A well written article. However it does not mention certain dangers.

Many people become “religious” or follow a religion when they have a desire to believe in something greater than themselves.

Take away religion and it tends to leave a vacuum. That vacuum can then be filled with beliefs in such things as Marxism (or belief in the state), consumerism (or belief in spending on material goods), feminism (or the belief in denigration of the male gender), or forms of individualism whereby a person believes in the importance of themselves to the exclusion of all else.

Secularism is not without its dangers

You certainly have a rosy view of religion, vanna.

You make the desire to believe in something greater than one’s self sound like an inherently humble way of thinking.

But the belief in something greater than one’s self is often used to justify bad acts with divine reasoning or purpose.

Besides, the sheer audacity of believing that everything in the universe exists purely for the sake of such insignificant specs as ourselves is anything but humble. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is by far the most incredibly arrogant state of mind any one could possibly be in.

<<Take away religion and it tends to leave a vacuum.>>

A vacuum of reality that allows science to flourish. But whether or not that vacuum is a good thing, it’s reality, so it wins out by default. Not all people need to have a belief system though. Many are quite happy with reality as it is.

Reality has all sorts of dangers so it is pointless to suggest that secularism is not without its dangers. That’s life, and simply making something up - like religion - is hardly going to fix anything.

I’d prefer to work towards no evils than settle for a [perceived, but by no means a] lesser of the evils. Using one absurdity as a preventative measure for others is a cop out.

Besides which, none of those other “evils” you mentioned are prevented by religion and on the contrary, can be exacerbated and radicalized even more by religion and the divine purpose it provides - through something greater than one’s self.

Vanna, you and people like you just don't get it, do you?

Secularism is not about taking away religion.

Yes, of course, McReal.

I got so caught up in responding to this notion that religion is a harmless, humble necessity that I forgot to mention the main point.

I would like political decisions to be based on verifiable reasons and demonstrable evidence. If this is possible without dismantling religion, fine: but as far as I can see the would-be theocrats are not going to relinquish power without a long and bitter fight.

It certainly takes more faith to believe the dogmas of secularism rather than the commonsense written in the Scriptures. The idiotic hysteria around global warming is a good example of that and of course guilt free baby killing and gross immorality. Secularism lacks any reason as seen also by the idiotic explanations and dogmas taught about our origins.