Secularism: what does it mean to you?

[Gar_maqaate]

Our panel discusses whether a secular society merely separates church and state, or if secularism has a wider remit

 

 

 

 

 

Will Self: 'I think of it as the separation of church(es) from the state'

Will Self

 

I suspect it doesn't mean anything particularly original to me: I simply think of it as the separation of church(es) from the ambit of the state – which is why I consider it a desideratum. The disestablishment of the Church of England would be a welcome move, as would the removal of all bishops, rabbis, mullahs et al from the upper chamber. That the state shouldn't be in the business of funding faith schools goes without saying.

 

• Will Self is a novelist and professor of contemporary thought at Brunel University, London

AL Kennedy: 'It's a pathway to sanity'

AL Kennedy

 

We live in a time of faith-based everything. Economics is supposed to have no foundation in maths, or reality – we just have to believe. Political policy is based on swivel-eyed assumptions and prejudices, rather than the world, evidence, the reality of suffering, the reality of global warming. And religion – in rather too many cases – wants to be a faith-based political and economic force and to hell with all opposition.

 

Ours is an age of faith as a path to control on a very wide scale – something rigid, paranoid and utterly destructive. And we've been here before, but it would be just immensely cheering if we didn't have to stay long, or reach this point again. It's not OK for what you believe to hurt other people, or hurt you.

 

Massive disconnects between reality, behaviour and policy threaten our species in both small and apocalyptic ways and if I see secularism as anything it's as a pathway to sanity. We probably always will believe weird shit, but it doesn't have to harm us, or others, or the world. Our beliefs can elevate and inspire, and well-policed secularism – a version of secularism that doesn't itself become an alternative set of rigid, aggressive beliefs – could help us to do both.

 

• AL Kennedy is a novelist and critic

Nina Power: 'It's having the courage to question everything'

Nina Power

 

Secularism means the possibility of getting things wrong and being corrected as a matter of collective concern; it means not having to take orders from one particular way of thinking, but to put oneself in a position to try to understand them all. Secularism to me is a situation where reason meets empathy and compassion in the name of shared values. It means accepting that the spirit of inquiry should always be allowed to flourish and go wherever it is led, even if these are paths that continue to displace the centrality of the human or upset the usual ways of conceiving of the world.

 

Secularism is having the courage to question everything in such a way that no one belief system – religious or otherwise – is permitted to dominate. Secularism is tolerant, critical and open-minded. Above all, secularism means keeping open the possibility that there may not be satisfactory answers to difficult questions, be they scientific, political or existential, that humanity cannot help but ask.

 

• Nina Power is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Roehampton University and the author of One-Dimensional Woman

Pragna Patel: 'It is the absence of religious power'

Pragna Patel

 

Secularism for me is the house that is Southall Black Sisters, where black and minority women, of all cultures and religions and none, co-exist freely in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect. It is not about the absence of religion but the absence of religious power, a freedom from patriarchal straightjackets that might stifle our lives, dreams and aspirations.

 

It is a space which validates our right to choose our own identity, unlimited by culture, religion or nationality. To quote one of our users: "Tomorrow I celebrate Valentine's Day. Islam says we shouldn't dance. I used to get awards for dancing. I love celebrating Valentine's Day. I will wear red clothes and red lipstick and get a red rose from my husband. I wear lots of make-up and perfume. I also love celebrating Diwali and Christmas and Easter. These are small pieces of happiness."

 

Secularism for me is about the removal of religion, not just from the state, but also from power relations within the family and the community. That is why our struggle for feminism is linked inextricably to our struggle for a secular space.

 

• Pragna Patel is director of Southall Black Sisters

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: 'Secularism stops collapse and chaos'

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

 

I have faith. I pray. Prayers sustain me. But my faith is personal, in my head and heart, within my home. It's the way I connect with my mother and the past and my private conversation with God. It is not a battle cry, not my identity, not something to parade, not a demand on my nation and absolutely not a mark of segregation. Secularism to me means the separation of state and religion. I believe in that separation almost as strongly as I believe in God. We must all live under the same laws and buy into codified human rights. Those take precedence over religious obligations.

 

India, a nation with more religions and believers than almost anywhere else, is a secular state. If it was not, religious wars would tear the country apart. (Pakistan, an Islamic country, is a failed state.) Turkey was secular too and is now hurtling towards becoming an Islamic state, and fragmenting. The US holds on (just) to secularist principles. The UK is in a dreadful muddle. The established religion and the state are tightly plaited together. Which then means other religions can legitimately press the ruling elite for their bit of power, their strand of hair. So we end up as a country of separate religious schools (what did our children do to deserve that in an interconnected world?), exceptionalism in law and even human rights. The centre will not hold for ever with these arrangements. Secularism is the only way to stop collapse and chaos and to foster bonds of citizenship in our complex democracy.

 

• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a journalist and a founder of British Muslims for Secular Democracy

Jim Al-Khalili: 'Secularism means the freedom to think what I want'

Jim Al-Khalili Jim Al-Khalili

 

To me, secularism means more than simply living a life without religion. The son of a Muslim father and Christian mother, I grew up in Iraq in the 60s and 70s, but was lucky enough to be given the freedom to learn and question in a way that would be far more difficult in that country, and indeed many parts of the world, today. So to me, secularism means freedom: freedom to think what I want and to hold a world view that is not forced upon me by government or society.

