[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 2:49 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Steve said to all:
>  ... Jeffrey Stout agrees with Sam Harris that theocracy is a threat to democracy, but he sees secularism, the notion that religion needs to be stamped out and has no place in political discourse, as equally anti-democratic as are any imposed limits on the sorts of justifications that are permissable in politics.
>
> dmb says;
> I have to stop you right there. 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:

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? "Secular" is an
innocuous term used to distinguish religious and nonreligious
activities and things. SecularISM is the notion that all activities
and things _ought_ to be nonreligious or at least ought to have no
place in affairs of state. Look it up for yourself if you want. 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. The theocrats think that the secularists have already been
fairly successful in doing so. My point in the original post in the
subject was that secularists have never had that kind of power.



DMB:
The definition you've used as a premise for all that follows is
actually quite biased. It is not really a definition so much as a
paranoid distortion and a slanderous attack. I'm guessing Jeffery
Stout is a religious man and you're getting this distorted view from
him.


Steve:
Wrong. Jeffrey Stout is a professor at Princeton. He is an atheist who
identifies as a pragmatist.



DMB:
Further, democracy is portrayed as the reasonable middle ground
between theocrats and secularist. But take a look at the obvious
similarity between the actual definition of "secularism" and your
description of democracy: Y
>  ou said that "democracy holds that political power ought to be shared equally among all citizens and not denied based on religious affilitiation or the lack of religious affiliation" and my dictionary says secularism denotes activities "that have no religious or spiritual basis" and are "not subject to or bound by religious rule".
> In other words, in politics secularism simply means the separation of church and state, NOT the view that religion needs to be stamped out. In fact, the notion that secularism is somehow at odds with democracy will seem fairly ridiculous the moment you recall the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Notice how nicely that basic right comports with the actual definition of secularism? For all practical purposes the first amendment defines our government as a secular government.



Steve:
The question is, is that enough? 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.
It is not enough to have no public endorsement of a _particular_
religion, there should be no accommodation of religion, period. The
law should be used to diminish the effects of religion on society.
Meanwhile, the modern theocrats think that the establishment clause
has been taken too far already, that it was never intended to drive
all religion out of politics but only intended so that the government
would not favor one Christian denomination over the others. They
argue, incorrectly for sure, that the US was always intended to be a
_Christian_ nation and that a merely _secular_ democracy is
self-deating because it cannot sustain its own values. It undermines
itself because it claims no transcendent basis for the rights it
purports to be protecting and is doomed to crumble for lack of such a
foundation.

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. While militant secularists think we
must see an end to theism, we atheists ought to make a more targeted
attack in cooperation with other freedom loving theists against
theocracy.




>
> Steve said:
> ... But there has certainly been an upsurge in the sentiment (or at least public awareness of the sentiment) that Christians ought to dominate non-Christians. ...It seems to me then that the way to attack theocracy is by promoting liberal democracy rather than secularism. We Pirsigian anti-theists have to be wary of the appearance that we represent a threat to religious ways of life in general and seek to impose a secular worldview on all. Since we are anti-essentialists we don't think that religion is _essentially_ anything.  It isn't essentially good or  bad any more than technology is. Both can certainly be used for evil as well as for good.
>
>
> dmb says:
> Since secularism and liberal democracy both mean freedom of religion, it doesn't really make much sense to say secularism is a "threat" to religion. In effect, the claim would be that freedom of religion is a threat to religion. That could only be perceived as threat to a theocrat, who doesn't agree with such freedom, who thinks church and state ought not be separate. By definition, the theocrat wants "a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god". That's not consistent with democracy or religious freedom.

Steve:
I think you pretty much got it here. It is no wonder that atheists are
seen as a threat to theocrats since what they want is the dominance of
nonChristians by Christians, but if atheists see them selves as a
threat to religion as such--as militant secularists--it is no wonder
that religious folks who are not theocrats and who are in fact
committed to democracy will also see us as a threat. I'm saying that
any religious person committed to democracy shouldn't see us as a
threat.  We shouldn't let ourselves be perceived as a threat. Rather
than forging political alliances with the Reverend Kings and Bishop
Tutus of the world, the militant secularist sees religion rather than
theocracy as the problem whereas we atheists ought to see theocracy
and plutocracy as the problems and form political alliances with
_anyone_ committed to democracy to help us oppose them.




