National Secular Society has descended into farce

The point that secularism is itself an ideology comparable in scope to any of the creeds it aims to keep out of the public sphere - but arguably the only one that is genuinely tyrannical - is reinforced by the existence of organisations like the National Secular Society.

It claims that it "wants to have a society in which all are free to practice their faith" but then calls Judaism a "nonsensical religious life" (see image on right and the actual BBC headline it is a link to).

It's pretty clear that the NSS have lost their way, and now come across as an extremely bitter bunch of people railing against the religious in manner in which they would heap opprobrium if it was the other way round.

Terry Sanderson, their president, recently hit out at the idea of Muslims being able to practice their faith at school, with the usual rubbish about kids being forced to practice Islam against their wishes. All the MCB's document actually gave guidance for was children who wished to pray, fast etc. Those that don't can carry on as normal - obviously. It's better than the current situation where many young people are in a situation of acting against their faith. [The author of the report, Tahir Alam, is interviewed on this week's iWitness podcast]

Evidence of how much contempt the NSS have for the religious is in the same article where Sanderson claims that community cohesion will not be helped by Muslims practising their faith at school:

Community Cohesion is not encouraged by emphasising religious differences in schools. Different times for Collective Worship, different times for prayers (in separate prayer rooms), different days for holidays, Arabic lessons, learning the Koran – when are these kids going to find time for lessons?

Whatever happened to toleration? Of the liberal concept of do what you want as long as you don't harm other people? Incidentally, the report only suggested schools should "consider" offering Arabic as a choice alongside French, German and other foreign languages. It made no mention of learning the Qur'an.

Only the machinations of an extremely hateful mind could twist the report in such a manner. Little wonder that the NSS has been coming into praise from the BNP, and has spoken out against Kilroy's sacking from the BBC for calling Arabs "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors" (see Islamophobia Watch).

Comments

[johnmellor77]

This is tyrannical:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6412453.stm

[Osman]

It sure is, but do you have anything to actually contribute relating to what osama wrote?

[johnmellor77]

I'd like him to explain why he thinks secularism is the most tyrannical ideology of them all. I can't remember an incident where people have been brutalised because of a belief in the separation of religion and state.

[Osama]

Well why didn't you just say so. Peaceful Islamists across the Middle East get tortured and killed for not believing in separation of 'church' and state. This has been going on in the name of secularism for decades, in many cases along similar lines to the disgraceful story you linked to. I'm surprised you're not aware of this.

Meanwhile in the UK public scene, you don't find official strands of religion telling each other what is and what is not acceptable like the NSS do.

[johnmellor77]

OK, where are Islamists being murdered for not believing in the separation of church and state?

[Bob]

A minor point: the NSS link ("Young Jews turn their back on nonsensical religious life") to a BBC story, isn't really a comment on Jewish life specifically. Obviously a lot of secularists will think that religious mythology is technically nonsense, or at least false. But in this case they're just reporting what the young people interviewed were actually saying; it is they who describe the doctrinal aspects of the religion in negative terms, and they say worse things than calling it "nonsensical".

A bigger point: secularism is not "itself an ideology comparable in scope to any of the creeds it aims to keep out of the public sphere". It's one aspect of a fair, open system of public affairs. It says that religious belief should not be given undue privilege in civic life, that's all. Comparing it to the "creeds" that it doesn't think shoudl have undue privilege, is like saying that the concept of democratic voting is comparable to supporting a particular political party. Secularism is part of the framework which, according to secularists, aids the framework's integrity; it shouldn't be regarded as a partisan claim.

[jeemsie]

johnmellor77: I would say your minor point is not minor at all. To twist the NSS headline in the way it has been (at absolutely no point sis the NSS say all Judaism was a "nonsensical religious life") displays ignorance, or deceitfulness, or both.

[Andrew J]

Your arguments are pretty piss poor. Take this: 'It [NSS] claims that it "wants to have a society in which all are free to practice their faith" but then calls Judaism a "nonsensical religious life".' And can you not wish to have such a society, but still take the piss out parts of it. The NSS didn't say it didn't want to have such a society: it said it did, but then (presumably, for I haven't read it) went on to talk of a nonsensical religious life. So where's the contradiction. I could say I approve of your right to exist, but still think you a prat (I don't, because I don't know you, but I use that as an example).