 

As a scientist I have a rational conviction that the world is comprehensible, that mysteries are only mysteries because we have yet to figure out the answers. So secularism also means the scientific freedom to question why the world is the way it is and to search for empirically testable and reproducible scientific truths that help me make sense of the universe and my place in it without any of the constraints of religious teaching. It also means the freedom to hold dear all that defines what is most precious about humanity – to value attributes such as morality, empathy and tolerance because they define who I am and not because they are imposed on me by the teachings of a holy book.

 

• Jim Al-Khalili is president of the British Humanist Association

Jenni Murray: 'Religion should be confined to church'

Jenni Murray

 

I've always envied France its insistence on a society that is secular. Separation of church and state took place there in 1905, when it declared that religion should have no influence over government and government should keep its nose out of church affairs. So, no difficulty banning religious symbols from public buildings, no religion in education except in a cultural and historical context, and hatching, matching and dispatching without the need for a God or any mumbo-jumbo about "the devil and all his works" or "those whom God has joined together" or a heavenly afterlife.

 

We, on the other hand, are stuck with an established Church of England and places in the House of Lords for powerful and influential religious leaders. They're from institutions that won't shake hands with a menstruating woman, steadfastly refuse to ordain a female priest or still refer in some quarters to those they have ordained as "pulpit *****". Shocking. Religion should be confined to church, chapel, mosque, synagogue and personal choice. No way should bishops or imams or rabbis have the power in parliament, unelected, to influence the way we heathens (or humanists) should live our lives. Assisted dying is a case in point.

 

• Jenni Murray is a presenter of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour

Mary Warnock: 'Courts must have nothing to do with religious belief'

Mary Warnock

 

I would not like to live in a country that was entirely secular. As long as no one is in a position to tell me how to interpret it, or that I must believe in the literal truth of holy writ, then I like there to be an established church, a repository of a long-shared cultural heritage, with a ceremonial function, and a source of genuine belief for many people, of whom I am not one.

 

m-what-does-it-mean-to-you-panel

[Gar_maqaate]

There are two areas, however, within which secularism seems to me of the greatest possible importance. The first is the law. The courts must have nothing to do with religious belief, and must ensure that whatever is contrary to the law is punishable, no matter what the religion of the offender. The other institution within which religion must have no privileges is parliament. Of course people may give their views on the morality of proposed legislation from their own religious standpoint, but if they do so, they must make it clear where they are coming from. This is why I have no objection to the presence of the bishops in the House of Lords. We all know that they speak for the church, and the church often needs to be heard, given its history of educational and social philanthropy. But it is crucial that religion has no special rights; we must at all costs remain a democracy, not a theocracy.

 

• Mary Warnock is a moral philosopher and cross-bench life peer

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/26/secularis

[Mad_Mullah]

Secularism only makes sense when you have a country with different beliefs, Somalia is fully Muslim. No need for skinny jeans and bikinis. Take that **** to Djibouti.

[Gar_maqaate]

^ In what way is the article, a piece of propaganda?

[Marksman]

Secularism means no fatal consequence for having another religion or no religion at all.

 

Death and forced 'rethinking' for not believing or having another religion sounds like that the people that follow that religion know it's not the truth. A hysterical worldview.

 

I've noticed many Muslim feel that non believers have no moral code and have a sense of superiority against them. Isn't it against the religion to have that? Or is it the flaws of Muslims?

[Haatu]

What nonsense. In Islam is the best of systems. Why would anyone want anything less than the best?

[Guje]

How does secularism concern a people who can't feed themselves. lofty philosphical matters are for well fed people

[thefuturenow]

Gaalnimo

[Hawdian]

^ I spit on them. Waliba waxan waliba ka sii nacayhey gaalka gaaljacal .

[Jacpher]

Marksman;990073 wrote:

Secularism means no fatal consequence for having another religion or no religion at all.

Tell that to the people going to jail for putting a piece of clothing on their body.

 

If you thought secularism was about freedom from oppression or religion, think again. Secular movements are no different than any other regime systems out there regardless of the base belief system.

[Allyourbase]

Secularism as an ideology is all about freedom of expression and belief. Concepts that may be outwith the bounds of logic for those still pondering the medical effects of camel's urine!

[thefuturenow]

Allyourbase;990132 wrote:

Secularism as an ideology is all about freedom of expression and belief. Concepts that may be outwith the bounds of logic for those still pondering the medical effects of camel's urine!

It actually works. Can't do anything for your condition though. Sorry.

[Allyourbase]

Did you drink a camel's urine? How do you know it works?

[thefuturenow]

Allyourbase;990137 wrote:

Did you drink a camel's urine? How do you know it works?

Why does it matter. Life is meaningless anyways.

 

 

Apophis;990145 wrote:

Like all ideas, it can be corrupted. It's not immune.

It was not corrupted. It began corrupted. It just uses pretty words like freedom and liberty to oppress those who have different conception of freedom and liberty.

[Allyourbase]

Apophis;990145 wrote:

Like all ideas, it can be corrupted. It's not immune.

 

Absolutely! It is however not clocked in a divine aura rendering it untouchable. It is like many human concepts susceptible to corruption but also to fine-tuning and corrections. How do you correct someone's religious belief in women's subservient societal status to men? Or case in point, the medical benefits of camel's urine? To them these ideas are divine and no amount of common sense would get through it.

 

Its sad wallahi (opps! )