individuals;

In this video, Hariri suggests in different words the dominant but endangered religion of our times is liberalism/humanism, by which he basically means 'freedom of conscience.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6BK5Q_Dblo

In a democracy, the truth is (ideally) crowd-sourced. 'You can't fool all of the people all of the time.' Peer-review is essential for science, and machine learning takes this implicitly statistical principle to extremes.

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. — Stanley Fish

The little people all feel cheated. Who or what is cheating them varies: this is the age of 10,000 religions, if not 10,000,000. Freedom of conscience means everyone synthesizes their own. I suspect a love-hate relationship with this situation is common. The problem is the solution: humans just manage to get reabsorbed in the daily detail...or perhaps in the instrumental progress of science (nevermind the threats of perfected dystopian surveillance and control or the information Apocalypse, etc.) That's the genius and trouble with secularism. We don't bother to figure out where it's all going, perhaps because it's impossible. One generation passes on the machine to the next.

It's glorious and obscene.

Another aspect of the secular state is that it is concerned with providing the economic and physical infrastructure within which citizens are free to practice any religion or none. — Wayfarer

While I agree, this leaves out that this infrastructure is itself at the heart of current 'religious' controversy. 'Tax the rich' is a theological proposal, I suggest, along with environmental concerns, etc. As Harari argues, communism was an updated religion responding to the industrial revolution. What creeps me out is the data-ism he sees coming. In short, he expects us to begin looking not at the free human conscience for authority (an evaporating myth, in his view) but rather to fresher algorithms (he stresses the dogma of current life science that life is a biochemical algorithm.) Last but not least, he also stresses that religions need not be true in order to function and even dominate (his own preferences aren't clear.)

I got given Harari's book for Christmas year before last. Can't say I took to it. Erudite and scientifically informed but shallow, in my opinion.

We don't bother to figure out where it's all going, perhaps because it's impossible. — five G

Isn't that the 'creative destruction of capitalism?' Constantly reinventing itself, always rushing towards the new, the new tomorrow, the new product, the new idea. John Coltrane, jazz saxophinist, was tormented by having to reinvent music all the time, jazz became cliched - as soon as it was recorded it was no longer sufficiently new.

he also stresses that religions need not be true in order to function and even dominate — five G

Theology and religion are like ossified relics. But, of what? An image that comes to mind is a ruin which everyone passes by, but there's wall at back, and you explore it, and one day you topple some blocks of ancient stone, and lo! There's iight and a waft of incense. There's something behind there - what is that?

I had an epiphany from reading H P Lovecraft once. The protagonist would enter other realms of being through dreams. They weren't simply dream states or hallucinations, he actually vogaged to these realms through dreams. I think any kind of mystical transport will be like that. It will be an awareness of entire domain or realm of being which all us mortals, the hoi polloi, would never be aware of. Not anywhere spatio-temporal but on a different plane altogether. Those who visit come back speaking of visions, and we think they're seeing things or making it up.

Actually the final myth of secularism is space travel, really. The conquest of the stars. I'm sure it's the sublimated longing for heaven or 'the life eternal' in material form.


Arthur C. Clarke, Rendevouz with Rama, Artists Impression

So religions feel secularism is taking from their authority over people? I know from chapter 4 of "Bowling alone" it discusses how churches primarily handle charities that which deal in poverty, hunger, etc. Would a person of a more religious orientation versus say simply "spiritual" say the secular people who aren't devoted to religion are less caring or else these issues wouldn't require the churches attention?

I think @Kenosha Kid’s response sums things up pretty well, but I would add the idea that some religions advocate for the spreading of their message. This, as well as other things, can lead some followers to aggressively pursue converting nonbelievers to their religion. From their perspective they are doing God’s work, and even acting as a sort of savior for the nonbelievers, since if they continued in their nonbelief they would suffer the consequences of an eternity in hell. However, from the nonbeliever’s perspective this often comes across as hostile, and indeed sometimes it is. I think this situation can be especially difficult for devoutly religious people who have people they deeply care about that are nonbelievers. They likely do not want to think that the person they love will go to hell when they die, so they try their best to “save” them, but, sadly, I don’t think that usually ends so well for their relationship.

Isn't that the 'creative destruction of capitalism?' Constantly reinventing itself, always rushing towards the new, the new tomorrow, the new product, the new idea. John Coltrane, jazz saxophinist, was tormented by having to reinvent music all the time, jazz became cliched - as soon as it was recorded it was no longer sufficiently new. — Wayfarer

That's a good theme. One of the things that torments/amuses me is that angst-ridden critics of capitalism are also its products. One can become rich and famous by mocking wealth and fame, calling out shallowness and hypocrisy. Even if one gives the money away, the social capital remains. So the private conscience ends up questioning its motives. Is critique one more play for status? Or, along the same lines, is gloomy existentialism (or its update) about seduction? The private conscience can devour itself along these lines, providing the kind of fireworks that keep that product from going stale.

They weren't simply dream states or hallucinations, he actually vogaged to these realms through dreams. I think any kind of mystical transport will be like that. It will be an awareness of entire domain or realm of being which all us mortals, the hoi polloi, would never be aware of. Not anywhere spatio-temporal but on a different plane altogether. Those who visit come back speaking of visions, and we think they're seeing things or making it up.

Actually the final myth of secularism is space travel, really. The conquest of the stars. I'm sure it's the sublimated longing for heaven or 'the life eternal' in material form. — Wayfarer

I suppose we only consider dreams unreal because they aren't public. From the outside, such a voyage must be a 'hallucination' for those who didn't or can't share it. People might believe and envy the dreamer/voyager while being locked outside those realms.

It occurs to me that anyone is 'saved' by genuine faith. Even conspiracy theorists are 'saved' to the degree that the world makes sense to them and they enjoy a sense of shared, grand meaning. The difference is whether empirical claims are involved. Your voyager reminds me of virtual reality.

You mention the stars, and that makes sense to me in terms of the need for a frontier. But my money is on biotech and the quest for eternal youth. Right now even Bezos can't pay off cruel Father Time. Think of Brave New World. Or the movie Get Out. I can imagine the vampire as the overman. If somehow aging were conquered for all humans, we need a frontier to make space for everyone. I don't think people would forgo the joys of parenthood, especially if aging was conquered in advance for next generation.

Erudite and scientifically informed but shallow, in my opinion. — Wayfarer

I've just seen the video, but I am also repulsed by a kind of shallowness...not his but of the vision of data-ism which really seems plausible (we are already on the way.) But then I formed myself during the age humanism.

At the same time, a Star Trek future has a certain appeal, if we could manage it. What Star Trek couldn't anticipate was the evolution of our self-conception. Transcending racism and sexism is just projecting a purified humanism into the future. What we are faced with is the 'end of man' in a certain sense (the 'divine' private mind/conscience.)