Secular Fundamentalists?
Vjack of Atheist Revolution has a post up about the use of the phrase ’secular fundamentalists’ in a book he is reading. Apparently, the author thinks that the opposite of theocratic rule is secularism. I’ve encountered that kind of thinking in RL and I think it is somewhat of a misnomer.
The exact opposite of stamping “God” on everything is stamping “No Gods” on everything not removing “God” from everything. Under an atheocratic rule ‘In God We Trust’ becomes ‘In Gods We Do Not Trust’ and ‘One Nation, Under God’ becomes ‘One Nation, Under No Gods’ and so on and so forth.
‘E Pluribus Unum’ translates to “Of Many, One”. It is a secular statement that covers the facts and keeps its mouth shut about the existence of gods and what such creatures may be doing, if they do indeed exist. It is the compromise and it is completely acceptable to anyone who thinks the government should, as a rule, keep its collective mouth shut about the existence or non-existence of the gods.
However, I do think the author may be trying to take advantage of the current situation and thus the labeling of secularists as ‘fundamentalists’. Fundamentalist Religionists get slammed by everyone, but what is a fundamentalist religionist? From my experience a fundamentalist religionist is someone who considers their holy book to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth and are theocratic in a manner that says their gods rule is absolute.
Roughly translated: if their god says one thing and the government says another - their god wins by default. They may be politically theocratic but it’s not a requirement. Most of the fundamentalist religionists I’ve met have been deeply suspicious of the government involving itself in religious matters.
So, in truth - I think the labeling of those who would insert gods into government should be called politically theocratic religionists and not fundamentalist religionists. The two are not the same thing and it distracts us from the goal of people like the author of the book Vjack is reading.
And what is a theocratic religionist? Anyone who wants to keep (or put) religion into government - no matter what ‘brand’ it might be. One does not have to be a gay-bashing, atheist hating, male-supremacy racist thug to be a theocrat. One just has to support the melding of God and Government and that, by default, covers any ‘liberal’ or ‘moderate’ theist on the planet who ‘just thinks God has a place in public life (aka the government)’.
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