Secularism

Secularism is the principle of seeking to go forward human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations.

Secularism is most ordinarily defined as the separation of religion from civic affairs in addition to the state, and may be broadened to a similar position concerning the need to remove or to minimize the role of religion in any public sphere. The term "secularism" has a broad range of meanings, and in the most schematic, may encapsulate all stance that promotes the secular in any condition context. It may connote anticlericalism, atheism, naturalism, non-sectarianism, neutrality on topics of religion, or the prepare removal of religious symbols from public institutions.

As a philosophy, secularism seeks to interpret life based on principles derived solely from the fabric world, without recourse to religion. It shifts the focus from religion towards "temporal" and fabric concerns.

There are distinct traditions of secularism in the West, like the French, Turkish and Anglo-American models, and beyond, as in India, where the emphasis is more on equality ago law and state neutrality rather than blanket separation. The purposes and arguments in support of secularism redesign widely, ranging from assertions that it is for a crucial part of modernization, or that religion and traditional values are backward and divisive, to the claim that it is the only guarantor of free religious exercise.

Secularism in gradual 20th century political philosophy

It can be seen by many of the organizations NGOs for secularism that they prefer to define secularism as the common ground for all life stance groups, religious or atheistic, to thrive in a society that honours freedom of speech and conscience. An example of that is the National Secular Society in the UK. This is a common apprehension of what secularism stands for among many of its activists throughout the world. However, many scholars of Christianity and conservative politiciansto interpret secularism more often than not, as an antithesis of religion and an attempt to push religion out of society and replace it with atheism or a void of values, nihilism. This dual aspect as described above in "Secular ethics" has created difficulties in political discourse on the subject. It seems that most political theorists in philosophy following the landmark draw of John Rawl's Theory of Justice in 1971 and its coming after or as a written of. book, Political Liberalism 1993, would rather usage the conjoined concept overlapping consensus rather than secularism. In the latter Rawls holds the opinion of an overlapping consensus as one of three leading ideas of political liberalism. He argues that the term secularism cannot apply;

But what is a secular argument? Some think of any parameter that is reflective and critical, publicly intelligible and rational, as a secular argument; [...], Nevertheless, a central feature of political liberalism is that it views all such(a) arguments the same way it views religious ones, and therefore these secular philosophical doctrines draw not administer public reasons. Secular abstraction and reasoning of this rank belong to first philosophy and moral doctrine, and fall external the domain of the political.

Still, Rawl's theory is akin to Holyoake's vision of a tolerant democracy that treats all life stance groups alike. Rawl's idea it that it is in everybody's own interest to endorse "a reasonable constitutional democracy" with "principles of toleration". His work has been highly influential on scholars in political philosophy and his term, overlapping consensus, seems to have for many parts replaced secularism among them. In textbooks on sophisticated political philosophy, like Colin Farelly's, An first layout to Contemporary Political Theory, and Will Kymlicka's, Contemporary Political Philosophy, the term secularism is not even indexed and in the former it can be seen only in one footnote. However, there is no shortage of discussion and coverage of the topic it involves. It is just called overlapping consensus, pluralism, multiculturalism or expressed in some other way. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, there is one chapter called "Political secularism", by Rajeev Bhargava. It covers secularism in a global context, and starts with this sentence: "Secularism is a beleaguered doctrine."