Sir, – For the benefit of David Robert Grimes (Opinion Analysis, May 7th), although I am sure he is already familiar with the text, I quote from Jürgen Habermas: “The neutrality of the state authority on questions of world views guarantees the same freedom to every citizen. This is incompatible with the political universalisation of a secularist world view. When secularised citizens act in their role as citizens of the state, they must not deny in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth. Nor must they refuse their believing fellow citizens the right to make contributions in a religious language to public debates”. (The Dialectics of Secularisation, 2006). – Yours, etc,
Sir, – It was intriguing to read your correspondents refer to secularism as a “belief” (May 9th).
I would have thought that a characteristic of a secular society is not to silence those with religious beliefs or to impose a viewpoint in contest with other beliefs, but merely in the simplest terms for those who have a belief in a religion to be left free to get on with it (subject to practices not outraging common decency), while those who don’t share a particular belief should not have obligations or requirements deriving solely from a faith system (whatever it might be) imposed upon them.
That is not to say that individuals with differing viewpoints in such a society cannot come to agreement on a basic set of principles, rights and obligations to govern the interactions of a populace with each other. For all the religious diversity in the world, many religions boil down to similar concepts revolving around respect for oneself and one’s fellows.
Within humanity a spectrum of “beliefs” exist; religious, atheist, vaguely spiritualist and everything in between (with examples of those with “militant” views found in all categories). The benefit of a secular society should be a state blind to where its citizens find themselves on this spectrum, in return for those citizens acting in accordance with commonly agreed and acceptable basic laws and rights. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – As a young person I was delighted to see Dr Grimes make such an articulate case for a growing vision among our generation; the simple request that there be separation of church and state in this country as the name “Republic” would suggest. But reading the overwhelmingly negative response to his piece (Letters, May 9th) leaves me stumped as to where to even begin.
They continue to attack secularism by explicitly comparing it to religious dogma. It may help the writers of these letters to consult a dictionary for a definition of secularism. It is simply a pluralist value that actually protects religious minorities by ensuring no one religious group can influence public policy. We have had decades of the Catholic Church dictating public policy in this country and it indisputably caused severe hardship for thousands of people, particularly among victims of clerical child abuse and the Magdalene laundries. Religious people cannot simply scoff every time these concerns are raised; they are important! There’s a reason we keep bringing them up; they are indicative of what happens when a religious institution gains too much power over politicians.
The knee-jerk reaction to Dr Grimes’s piece seems to just prove his point for him. The Catholic Church has enjoyed privilege for decades and now when their privilege is challenged, no matter how diplomatically, their ideologues try to equate such calls with an attack on faith itself. The lay people writing these letters shouldn’t be duped by their church into equating the two. – Yours, etc,