Sir, - Your "secularism and religion" exchanges may have been detoured into a quagmire by Mgr Faul's obviously erroneous assertion that secularism leads to immorality of various kinds. He might have argued that secularism tends, more than Christianity, to have that result, because of its central tenet, which is that there is no hereafter. Without a hereafter which may be painful as well as pleasant, our motivation to resist temptation to be immoral is arguably less than it is when we believe in such a hereafter.
Anyway, the exchanges are surely as basically flawed as your title, which implies that secularism and religion are different. In fact secularism is a creed, as is every religion. Secularists can no more prove their central tenet than can believers in a hereafter prove theirs. There are two kinds of believers: secularists and no-secularists, and therefore two kinds of religion. Secularists cannot be anti-religion. They are just against religions of other kinds, just as the various kinds of non-secularist religions vie with each other for support.
It is timely that your columns, despite Mgr Faul's erroneous assertion, got us to focus on the implications of secularism. It is the fastest growing religion in Ireland today, and is especially attractive for ex-Catholics alienated by over-the-top hereafter preaching of decades ago. Besides the implications of this growth for immoral behaviour here and now, there is also an important hereafter implication. If, despite non-belief in an hereafter which may be pleasant as well as painful, everyone is heading in that direction, what may happen? Does it follow that those whose non-belief lets them not bother with doing things which Christians and Muslims, say, do to have the hereafter more pleasant than painful, will be spared hereafter pain on that account? - Yours, etc., Joe Foyle,
Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.