Division is the natural status of humanity and always will be. The demise of religion wouldn't change this fact.
Sure. But it would at least eliminate a cause of division that in many cases is extremely dogmatic in nature. And dogmatic division is the worst of its kind as there is no out, no chance of compromise.
In a somewhat stretched analogy, to me that sounds a bit like "
so what if you can catch all rapists - there still is going to be other types of crime"
Although that's probably not how you meant it.
It's very doubtful that our brains cope well with being constantly connected to each other, especially those whose values do not align with ours.
And I think that view is very much supported and validated by the effects we see that "social" media have on the psych of people that are very active on such platforms.
Unity is the wrong goal, (mostly) peaceful coexistence with those we dislike is the best we can hope for.
I very much agree with that. Imo, it comes down to being "unified" in a system that is literally build from the ground up to deal with multi-culturalism / difference of opinion and to lay down a framework designed specifically for co-existance and co-operation between the various groups.
And I'ld say that in that sense, the groups would be "unified" in a "common goal" of building a society in which everybody can live their life in peacefull co-existance with a "live and let live" mentality.
And I think that secular humanism provides such a framework. Or perhaps better said: I think secular humanism so far, is humanity's best attempt at such a framework.
I think that "unity" is oftenly misunderstood to mean that all have to believe the same things or that there is some fine line that everyone should fall into with little to no differences of opinion.
I think that's wrong. It seems perfectly reasonable to be "united" in the idea of peacefull co-existance.
Unfortunately, the pursuit of unity harms the pursuit of peaceful coexistence.
Well.... If certain groups aren't interested in peacefull co-existance, then those groups have to be dealt with one way or the other. And most likely, those groups won't be available to find peacefull solutions.
We could be united, if only everyone else would just agree with me that my ideology is the best one
...for peacefull coexistance.
How else could you peacefully co-exist within a single society, if not through some secular form of government which tries to center its policies around
universal values instead of specific values that only matter to the people of a specific sub-group/sub-culture?
To peacefully co-exist with different groups within the same society, you'ld necessarily require the type of society that
1. allows such groups equal rights to even exist
2. gives people the freedom to interact
3. gives people the freedom to switch groups
4. doesn't make one group "more important" then another
It just seems to me that secularism is a very good way to do this. The best that I know off, at least. I'm open to learning about others, if there are any
These are generally Western post-Christian values that developed from a specific (Graeco-Christian) cultural history, and are no more 'universal' than the religion they replaced.
I disagree, actually.
Obviously everybody has their historical cultural baggage. At the same time, many things in humanism etc are in direct conflict with judeo-christian values.
Things like freedom in sexual orientation, to name just one, can hardly be called a christian value.
I don't remember where I first heared this, but it's an approach I totally agree with... It's a thought exercise on how to design a society in which you would want to live. There's a catch however: while you are designing that society and while you will be living in it.... you don't know in advance what your ethnicity, cultural background, religion, sexual orientation, intelligence,.... will be.
So, you'll want to design a society in which none of that matters, in the sense of that no matter what group you belong to - you'll have equal shots at happiness, work, wealth, health, love, etc.
It's kind of hard to imagine coming up with anything else then some kind of secular democracy.