Secularism, what is that really?

Okay, let me put it upfront that the article I'll be referring to is old news, really old news, like 2009 old news. Unfortunately, the nonsense in the article is not unnecessarily old. It does seem that Christians in Singapore are importing American Evangelical nonsense. I will use this opportunity to clarify what secularism is and is not.

There seems to be few sources that have the interview of Thio Li-Ann archived. So I'll be using this one archived by AWARE. It should be sufficient for my purposes since I'm not going to be deconstructing the whole interview. If you want that, then I would recommend this other blog's post - it's quite well done I think.

Historically, ‘secularism’ originates from the Latin ‘saeculum’, meaning ‘temporal’, worldly affairs, rather than ‘spiritual’, other-worldly matters. The word ‘secular’ is an emblem of intense historical conflict.

Today, in some circles, ‘secularism’ connotes systematic hostility towards religion, as a synonym for a politicised form of ideological atheism whose creed is that humanity is destined to wholly shed religious conviction. The atheistic word was made flesh in the atheistic state produced by the Russian Revolution of 1917, devoted to Marx’s assumption that religion stupefies the masses and must be eradicated to bring forth the new Communist Man.

......

In 1989, Foreign Minister George Yeo observed the Government was ‘secular but it is certainly not atheistic’. This evinces a rejection of a thick, atheistic version of secularism.

Here is a truncated quote from the interview. Notice the attempt to confuse and conflate atheism and secularism?

Guess what? Secularism and atheism are two completely different things. This attempt to confuse the issue is a dishonest ploy to evoke feelings of opposition to secularism from religious folks.

For the record, if the state/government endorses atheism or antitheism, it is by definition, NOT secular. As such, there is NO such thing as an "atheistic version of secularism". Secularity of the government only means that the government just remain neutral in matters pertaining to the religious beliefs of its citizens.

Secular humanism, which posits a morality independent of God, is a comprehensive anti-theistic world view. Some courts recognise it as a religion. It dogmatically asserts the absence of God, without any empirical evidence. We know from elementary logic that it is impossible to prove a universal negative. Whether God exists or not cannot be proved or disproved by evidence or logic.

It takes faith to believe or not to believe in God or gods. A lot of faith is needed to believe there is no divine. As Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol wrote: ‘It is the atheist’s opium to regard that unsubstantiated faith as established fact.’ Thick secularism is thus an anti-religion religion.

Again, an attempt to conflate secularism with atheism, this time, as well as Secular Humanism.

It's important to go through this point by point to clarify the confusion about Secular Humanism.

Secular humanism, which posits a morality independent of God, is a comprehensive anti-theistic world view.

Secular Humanism is atheistic in nature though not necessarily antitheistic.

Here is the Minimum Statement on Humanism:

Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.

Secular Humanists themselves may be antitheistic but it is not a dogmatic requirement of the stance. In fact, Secular Humanism rejects dogmas.

Some courts recognise it as a religion.

The recognition of Secular Humanism as a "religion" is for functional reasons in the eyes of the law.

It dogmatically asserts the absence of God, without any empirical evidence.

No, it doesn't. That has it ass backwards.

Precisely because there is no empirical evidence FOR the existence of god(s), Secular Humanists do not believe there is/are god(s). The distinction between "do not believe in the existence of god" and "believe there are no gods" is subtle but still important! We simply do not pretend there is one (or more gods) - instead we believe only we, humans, can help ourselves (hence the humanist aspect).

We know from elementary logic that it is impossible to prove a universal negative. Whether God exists or not cannot be proved or disproved by evidence or logic.

Gee, except that's not what we're claiming - we haven't disproved god nor can we.

While we can't prove (in correct usage of the word) the existence of god(s), we should be able to demonstrate IF he/she/it exist. But we haven't; Still waiting for those people with the burden of proof to bring in the evidence.

And now we'll move onto the rest of the nonsense.

Secular democracies should be neutral not only between traditional religions but also regarding modern religions with atheistic foundations.

What in the world is "modern religions with atheistic foundations"? Some forms of Buddhism is atheistic but that sure isn't modern.

