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A Secular Education

Kevin Baldeosingh • 6 June 2002 • 826 words

"... contrary to what the religious propagandists argue, secular societies are far more "good" than religious ones."

Last week, the TV6 News did a street poll in which they asked people their opinion on the removal of the jhandis from the Prime Minister's residence. Most of the people said that it was okay for Basdeo Panday to have put up the flags but he should have taken them down when he left. A couple felt that Patrick Manning was right to remove the jhandis.

Not one person said that no religious symbols should have been put up at all; and I suspect that if a more scientific survey were done, the result would be pretty much the same. After all, you can hardly expect the average citizen to understand the principles of a secular society, when our religious and political and cultural leaders continually do their best to demonise secularism.

Take Roman Catholic archbishop Edward Gilbert's Corpus Christi address last week where, even as he claimed that the Church would not tolerate paedophilia, he warned his congregation not be drawn away from their Catholic values to the secular community. Never mind that this speech was given in the context of a secular institution, the media, having exposed the sexual abuse of children in a religious institution, the Catholic Church.

Gilbert was saying the same thing as Fr. Ian Taylor, just more subtly. His calculated implication was that a religious group is virtuous whereas a secular group is evil. This is a typical ploy of religious propagandists. But the truth is that both religious and secular societies rest on moral premises: the difference is the priority that each accords to particular principles.

One of the basic principles of secularism, for example, is that no individual can determine another person's moral beliefs or behaviour. The assumption which lies behind this principle is that no one is knowledgeable enough to decide what is right for someone else. From this premise rises the whole edifice of individual rights, as well as the opposition of religious believers. The faithful, after all, DO usually think that they know what is best for everyone else.

When that conviction is allied to political power, it naturally leads to the torture of heretics by Catholic inquisitors five hundred years ago, the burning alive of women by Puritan elders three hundred years ago, murderous riots by Hindu fanatics months ago, and the stoning of a raped woman in Pakistan tomorrow.

It is such customs which show that, contrary to what the religious propagandists argue, secular societies are far more "good" than religious ones. The only limit in secularism lies in restricting behaviour which harms others in a practical way, such as assault or murder. But, unlike what obtains in a theocratic system, a person cannot be punished for his beliefs, since the harm of a belief cannot be calculated. From this premise comes the principle of free speech, which includes such rights as watching porn in the privacy of one's home.

If we measure "goodness" by happiness and practical benefits (health, economic security, freedom) then secular society is far more virtuous than any theocracy, past or present. This is one reason why our religious leaders should be the main champions of secularism. The other reason is history.

In his book Western Civilization, scholar Jackson Spielvogel writes, "It took one hundred years of religious warfare complicated by serious political, economic and social issues - the worst series of wars and civil wars since the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west - before Europeans finally admitted that they would have to tolerate different ways of worshipping God. That men who were disciples of the Apostle of Peace would kill each other - often in brutal and painful fashion - aroused skepticism about Christianity itself...The religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth century opened the door to the secular perspectives that have characterised modern Western civilization."

What Spielvogel writes about Christianity applies to all religions. Clearly, though, most of our religious leaders have not learnt the lessons of history. Secularism is the only system which allows for tolerance of different systems of belief, including non-belief. The inescapable fact is that religion is inherently divisive.

Historian JM Roberts in his book Twentieth Century notes, "Though the hierarchies and leaders of different religions find it appropriate on the world stage to moderate their language, exchange public courtesies, and even to cooperate in practical matters, and though the major Christian churches have lost (for the most part) their old triumphant aggressiveness, it cannot be said that religion ceases to be a divisive force when doctrine becomes more amorphous."

I disagree with Roberts's last clause, for it seems to me that it is when doctrine is explicit that religion is most divisive: for every Holy Book contains texts urging believers to hate and kill those who do not believe as they do. But I suspect that Professor John Spence, who last week wrote a column urging the teaching of religion in schools, won't want such passages included on the curriculum.