Then you say, 'All the MCB's document actually gave guidance for was children who wished to pray, fast etc. Those that don't can carry on as normal - obviously.' Yes, but you can't have different timetables for different people based on their parents' choice of superstition. The simple answer is as it is, in principle, in the USA: no superstitious nonsense (i.e. religion) preached at school (by all means learn about religions, but don't practise them in school). You can't go disrupting other kids' lessons while a bunch of Muslims troop out at 2 in the afternoon for their third prayer of the day (or whatever it is). And those praying spaces would obviously be far better put to better use: for education, not superstition. It might help if the kids in these schools were taught more of science and philosophy (you see, I'm not talking only here of regimented science lessons, although science does of course open itself up to peer review and revision in the light thereof), but philosophy, too. Let them learn some reasoned argument that relies on their brains instead of some desiccated nonsense written fourteen centuries ago and before.

I read that document. It's full of demands disguised as 'guidance' (they wouldn't have published it if they didn't actually want these things to happen) all designed to disrupt British schools and teachers who are probably frazzled out of their brains just trying to teach and keep order, without having to worry whether they're going to step on a paranoid Muslim sensibility every time they turn the corner in the school corridor.

Nah, get rid of it - and the other religions, too. Keep religion to an academic subject. If people want to pray, they can do it at home. If they don't want to take part in swimming lessons, that's up to them, but they'd be missing out on exercise and a useful skill. If they don't conform to the school's uniform code, bar them until they do. If they miss out on their education because of that, then blame their parents.

[Osama]

"Nonsensical" was the NSS's word, not the BBC's or anyone else's. If anyone thinks that is a suitable word for a serious organisation to be using about a faith, then fine. I know if I called Judaism "nonsensical" people wouldn't be so charitable.

Bob, I see what you're saying. In the same way though, one can believe in a religion and at the same time take part in array of democratic activities. My point is that different things provide people with a meaning system, and for many secularists, that ideology is as important to them as faith is to religionists .

John, to name a few examples see: Egypt (Muslim Brotherhood members in the last few weeks alone have been rounded up in their scores); Syria; tanks rolled in after the Islamist victory in Algerian elections; Musharraf's ("my hero is Ataturk") crackdowns in Pakistan; and there was a guy called Saddam Hussein who called himself a secularist, and killed and tortured Islamists. Read the Amnesty and other human rights reports. Some political refugees of these countries are with us in the UK. I can introduce you if you like.

[johnmellor77]

And that proves secularism is the only genuinely tyrannical ideology how, exactly?

[joe90]

secularism...is arguably the only [ideology] that is genuinely tyrannical

Notice jm does his usual mis-quotation routine by leaving out the qualifiying word 'arguably', thus changing a proposition from one which is willing to argue the point, and is amenable to rational debate etc, to one which isn't.

Using empirical evidence in order to make ethical comparisons -
- in the twentieth century, for instance, how many people were abused, mistreated or murdered by non-secular regimes and tyrannies, compared to secular tyranies?

Or if you don't fancy wading through the bloodbaths that secular tyrannies were responsible for in the twentieth century, then how about -
- the pain and misery people have to live under in US totalitarian puppet states and 'death squad democracies' (usually called 'The Third World'),
as well as the so-called Communist under the old Soviet system and the current Chinese totalitarian secular tyranny?

How about the misery of life under US-UK secular occupation in Iraq and Aghanistan?

[johnmellor77]

You're just the man for rational debate, Joe.

Osama clearly puts forward the suggestion that a secularism is the only ideology that is tyrannical. I'm asking him to back that up.

Can a religious ideology not be tyrannical? Is there a sliding scale of tyranny?

[radius]

Never mind the tyrannical bit - how does the *existence* of the National Secular Society reinforce the thesis that secularism is itself an ideology comparable in scope to religious ideologies?

