Saving the soul of secularism?
Steve Hayes
the Soul of Secularism":
== begin quoted text ==
" Since February 2003, millions in the U.S. and around the world have
participated in marches, rallies and varied protests, making a bold, ethical
stand against U.S. military aggression. Citizens have engaged in persistent
resistance to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands
of U.S troops.
While numerous humanists have and continue to be actively involved in the
anti-war movement many others are too narrowly focused on issues such as
church-state separation and promoting science education.
The time has come for humanists to actively assert that they are as
committed to peace and ending U.S. militarism as they are to the separation of
church and state. If we can see the threat to freedom posed by the mixture of
church and state, we must see the threat to freedom posed by militarism.
The very legitimacy of secularism and freethought is at stake. Humanists,
atheists, and assorted freethinkers along with the organizations that
represent them: the American Humanist Association, American Atheists, Secular
Student Alliance, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Center for Inquiry, among
others, should join anti-war/peace organizations in calling for a dramatic
change in U.S. foreign policy away from neo-liberal imperialism and
militarism."
== end quoted text ==
This strikes me as very strange.
I can understand why humanists, who believe that human beings have intrinsic
value, might see militarism as a threat to human freedom and therefore a bad
thing.
What I find difficult to understand is the logic of urging atheists to support
such a cause. I can see no logical connection between atheism and a response
to militarism (or to pacifism, for that matter). There is nothing about
atheism that makes it desirable that atheists should join anti-war or peace
organisations. There is also nothing about atheism that makes it undesirable.
Atheism, as atheism, is surely quite neutral in regard to such moral
imperatives.
Why should an atheist, by virtue of being an atheist, believe that neoliberal
imperialism is a bad thing? Some atheists have clearly believed that it is
quite a good thing.
It is possibile to say, as Marx and Lenin did, that it is incumbent on a
communist to be an atheist. But the reverse is not true. It is not incumbent
on an atheist to be a communist. An atheist can just as easily be a neoliberal
imperialist.
This seems to be "fluffy bunny" secularism, as some of my (neo) pagan friends
would say. They seem to be getting carried away by moralism.
http://methodius.blogspot.com/2009/11/saving-soul-of-secularism.html
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk