Secularist Ideology

A Secularist Ideology is a belief system that is secular (promotes the separation of religious institutions from governmental institutions and upholds the principle that public matters should be free from religious influence).

• Context:
  • It can (typically) advocate for the separation of church and state, ensuring that governmental decisions are made without religious bias.
  • It can (often) be based on principles of rationalism, humanism, and empirical evidence, prioritizing scientific inquiry over religious doctrines.
  • It can support the idea that individuals should be free to practice any religion or none at all, without government endorsement or interference.
  • It can manifest in policies that exclude religious teachings from public education systems, promoting a curriculum based on secular knowledge.
  • It can range from being a Moderate Secularist Ideology to being a Radical Secularist Ideology.
  • It can influence political systems to adopt secular constitutions, ensuring that laws are based on secular ethics rather than religious codes.
  • It can encourage the protection of individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
  • It can be associated with movements such as the Enlightenment, which emphasized reason, science, and individual rights over traditional religious authority.
  • It can (often) intersect with philosophies like atheism and agnosticism, which question or reject religious beliefs.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • as suggested by Erasmus.
  • the French Laïcité model, which enforces a strict separation between religion and state.
  • the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of religion by the government.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • a Religious Ideology, which integrates religious beliefs into public and governmental spheres.
  • Theocracy, where religious leaders or institutions hold governing power.
  • State Religion, where a specific religion is endorsed by the state.
  • ...
• See: Secular, Religious Organization, Clergy, Age of Enlightenment.

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References

2018

• (Wikipedia, 2018) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism Retrieved:2018-11-20.
  • Secularism, as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the "indifference to, or rejection or exclusion of, religion and religious considerations." As a philosophy, secularism seeks to interpret life on principles taken solely from the material world, without recourse to religion. In political terms, secularism is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institution and religious dignitaries (the attainment of such is termed secularity). Under a brief definition, Secularism means that governments should remain neutral on the matter of religion and should not enforce nor prohibit the free exercise of religion, leaving religious choice to the liberty of the people. One manifestation of secularism is asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, or, in a state declared to be neutral on matters of belief, from the imposition by government of religion or religious practices upon its people. Another manifestation of secularism is the view that public activities and decisions, especially political ones, should be uninfluenced by religious beliefs or practices. Secularism draws its intellectual roots from Greek and Roman philosophers such as Zeno of Citium and Marcus Aurelius; from Enlightenment thinkers such as Erasmus, John Locke, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Baruch Spinoza, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine; and from more recent freethinkers and atheists such as Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, and Christopher Hitchens. It shifts the focus from religion to other ‘temporal’ and ‘this-worldly’ things with emphasis on nature, reason, science, and development. The purposes and arguments in support of secularism vary widely. In European laicism, it has been argued that secularism is a movement toward modernization, and away from traditional religious values (also known as secularization). This type of secularism, on a social or philosophical level, has often occurred while maintaining an official state church or other state support of religion. In the United States, some argue that state secularism has served to a greater extent to protect religion and the religious from governmental interference, while secularism on a social level is less prevalent. On the other hand, Meiji era Japan maintained that it was secular and allowed freedom of religion despite enforcing State Shinto and continuing to prohibit certain "superstitions;" scholar of religion Jason Ānanda Josephson has labelled this conception of the secular "the Shinto Secular" and noted that it follows a pattern established in certain European constitutions.

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