I don’t think it’s possible to have genuine separation of church and state without state atheism, not just “secularism.” The problem is that if religious people can run for office they will just make up “secular” reasons for their legislation. It tends to be so silly that most of the time they don’t even hide it: they will outright argue to the public that they’re implementing the law for religious reasons, but will just write down a non-religious one for the record.
Take same-sex marriage in the US for example, where US politicians started to float some argument that the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman therefore if you allow it you’re abusing the definition of words. Like… c’mon, not a single soul on earth finds that argument actually convincing. It’s just a silly argument made up to justify a religious-motivated law.
You cannot have scientific management of the economy ran by people who believe in magic. Sorry.
State atheism isn’t “it’s illegal to be a theist,” it means that the state is explicitly atheistic in its law, not just secular (indifferent to theism/atheism), but that people in government, or at least anyone in a very high position of power, actually have to be atheists. You can still be free to believe whatever you want, but just don’t run for public office if you are detached from reality. Countries like this often have historically even provided funding and support for things like religious institutions like churches for people to freely worship, but since it is done by atheists, the motives are slightly different: it is there to help contain the religiosity, not to spread it, so things like evangelism in banned. If you come to religion on your own free will without indoctrination or evangelism, then there still is a place for you, but neither that place or yourself can then use that as a basis to evangelize.
I don’t think it’s possible to have genuine separation of church and state without state atheism, not just “secularism.” The problem is that if religious people can run for office they will just make up “secular” reasons for their legislation. It tends to be so silly that most of the time they don’t even hide it: they will outright argue to the public that they’re implementing the law for religious reasons, but will just write down a non-religious one for the record.
Take same-sex marriage in the US for example, where US politicians started to float some argument that the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman therefore if you allow it you’re abusing the definition of words. Like… c’mon, not a single soul on earth finds that argument actually convincing. It’s just a silly argument made up to justify a religious-motivated law.
You cannot have scientific management of the economy ran by people who believe in magic. Sorry.
You mean making anything state-related atheistic but maintaining the freedom to believe in a religion for the general person?
State atheism isn’t “it’s illegal to be a theist,” it means that the state is explicitly atheistic in its law, not just secular (indifferent to theism/atheism), but that people in government, or at least anyone in a very high position of power, actually have to be atheists. You can still be free to believe whatever you want, but just don’t run for public office if you are detached from reality. Countries like this often have historically even provided funding and support for things like religious institutions like churches for people to freely worship, but since it is done by atheists, the motives are slightly different: it is there to help contain the religiosity, not to spread it, so things like evangelism in banned. If you come to religion on your own free will without indoctrination or evangelism, then there still is a place for you, but neither that place or yourself can then use that as a basis to evangelize.