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The Forum > Article Comments > Secularism and religious tolerance > Comments

Secularism and religious tolerance : Comments

By David Fisher, published 26/7/2010

Secularism holds that a person’s religious belief or lack of same is no business of the government.

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[aside] .. runner, projections about the fate of individuals born from 'pregnancies-not-terminated-as-they-have-been' suggest crime rates and statistics from those "individuals-not-wanted-by-their-mothers-or-born-into-significant-disadvantage" to be astronomical: millions more murders, prisoners etc over the last 35 years, if not tens of millions [/aside]
Posted by McReal, Monday, 26 July 2010 1:35:40 PM
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"The Marxist governments opposed secularism as they wished to wipe out or control religion".

I would only demur here that these were not "Marxist governments", not in their conception, their development or their infamy; not if by "Marxist" we refer to his philosophy, which did not aspire "to wipe out or control religion" or commit any of the other evils perpetrated in his name. There has never yet been any government that remotely resembles anything Marx would have approved of. I do not defend the putative Marxist governments the author mentions, I revile them with him, but I do defend Marx, and hope to at length when I may.
But back on topic.
Your comments, Dan, nicely illuminate the points I've been making elsewhere about "primitive" belief systems that should be historicised. Calvin was of his time and the fact that he advocated such a secularism in that murderous religious climate is testament to his being the "Renaissance man" the author says he was. The fact that he was able to think on and foment for such drastic reforms, in that context, should not be criticised for not attaining to modern concepts of secularism that we still haven't achieved in these "enlightened (lol)" days! Calvin and Bruno et al managed to think critically and aspire to better things (in this world) despite all that dreadful oppression. What excuse do we have for our cloistered minds today?
Posted by Squeers, Monday, 26 July 2010 3:01:27 PM
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I'm with Squeers on this one - as a Marxist from birth (however that may be defined these days), I certainly would not support any genocidal regime which calls itself 'Marxist': surely the task is to win over people's hearts and minds and you can't do that by exterminating people. Yes, I know of 'Marxists' who can contemplate doing just that, and building the perfect society with the remnants, their class brothers (and some sisters), but to me, that is very close to fascism and Nazism (cf. Jewish people, Gypsies, homosexuals), the notion of exterminating some section of society in order to purify it for the greater good. In fact, I suspect that Lenin's resort to Red Terror was a perfect rationale for other regimes to apply the same principle to their own out-groups, including the Nazi extermination of Jews.

Runner, you commit a fallacy: if a and b, then b because of a. Regimes of all sorts have committed atrocities, including non-religious, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, animist and probably Callathumpian regimes, Aztec, Babylonian, Roman, Chin, Shinto and Buddhist. Nobody is exempt just by virtue of their religion. So put that aside and try to get on with your fellow-Australians. If we are here now, then we all have more or less an equal right to be here, and equal obligations to contribute to an open and tolerant society, with its vast range of personal values and beliefs.

Joe Lane
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 26 July 2010 3:50:10 PM
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Dear Dan S de Merengue,

I am quite happy to talk to you. You might be a delightful person to know. However, I saw no point in continuing to discuss the subject of evolution and Creationism with you. That is a different matter.

As long as Calvin thought of the state as a Christian nation he was against secularism. His ecclesiology did NOT sow the seeds of the modern secular democracy. That is rewriting history. His ecclesiology sowed the seeds of tyranny with its controlling the private lives of citizens. Calvin was a tyrant and a dictator. Religious freedom is religious freedom. Where the state supports or opposes any religious belief or lack of belief you do not have religious freedom.

Devout Christians may oppose religious persecution. Castellio who protested the execution of Servetus was a devout Christian who did not agree with the views of Servetus.

Roger Williams was a devout Christian and supported secularism in colonial North America
Posted by david f, Monday, 26 July 2010 3:58:32 PM
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Great stuff. Such indisputable facts are of course always conveniently ignored, or justified by Calvinists.

Dismissed as some kind of aberration.

But such was an inevitable part of Calvins ideology. Or more accurately his fear and loathing saturated, emotional-sexual patterning.

Calvinism, and its "catholic" form Jansenism is of course very much alive and well and celebrated in puritan USA (and Ireland too)
Hugely big in fact.
Where there was so much shock-horror outrage when Janet Jackson's lovely breast was flashed on TV in prime time and in front of children--shock horror.

How many murders, both "fictional" and real, occurred on USA TV on the same day?
What was the body count in Iraq and Afghanistan?

It is the driving force behind right-wing religiosity--the "moral majority", the christian coalition, Pat Robertson, the Manhattan Declaration etc etc.
Posted by Ho Hum, Monday, 26 July 2010 4:07:10 PM
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Oh dear,
I read the article through carefully and still managed to mix up Calvin with Michael Servetus.
I then in my mortification posted this embarrassed confession on the wrong thread.
Self-flaggelation ion for me!
Posted by Squeers, Monday, 26 July 2010 4:11:24 PM
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