Joe Cobb

by Joe Cobb

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney made a strong speech at the Bush Center in Houson, December 6, 2007. He defended his religious beliefs, but he also made a strong, false statement.

He accused opponents as promoting “Secularism.��?

Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong. – Mitt Romney

But “secularism��? is not a religion. It is a point of view that says any religion is merely a private affair. Religion is a matter of opinion. Honest men and women can disagree about the nature of God and his heavenly hosts.

It is not a religious belief to agree that intellectual honesty is the most important value to begin with. Then we can agree we want to be objective, scientific, and reasonable in looking at evidence and arguments. That is not a religion.

The issue really isn’t religion. Whenever, or if, your God is different from my God, you need to leave me alone, and I must leave you alone in this sphere of ideas. This is social pluralism. It is a progressive achievement of the 20th century. And it is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

Later this weekend, December 7-9, the “McLaughlin Group��? PBS discussion program featured the Romney speech and Patrick J. Buchanan repeated Romney’s claim that “ ‘Secularism’ is a religion.��? This is something all of the authoritarian conservatives are beginning to repeat to each other and to the general public.

It looks like they want to spin this “religion in the public square” idea. If they can make “Secular��? the same kind of group, or special interest, as today are the Baptist church of Mike Huckabee and the Catholic church of Rudy Giuliani, then we are all just members of social clubs who have different ideas.

Yet, if different religions become just other kinds of social clubs, and “Secularists” are one among many groups of minority opinion, the implication is: if secular symbols can be displayed in the “public square,” then also should religious symbols. Even, religious law (torah, sharia) should be enforced on members of those respective groups, just like the old Ottoman Empire had different courts for different religious groups and some Muslims in Canada are getting separate legal protection. Even brutal practices, like female genital mutilation, would have to be protected by law.

But intellectual honesty, objectivity, scientific methods, and using reason to look at evidence and arguments is not just another social club ritual.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Atheology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.