> Steve said:
> When religious traditionalist complain that they are being handicapped by the demand that they restructure their political arguments in secular terms before they can be aired in the public square, they blame secularism while it is in fact religious liberty that requires this restructuring. ... Atheists have never had such political power and numbers to be able to enforce a moratorium of religious language in political arguments. It is not because an external imposition by secularists that religious traditionalists must do such restructuring of their arguments. ...
>
> dmb says:
> Handicapped by the demand that they make their political arguments in secular terms? Are you kidding? The opposite has always been true, actually. Instead of there being anything like "a moratorium on religious language", American politicians can never talk like an atheist. Never. Politicians, for all practical purposes, have to pay some kind of lip service at the very least. Hell, go on Youtube and listen to a couple of George Bush's speeches. He stood on the Capitol steps and defined freedom as a gift from God and told a national TV audience that Jesus is his favorite philosopher. What President ever failed to end a speech without saying "God Bless America"? The USA is by far the most religious nation in the West. Can you think of a single atheist who was ever elected in this country? I can't. If there ever was such a creature, he was real good at keeping it under wraps. I think the notion that the vast Christian majority is somehow being persecuted by secularists is quite
>  a grotesque distortion of our political reality. The religious right has totally dominated American politics for as long as I can remember. In that context, the demand has always been FOR religious language.

Steve:
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. The theocrats
believe us when we say that our complaining is working--that the
Enlightenment has fostered a march toward the erradication of all
religion and that we, so small in numbers and as unorganized as we
actually are, are a grave threat to their ways of life. I am saying
that it is far better to point to religious pluralism as a far more
plausible explanation for why there is little if any exchanging of
Bible quotations in debate on the Senate floor. It isn't because we
atheists have gained enough political clout to shout down such
text-swappings. It is because there is no longer any broad consensus
on what those texts are even supposed to mean.

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.



> Steve said:
> ... I have become convinced by Stout that atheists and Pirsigian anti-theists should not identify as secularists, since imposing any limits on what sorts of arguments can made in the public sphere is as anti-democratic as the theocratic vision that secularists seek to oppose. While we should see the process of secularization as a positive consequence of religious liberty toward a more inclusive society, we should not justify the bigotry we experience by posing as though we are somehow responsible for the secularization of political discourse.  Also, by lumping all religion as a theocratic threat to democracy we lose the allies we need among the American religious people who are committed to democratic ideals and identify more with the democratic reform of Martin Luther King than with the theocratic vision of Pat Robertson.
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> I think there is no call for the change you're calling for (secularization as a positive consequence of religious liberty), not least of all because that's already what secularism means. The first amendment separated church and state and established religious freedom a couple of centuries ago. Secularism doesn't mean imposing limits on speech. Quite the opposite. It says any such limits are illegal. Again, I think the idea that secularism means anti-democratic constraints on speech or religion (or the imposition of a vision) is not much more than a paranoid delusion and it amount to baseless slander. Being opposed to theocracy is to oppose bigotry and oppression and yet you're construing the secularist as the bigoted oppressor. That's pretty warped, my friend.

Steve:
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?

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?




> Steve said:
> What do you think? Do you see a theocratic movement gaining momentum in the US? How is it manifested? How can it best be opposed? Hasn't anyone noticed that while the politics of difference, identity, recognition of the disenfranchised has dominated public debates in recent decades the plutocrats have seized the opportunity to consolidate even more wealth and power? Don't the friends of democracy whether religious or secular need to enlist one another's help to confront the plutocrats? If so, an agenda of secularism is not at all what is needed in the US.



> dmb continues:
> As I see it, the Plutocrats and the bible-thumpers have been in bed together for a long time now. Even here in our little MOQ world, the people who defend free-market capitalism and the people who defend theism are mostly the same people.

Steve:
That is mostly true, but are they _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.

Stout thinks that rather than opposing theism, we would do better to
oppose theocracy. He also thinks, and you and I probably agree, that
the gravest threat to democracy is not even theocracy but plutocracy.
And without a coalition between democratic theists and atheists, we
have no hope against the plutocrats.

Best,
Steve