[Dr. Howard]

(10-21-2015 10:49 AM)Teutatis Wrote:  

(10-21-2015 06:44 AM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

I will not, but thanks for sharing your opinion on my thread title.

Would you prefer to live in a less secular or even totally nonsecular society?

I'm a christian that lives in the southern bible belt...the mayor says a prayer before community bbqs, the public school teachers are southern baptists and most community events are run or hosted by churches. So I'm totally ok with nonsecular society.

Even a secular society has to have a moral foundation to base its laws on. If the foundation doesn't come from religion, it would come from another kind of philosophy or dogma. Declaring a society as secular just excludes religion from the options of the dogmatic and/or moral foundations, which I disagree with. I think christianity should have equal 'validity' for its morals on par with the church of the flying spaghetti monster, marxism, humanism, nihilism or the writings of Thomas Hobbes.

Animal cruelty laws are a great example of this. They are secular, ie. not based in religion, but are just based on someone's beliefs or feelings that animals have rights. However, if we got a hindu up there that said "no killing cows, they are our relatives" his law would be blocked because its nonsecular. Again, secular thought means that any crazy ideas are valid, as long as they aren't based in religion. So I'm not for it. If you've got the votes, bring on the crazy, whether its your own ideas, a system of beliefs, or the will of your god.