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Which religion is the greatest threat to secularism?

Which of these options is the greatest threat to secularism in your opinion

  • Catholicism

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • Islam

    Votes: 19 82.6%
  • Protestantism

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • Judaism

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hinduism

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • Total voters
    23

Spiderman

Veteran Member
I'm especially wanting to hear from people who promote or favor secularism. Which of the choices in the Poll would you consider the greatest threat to secularism? (in your opinion).
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Its really too hard for me to say. I might say Islam, but its not necessarily so. Protestantism seems to keep changing and opposing secularism and has branched into Mormons, JWs, evangelicals etc. Judaism has got some serious religiosity going on. Hindus, too. They seem like once they got out from under the Queen they started to ramp things up. They have got religious political factions which oppose their secular ideals. The Roman Catholics have some very intense anti-secular movements.

Anyway does secular-ism even have a future? The ism suggests a religion, but the secular and the religious often co thrive.
 

Spiderman

Veteran Member
I would say Islam because Islamic government still has laws against criticizing the Prophet Muhammad where a person can be executed or in prison for a long time for doing so.

Islam oppresses hundreds of millions of people and has nearly all (if not all )the Dark Aged theocracies in our world. It seems secularism is really thriving in nations with a Christian majority. Secularism is more oppressed and Religion crammed down people's throats in predominantly Islamic countries.

They also have an extremely high birth rate and growing swiftly, and Muslims might usually be peaceful, but there is a threat coming from them more than other religions.
 

Spiderman

Veteran Member
In Catholic schools mentioning creationism or discrediting Darwin in biology curricula is forbidden.
I blasphemed God in a convent and a nun slapped me in the face. I deserved it. But I don't know of any Catholic laws these days where a person is imprisoned or killed for criticizing Catholicism. Those laws run rampant in Muslim majority countries though.
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm especially wanting to hear from people who promote or favor secularism. Which of the choices in the Poll would you consider the greatest threat to secularism? (in your opinion).
That’s too interesting a question not to ponder. The essential problem with all five religions listed is they are based on theologies that are past their used by date. None are properly equipped to meet the challenges of the modern world as they are all tied to beliefs that worked when they were Revealed but don’t work now. In that sense they all have such contradictory and irreconcilable problems as to be unsuitable for the current age. Secularism is therefore an entirely inevitable and reasonable response. Any attempt at a reversal will only cause conflict. Islam stands out as being the most opposed to secularism but it’s attempts to resist modernity will be in vain.
 

Spiderman

Veteran Member
That’s too interesting a question not to ponder. The essential problem with all five religions listed is they are based on theologies that are past their used by date. None are properly equipped to meet the challenges of the modern world as they are all tied to beliefs that worked when they were Revealed but don’t work now. In that sense they all have such contradictory and irreconcilable problems as to be unsuitable for the current age. Secularism is therefore an entirely inevitable and reasonable response. Any attempt at a reversal will only cause conflict. Islam stands out as being the most opposed to secularism but it’s attempts to resist modernity will be in vain.
Great post!:thumbsup:
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I think it's too broad to say that Islam is the greatest threat to secularism. Secularism made remarkable progress in many majority-Muslim countries up until a fundamentalist backlash occurred. Sooner or later, I think secularism will return to those countries.

Fundamentalism -- all fundamentalisms -- are in my opinion the greatest threats to secularism.

So far as I can see, fundamentalisms are not only threats to secularism, but also to humanism -- which to me, is of at least as great of a threat as any threat they pose to secularism.

I think most religions are more or less compatible with humanism. Not the fundamentalisms, though.
 

GoodbyeDave

Well-Known Member
The greatest threat to secularism in the sense of a tolerant society is obviously Islam, although Christianity is a runner-up.

Of course, many people use "secularism" as a dishonest cover for "atheism" (e.g. the National Secular Society in the UK). The greatest threat to them is polytheism: religion is holding up in India, Japan, and China in the way that it isn't elsewhere.

Incidentally, the mass-adherence to Islam in Muslim countries may be more apparent than real. One on-line poll suggested that 27% of Saudi Arabians have abandoned Islam.
Opinion | Conversions From Islam in Europe and Beyond
 

Spiderman

Veteran Member
We need an "Other" option
Not really, because I'm asking people their personal opinion about which of those religions is most threatening to the secularism they desire. I'm simply asking them their opinion about what they find most threatening of those options.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Isnt secularism its own religion in a way?
Not really. There are people with religious beliefs who support secular law (in fact the majority of secularists are religious), sure, but secularism has just one tenant: Separation of religious institutions from civil government. Religions need a series of tenets to operate. Otherwise any single principal could be a religion and that just dilutes the term into meaninglessness.
 
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