Again, it seems that this is yet another attempt to claim that atheism somehow constitutes a religion. Well, it isn't. Being an atheist effectively means having no religion. Lacking belief in god makes you an atheist; No rational atheist asserts that god(s) do not exist and even those who do make that assertion are not organising a religion!

But let's move straight to most important part, the biggest "misunderstanding",

Thus, Singapore secularism is 'agnostic' and 'thin'. The Government does not favour or disfavour any particular religion. We practise 'accommodative secularism' described by the Court of Appeal as removing restrictions to one's choice of religious belief. Religious values do have a role in public debate.

Agnostic secularism of this sort is a virtue; it is a 'framework' which facilitates the peaceful co-existence of religions.

Conversely, militant secularism is an illiberal and undemocratic vice in seeking to gag religious views in the public square and so to privilege its atheistic values, as in communist states.

Secular fundamentalists are oppressive where they seek to mute religiously informed convictions in public debate, by demonising a view as religious.

The distinction between "accommodative" and "millitant" secularism is fucking nonsense.

Okay, I won't be quoting anymore. Here on is my explanation for secularism.

Secularism is one of the constitutional devices that sought to protect the people from the state (government) and vice versa, in this case, from religious discrimination. It means that the state must remain neutral towards religion, that is, the state cannot endorse any religions (no preferential treatment, no favorite or state religion) and cannot discriminate against any religion. This guarantees freedom of religion (as well as from religion).

Maybe it would be clearer if I used hypothetical examples.

It means the government cannot come out tomorrow and announce that Buddhism is the state religion of Singapore and its temples will now enjoy tax free status that other religions are not entitled.

It means the state cannot proclaim that we have amended the Singapore Pledge and it will now read:

We, the citizens of Singapore,
accept our Lord Jesus Christ as our one and only savior,
regardless of race, language or gender,

It means we cannot write into our law that all pork and pig related products shall be banned and no non-halal stalls will ever be permitted.

It means the Prime Minister cannot proclaim that we will now endorse state atheism and will now print "One Nation under No Gods" on our dollar bills.

Clearer now?

Secularism also means that members of the government cannot inject their religion into our constitution, our laws or anything endorsed by the government.

We may not inject Creationism into our national Science curriculum at our public schools.

We may not criminalized abortion on the basis of any religious doctrine.

We may not discriminate against homosexuals on the basis of any holy text.

We may not allow state-led prayer in our Parliament or public schools.

And yes, those examples come from America where religious nuts are trying to destroy the secularity of the USA.

To put it simply, secularism means you cannot impose your religious views on others via the government but neither can the government tell you what you can or cannot believe/do because of someone else's religion.

I hope you can see that that's a good thing, otherwise, you might be a bigot or possibly a theocrat... just guessing...

Violating Secularity, not actually

Sorry, this is old news. Not even news actually. But I thought I should voice my opinion because it's an atheist in Singapore who seem to think that the secularity of his school was violated.

Here's the relevant excerpts from the letter:

I feel uncomfortable in TJC because I witnessed a violation of secularism in TJC.

A few months ago, around May, the 32nd Student Council of TJC stood down and hand over to the 33rd SC. On the day, the President of the 32nd Student Council addressed the cohort. At the end of her address, she close with the phrase of “God Bless”

The ministry might think that the fault lies in the individual. But I am very surprise that the college did not make any clarification to the address. which I take it as they agree with the phrase. When the speech included the phrase “God Bless”, I believed that a Secular school like TJC would have clarified without any one complaing or enquring in the first place. But the lack of action of TJC with regards to this violation of secularism in school is rather shocking.

I really don't think this qualifies as a violation of secularism.

Firstly, does the president of the student council represent the (government) school and its official position? I doubt it.

Secondly, "God bless" has become a generic phrase similar to "Oh my god!" where the speaker may not actually be invoking their deity but simply wishing the audience well.

She is, in fact, allowed to voice her religious opinions although she may have come across as being distasteful to some atheists and possibly polytheists. But then again, she's allowed, to some degree, be distasteful if she wants to.

But in this case, she merely made a possibly religiously charged well wishing. She wasn't declaring that her religion is the one and only true religion. She wasn't telling her audience that deserved to burn in hell. She was neither promoting her religion over any others nor denigrating any.

So this letter sounds a lot like making a mountain out of, not a molehill, nothing to me.

