quote:
Therefore, I conclude that secularism has its own special dangers, perhaps even worse than problems caused by religious cultures.
Any system that attempts to stifle freethought will cause problems, whether it is a religious system or a non-religious system.
I found this quote from
Susan Jacoby, the author of
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism interesting. I'll have to see if my library has the book.
The secularist strain in American culture has been very strong since the beginning, but the nation's secular heritage is virtually unknown to people. A secular government was developed to protect the rights of religious minorities. Most Americans don't know that God is not mentioned in the Constitution. It was a coalition of religious Evangelicals and freethinkers or deists who joined together to get this ratified. And why did the Evangelicals want this then? Because they were a minority and they deeply feared government interference with religion.
So it stands that freethinkers would also want protection from religious interference with freethought should the religious or any religion become the majority.
In the book
A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson, it states:
...a broad group of pious Jews in the tradition of Josiah, Ezekiel and Ezra. Many of them did not object to Greek rule in principle, any more than they had objected to the Persians, since they tended to accept Jeremiah's arguments that religion and piety flourished more when pagans had to conduct the corrupting business of goverment. ...provided they were left to practise their religion in peace.
Theocracy may have worked well in a tribal situation but didn't seem to work for large nations.
quote:
What happened to fill the vacuum of this lack of religious belief?
Communism
Fascism.
From what I can tell true communism isn't for or against religion. It is supposedly a system of equality. Religion can exist within a truly communist society. Some of the NT teachings lean in this direction.
IMO what we call communist societies are more socialist in application.
Oddly enough religion existed within
fascism also (a system of government characterized by dictatorship, belligerent nationalism, racism, militarism, etc.)
None of these governmental systems are against religion. It is the human element that ultimately shapes the system. A theocracy could use any of these systems to form their government.
The religious are no less corruptible than the nonreligious. From the looks of history, each has had its day.
These types of "isms" are not my strong suit, so pardon me if my views are overly simplistic.
"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France
™ Version 4.2