Conason: Since when does "secular" mean anti-religion?

[kskiska]

Romney and Huckabee's religious intolerance

Nonbelievers have long been more tolerant of believers in office than the other way around.

Distasteful as all the Bible thumping and ostentatious piety of the Republican presidential aspirants certainly are, the time may have come to address their religious pretensions directly, instead of turning away in mild disgust. For the truth is that no matter how often candidates like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee promise to uphold the Constitution and protect religious freedom, they are clearly seeking to impose the restrictive tests of faith that the nation's founders abhorred.

The most egregious offender against basic American civics today is Huckabee, who told a group of students at Liberty University, the center of higher learning founded by the late Jerry Falwell, that his sudden rise in the Iowa polls is an act of God. He compared the improvement in his political fortunes to the New Testament miracle of the loaves and fishes. He wasn't joking, as both his demeanor and his words demonstrated.

The Rev. Huckabee has proved willing to risk his oversold reputation as the "nice" evangelical with a primary strategy that draws attention to his qualifications as a "Christian leader," in contrast to the suspect Mormonism of Romney. Huckabee was honest enough not to deny that he believes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a cult -- and in fact, many if not most of his fellow Southern Baptists regard the LDS church as a satanic cult.

In response, Romney delivered an address that simultaneously pleaded for religious tolerance and urged intolerance of what he termed the "religion of secularism." The former Massachusetts governor at once declined to discuss the specific dogmas of his own faith while seeking to convince the bigots in his political party that, like them, he accepts Jesus Christ as the Son of God and his Savior. (Actually, Mormon beliefs about Jesus, which Romney insists he will not abandon, are considerably more complicated than his speech implied and bear little resemblance to the theology of orthodox Christianity.)

more…
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/12/07/religion_presidency/

[rodeodance]

1. The RW wants all to believe seculism is indeed anti-religion. It will work for many!!

[roguevalley]

15. romney would tolerate all religions but won't employ muslims because

of their religion. amazing.

[NMMNG]

2. Thanks to the RW propaganda machine,

secular has now come to be equated with atheist and/or anti-religion. Of course even secular is evil, because being merely neutral to religion is inherently evil. We must embrace religion (Christianity, of course) and infuse it into government at every opportunity. Otherwise we'll be no better than those Godless commies, or horrid Islamofascists. :sarcasm:

[robbedvoter]

3. Worse, "secularism" is a religion to them - an evil threatening one - poor babies

[ihavenobias]

14. I LOVE that!

That picture is awesome because it's hilarious AND it visually lays out a pet peeve of mine, which is the 'put-upon majority'.

Sometimes I listen to a Catholic radio station here in Chicago (one afternoon show in particular) just to see what they're saying. A regular theme is how society is becoming increasingly secular (and by secular they mean anti-religious rather than simply areligious). They act ass if there's some Evil Secular Agenda(TM) to destroy everything they hold sacred.

And of course you have O'Reilly types playing up fake stories about a 'War On Christmas" and other fabricated nonsense.

[OHdem10]

4. Fundamentalists have never accepted the Enlightenment

and therefore are in a struggle with Secularism. This is why they
are always using Secularists, Secularism. i used to check out the
Religious Right TV programming. P. Robertson would rail against
secularism . Some of his books likewise.

[nealmhughes]

5. The people who bandy about the term "secular" and/or "humanist" with no concept of what either means

are rapidly attempting to set the clocks backwards to Pre-Illustration.

I do believe it was Kant who described the act of becoming enlightend as the process of man breaking free from his self-imposed restraints.

Continuing: " The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remain immature for life."

Having received wisdom exempts one from the effort of seeking information which will then grow to knowledge and hopefully, wisdom...

I once said that a great librarian was not one who idly stood by while children danced on the subway tracks blindfolded, but played the fiddle for them and placed blindfolds on them. The analogy of risk of imminent death from an oncoming train or third rail being the risk of losing their slavish devotion to received wisdom and authority, the only truly intellectually adult to live. That is to say, one must let the old disciple die in order for the new free person to be born.

[anitar1]

6. No more Faux christians in the white house . please.

I am Sick and weary hearing all the bible thumping. So false.

[ck4829]

7. We need to end this black and white thinking

A person can believe in God AND in Separation of Church and State.

[Briar]

10. Equally

a person can not believe in God and be upright, principled and fit for the highest office.

[ck4829]

11. Absolutely

I'm not an Atheist but I find it irritating when someone says you need to be religious to be moral, I don't think that is true at all.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Well said, sir. Well said.

[David Diderot]

9. Religious Belief

In Civilization and It’s Discontents Sigmund Freud observed the following about religion:

“The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to realty, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of morals will never be able to rise about this view of life.”

[amb123]

12. The Christian Right has no faith in God at all

If they believe they need the Government to "save" them from "persecution".

And how dare they scream "persecution" when Mitt Romney just persecuted atheists, agnostics, and people of faith who believe in Church/State separation in one speech!

[Martin Eden]

13. Damn Good Point. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

16. Excellent point, secular isn't the same as anti-religious and the people;

who want to confuse that issue, are the same people that harbor resentments against religions other than their own, the us versus them mentality.

We have another thread floating around here about the Republican's and or corporate advantage in using marketing and human psychology as a means to manipulate the people or get their message out depending on how you look at it, I believe this obfuscation of the meaning of the words secular and anti-religious are just one example of their work.

Religion has no place in government and government has no place in religion, mixing the two will be as mixing oil with water, both will have been ruined for their highest and best purpose.