Atheists and religious families

TheThinkingAtheist has recently uploaded two videos pertaining to atheists and their religious family and upbringing. It's worth a watch.

Phylogeny (Tree of Life)

A new video by AronRa.

Evidentialism

A new video by Evid3nc3.

Why are you praying?

Believers of all kinds pray at one point or another. The more religious of the bunch pray as and when they feel that a personal communication is required to ask their respective deity for assistance or enlightenment. Others pray as a matter of ritual routinely at their places of worship. Less devout ones pray only when they are troubled and desperate for any kind of help that may seem to alleviate their anxiety.

I can almost say that I feel disappointed with this huge segment of the population. And I want to ask: why do you pray?

In this post, I am not addressing ritualistic prayer - that I really couldn't care for anyways. But I am looking at those who believe that prayer is some kind of communication to their god where the god would offer assistance and/or enlightenment in response.

For believers who subscribe to a god who is simultaneously omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscience (all-knowing) and benevolent (all-good),  the question is: why bother? An all-knowing god already knows that you are praying and what you are praying about - in this case, the prayer is a superfluous act. To an all-powerful, all-knowing god, your prayer is futile since he would have acted according to your wishes if he had wanted to. And for an all-good god, you shouldn't need to pray in the first place if you understand the implications.

That mostly deals with the Abrahamic versions of the monotheistic God. Presumably it should also deal with most other deities worthy of the prayer in the first place (after all, why bother praying for assistance from a god incapable of rendering them).

Here's another thought: why do you think that a god would even give a damn about your prayer? A divine being caring about your pathetic cries for help over some earthly human issues? Why do you suppose that human beings would be noticed by the god(s)? Just 'cause we're their creations? Aren't the rest of the living world supposedly their creation too? So the zebra being mauled by lions is not worth a damn but your sick uncle is? I know this might sound cruel but think about it, aren't you presupposing that you're so special that even the freaking supreme being of the universe is actually paying full attention to your whines and complaints about your life?

Here's yet another angle to this issue. You do realize that thousands of (approximately 150,000) people die per day, right? Most of them are not death due to age - rather death by accident, disease or murder. Put it this way, why do you suppose that god would give about a damn about your issues when he evidently doesn't care about those some 150,000 people each day? Presumably, some of those people probably hold the same/similar beliefs about their god as do you. Can you see the arrogance yet?

I could just tell you that there is ZERO scientific evidence pointing to the efficacy of prayer and neither is there any for the god being prayed to. But I think that will fall on deaf ears, sadly.

I know that at the emotional level, it seems almost cruel to ask someone to not bother praying. In desperate situations, it does seem like the only thing left to do is to pray. 

But let me ask you again, why are you praying? Would it actually work? If your friend survives, was it your prayer being answered? Or the effort of the medical personnel? Or sheer luck? Who would you thank? Your god or the doctors? How do you know it was god's doing? What if your kin dies instead? Did your prayer fail? Or was it god's will all the long? Who are you going to blame? The doctor for failing? Or your god?

And if you do recognize that prayer does not work. Why do you do it? Why are you deliberately engaging in a futile act? Just because you're desperate? Is that a reason or an excuse? Do you still think it's a good thing despite its futility? Are you doing it just to make yourself feel good? Just to think that you're actually doing something despite doing absolutely nothing other than wishful thinking?

I don't suppose this would change anyone's mind instantly. But I do hope you think about it. What are you trying to do when you pray? Really.

I've got mail!

Somebody actually emailed me in defense of Sai Baba.

Sai Baba was and is a good man. He was not a god since there is no such thing. He was not avaricious, pedophiliac and his miracles are true. They are just exhibitions here on this relatively primitive planet from a higher evolved one (in this case Mercury.)

They were meant to aid our humanity in the transition period between two sidereal cycles.

He doesn't really understand this and used the old yoga (bhakti) instead of the new one (Agni). This caused problems with false godworship by his devotees. But then agni yoga is hardly known while millions follow the yoga of devotion.

You orthodox atheists should keep your heads the same size as your falsely accused Holymen--if you don't you might have to buy larger, more expensive hats and may open yourselves also to the charge of avariciousness.

Best wishes

Is it supposed to make sense?