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Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations. It is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a similar position concerning the need to remove or minimalize the role of religion in any public sphere. The term has a broad range of meanings, and in the most schematic, may encapsulate any stance that promotes the secular in any given context. It may connote anticlericalism, atheism, naturalism, or removal of religious symbols from public institutions.
Secular humanism, often simply called humanism, is a philosophy or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision making.
The separation of church and state is a philosophic and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular state and to disestablishment, the changing of an existing, formal relationship between the church and the state. Although the concept is older, the exact phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from "wall of separation between church and state", a term coined by Thomas Jefferson. The concept was promoted by Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke.
Freethought is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a freethinker is "a person who forms their own ideas and opinions rather than accepting those of other people, especially in religious teaching." In some contemporary thought in particular, free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious belief systems. The cognitive application of free thought is known as "freethinking", and practitioners of free thought are known as "freethinkers". Modern freethinkers consider free thought to be a natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society.
A state religion is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state. A state with an official religion, while not secular, is not necessarily a theocracy, a country whose rulers have both secular and spiritual authority. State religions are official or government-sanctioned establishments of a religion, but the state does not need to be under the control of the religion nor is the state-sanctioned religion necessarily under the control of the state.
Secularity, also the secular or secularness, is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion and irreligion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negatively or positively, may be considered secular. The process in which things become secular or more so is named secularization, and any concept or ideology promoting the secular may be termed secularism.
Laïcité is the constitutional principle of secularism in France. Article 1 of the French Constitution is commonly interpreted as discouraging religious involvement in government affairs, especially religious influence in the determination of state policies. It also forbids government involvement in religious affairs, and especially prohibits government influence in the determination of religion. Secularism in France does not preclude a right to the free exercise of religion.
"Separation of church and state" is paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson and used by others in expressing an understanding of the intent and function of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
The Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, by a constituent convention, during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constituent Congress on 5 February 1917. It is the successor to the Constitution of 1857, and earlier Mexican constitutions.
The Golden Age of Freethought is the mid 19th-century period in United States history which saw the development of the socio-political movement promoting freethought. Anti-authoritarian and intellectually liberating historical eras had existed many times in history, notably in eighteenth century France. But the period roughly from 1875 to 1914 is referred to by at least one contemporary writer as "the high-water mark of freethought as an influential movement in American society". It began around 1856 and lasted at least through the end of the century; author Susan Jacoby places the end of the Golden Age at the start of World War I.
A secular state is an idea pertaining to secularity, whereby a state is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion. A secular state claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid preferential treatment for a citizen based on their religious beliefs, affiliation or lack of either over those with other profiles.
With the Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976, the Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation. However, the Supreme Court of India in the 1994 case S. R. Bommai v. Union of India established the fact that India was secular since the formation of the republic. The judgement established that there is separation of state and religion. It stated "In matters of State, religion has no place. And if the Constitution requires the State to be secular in thought and action, the same requirement attaches to political parties as well. The Constitution does not recognize, it does not permit, mixing religion and State power. That is the constitutional injunction. None can say otherwise so long as this Constitution governs this country. Politics and religion cannot be mixed. Any State government which pursues nonsecular on policies or nonsecular course of action acts contrary to the constitutional mandate and renders itself amenable to action under Article 356". Furthermore, constitutionally, state-owned educational institutions are prohibited from imparting religious instructions, and Article 27 of the constitution prohibits using tax-payers money for the promotion of any religion.
Susan Jacoby is an American author. Her 2008 book about American anti-intellectualism, The Age of American Unreason, was a New York Times best seller. She is an atheist and a secularist. Jacoby graduated from Michigan State University in 1965. She lives in New York City.
Thomas W. Flynn was an American author, journalist, novelist, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, and editor of its journal Free Inquiry. He was also director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum and the Freethought Trail.
Secularism has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and understood as equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion.
In Belgium, organized secularism is the local associations and organizations which provide moral support for naturalist, atheist, agnostic, secular humanist, freethinking, Bright, or irreligious and non-confessional citizens. A person who subscribes to such entities or ideologies, or at least espouses an interest in "free inquiry" apart from religious traditions is described as a "secular" or "free-thinker".
The National Liberal League of the United States advocated separation of church and state and the freedom of religion. The league evolved into the American Secular Union in 1884. The First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis grew directly out of the chapter there.
Secular liberalism is a form of liberalism in which secularist principles and values, and sometimes non-religious ethics, are especially emphasised. It supports the separation of religion and state. Moreover, secular liberals are usually advocates of liberal democracy and the open society as models for organising stable and peaceful societies.
Principled Distance is a new model of secularism given by Rajeev Bhargava. the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries. He says that Indian secularism did not erect a strict wall of separation, but proposed a 'principled distance' between religion and state. Moreover, by balancing the claims of individuals and religious communities, it never intended a bludgeoning privatization of religion. In India, secularism means equal treatment of all religions. Religion in India continues to assert its political authority in matters of personal law. The western model of secularism is criticized in India for being an outdated concept as Rajeev argued that since Western model was developed when society was more homogeneous but since in the era of globalization, society is becoming more heterogeneous therefore a new concept, suitable for the present situation, is needed. He even argued that since Europe itself is no more homogeneous hence West should also follow the principled distance model which on one hand respects the diversity and at the same time empowers the state to interfere in case of any discrimination in the name of religion.
References
- 1 2 "National Liberal League". The Freethought Trail. freethought-trail.org. Retrieved 9 Mar 2014.
- ↑ Berlinerblau, Jacques (2012). How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-547-47334-5.
- ↑ "XII. 1 – Going to jail for a principle. The events of 1879", Fifty Years of Free Thought, Skeptic files, archived from the original on 2008-05-09, retrieved 2009-08-10
- ↑ The New Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 39
- ↑ Google.com. "List of works published by the American Secular Union". Google.com.