Aggressive secularism?

[Darwinian]

There have been some open and unjustified attacked on secularism within the last couple of weeks. Baroness Warsi, Shadow Social Action Minister, announced at the conservative party conference last week that there has been a growing intolerance and illiberal attitude towards those who believe in God,blaming BHA Vice President Dr Evan Harris MP for driving this secular agenda into the public sector.

Similarly, Tony Blair took it upon himself to declare that we face an aggressive secular attack from without when speaking to an American Muslim interfaith organisation. He went on to describe how , those who scorn God and those who do violence in God's name, both represent views of religion. But both offer no hope for faith in the twenty first century.

These attacks, despite coming from people heavily involved in the interfaith debate both seem to misunderstanding the meaning of secularism. Secularism, means that the state is neutral concerning religious and non-religious beliefs and is not, therefore, an attack on faith. Instead, it creates a safe and equal space for individuals to practice their religion or belief within the democratically decided law without the state privileging or disadvantaging one set of beliefs over another.

Most people would agree that this is a fair and legitimate system of government, yet there are still those who equate the levelling of the playing field by removing religious privileges as an attack on the faithful. The BHA will be contacting both individuals above to complain about their remarks and may well be sending them a copy of this with the letters.

BHA Newsletter

[LukeMC]

[...]blaming BHA Vice President Dr Evan Harris MP for driving this secular agenda into the public sector.

Damn those secularists with their human rights agenda. Pushing all their "equality" down our throats and fighting for a society where our True Religion doesn't take precedence over all others, backed by the state. This is a Christian country damnit! We stand for Christian values! Why must they attack God so?

[Violet]

Because 'God' is a prick?

[Minimalist]

Secularism, means that the state is neutral concerning religious and non-religious beliefs and is not, therefore, an attack on faith.

And this, Darwinian, is a great threat to the purveyors of religion. You see, they convince themselves that nothing is possible without their particular delusion of divinity so that a successful "state" which does not kiss the ass of god is a serious problem for them. People might begin to think that 'god' was unneeded and that would wreck their gravy train in a big hurry.

[chatpilot]

What really irritates me about religionists is that they are trying to make themselves out to be victims of our society and claim that we secularists are hell bent on destroying them. Speaking from what I know about religious history, at one time they were the oppressors and now that they have lost a considerable measure of power they want to play the role of the victim and the oppressed.

Once they became official through the Roman empire and had the full backing of Rome they set out to destroy anyone literally for simply not accepting their belief system. They murdered and killed many thousands of innocent people to promulgate their delusion to the world. They should be the last people crying about being attacked or oppressed by anyone.

We have never tried to force our non belief in their delusions on anyone in fact we have tolerated them all this time. But what we refuse to tolerate is them imposing their imaginary gods laws in our state laws. And trying to force society to live as their god commands through the pressure of the government.