The aims of the NSS appear to have a much more restricted scope than those of any major world religion. NSS members - and secularists in general - subscribe to a wide and varied range of ideologies. Indeed, many of the most deeply religious people want to divorce their beliefs from politics, and are secularists just as much as humanists and atheists.

You need to be more precise here - challenging the existence of a group that you disagree with, and throwing around emotive insults is no substitute for reasoned debate.

[joe90]

jm what would you know about clarity,
you have no idea what it is you are saying most of the time or what it is you believe in, or who said what, about what, when etc etc....

I just gave you the exact quote and you are still arguing over what it was he said - case rests as to what you mean by 'clarity'.

As for proof of the viciousness of secular tyranny, again, I've just presented overwhelming proof and again, you can't see it - so I guess you have demonstrated by worked example what it is you mean by 'clarity' - just in case anyone has any doubts and gets confused between your use of words and their actual dictionary meanings, as used by everyone else.

[johnmellor77]

Arguably, Joe 90 is an idiot.

[interested by stander]

Just as a matter of interest, what is the membership of the NSS? How does it compare, for example, to membership of the Church of Scotland?

If it is relatively small, which I suspect it is, why should its views be given the prominence they are on the BBC or elsewhere?

For me secularism is certainly an "ism" . It contends that religion has no place in the public sphere, but that is a value judgement or prefernce and cannot be held to be in some sense "neutral". They define, or attempt to, where it is and how it is appropriate for a believer to practice his or her faith. Thus I can pray at home, but not at school. Or I can wear an outward mark of my faith in my living room but ought not to be free to do this in the street.

The premise that religion is "private only" is an affront to the notion of toleration and diversity in society.

[Osama]

The interested bystander gets involved to good effect. This is surely the point. I will condemn any regime involved in repression. Such barbarism has no place within Islam. All faiths will also say that they can live with other faiths and none in a spirit of respect and tolerance.

Secularists cannot handle this. In Turkey, Tunisia and France they cannot even handle headscarves. The secularist movement is not one that has embraced the idea of diversity and pluralism. In power, they will try to force out any kind of religious expression. I have to say I prefer liberalism. If I'm wrong about secularists, and I don't think I am, moderate secularists need to speak out!

WRT to Radius, I didn't challenge the existence of anything. I compared the NSS to the faith groups they rail against. It would be much like someone saying that Muslims have a similar agenda to the Jewish community because of the existence of groups like the MCB. You'd need quite an imagination to make that into meaning the MCB shouldn't exist. Thanks for the insight into how your mind works though. It's called projection. Do feel free to engage with the substantive debate.

[veritas]

Secularism is not to be confused with secularisation (in the finer subtleties of the English language).

Secularisation is the observable process of decline of religion from the public sphere - largely as a result of religious pluralism. I.e., it has religious roots, in the respect for freedom of conscience of different faiths or denominations. In the private sphere religion is not necessarily diminished - freed from the state, there is good evidence that it actually flourishes, as a voice of dissent, etc.

Secularism is the opposition to religious faith and sensibility and its retreat (or should one say - repulsion?) from the private sphere - so, for example, should I wish to say, affectionately, and spontaneously, 'God bless you' I am constrained from doing so by the militant godless, whom, as various contributors to this blog have noted, have an ideology of their own but won't recognise it.

[aineliva]

Secularism, it seems, you Osama have put forward as the only idea that is tyrannical. Have you? It seems to me that what you have done is written a post highlighting an organisation that has disagreed with your particular beliefs and a certain practice of them.

"Children acting against their faith", and I suppose Osama that "faiths" have never acted "against children".

The problem of faith of any kind is when some people use it to back up their particular view of the world, justify violence, and then claim a Deities approval of their actions. The problem with faith is it can often turn into a "mob collective" of voices raised against their particular "dislike" of the week, month or year.

Oh how wonderful it would be, at this moment in time, if in particular, the followers of Islam and Judasim could put aside the "religion", and take a really close look at what they have done to each other in it's name; sit down together and decide that they could collectively bring it to an end and live side by side.

The second problem is when religion becomes politic, or politics become religious, that's the real danger. And so, secularism it seems has come to that point also; in your opinion.

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