Why Is The World Not Becoming More Secular? Essays Example
Secularism is the theory which states that the government institutes along with the individuals who are supposed to represent the state should not be associated with any religious institutions and religious dignitaries. There is a lot of debate revolving around the feasibility of this principle being implemented, and the proponents’ strongest argument is the prejudice that would be avoided if the state does not associate itself with a specific religion which would make the real purpose of the state i.e. to provide safety and fulfill the rights of its citizens, regardless of their religion. The question as to the world becoming more secular cannot be answered unanimously. For instance while there has been a fall in the number of people going to the church and being practicing Christian has plummeted significantly in Ireland but on the other hand the number of Christians in Romania and Ukraine has augmented drastically.
So to say that the world overall is becoming more secular, by just taking the examples of a few countries would be a gross overstatement. However, the question is not whether it’s true that the world is becoming less religious but rather it is that why is not becoming so? Secularism has a lot of benefits; it reduces the risk of extremist activities by religion fanatics all over the world. It also gives birth to a transparent and fair system of governing the people as all the decisions and constitutions of the state would be taken rationally and keeping in mind the benefit of the citizens and not due to the God they worship or whether they worship any God or not. Secularism also helps endorse the principle of rationality and logic and tries to succumb the path of the fools i.e. to make decisions emotionally and without any logical backing.
The world did not become secular with the evolution of the human kind. Science and technology did not suppress the growth and expansion of religion; for example after it was proven that the Earth is flat it did not result in the death of the religion of Christianity, as the churches were endorsing the Earth to be flat and not round. So now, with the evolution of mankind and the advancements in the field of technology, while giving rise to a lot of questions and arguments does not result in the religions of the world dying out. Instead in some cases the advancements in technology have actually resulted in people becoming more informed about their religion due to the wide access to information all over the Internet. While there has been an increase in extremist religious activities but there has also been an increase in religious activities increasing. The funding and proceeds going to religious institutions have witnessed an expansion which has resulted in religious activities growing.
Secularism does not entail that people become non-religious rather it is a rational thought process which propagates the advantages and benefits of the lack of religious activity while taking major decisions of the state. Secularism is not beating the whole world in light of the absence of the first secularism school of thought.
Secularism these days is related more with bigotry, which makes it equivalent to religious enthusiasm. Secularism today is basically individuals getting to be narrow minded of anybody religious and that in itself refutes the whole reason for secularism.
There have been numerous examples of the states of this world taking no action against the atrocities carried out with the minorities in their country. The examples start from India, Pakistan and extend to even the United States of America where the prayer opens every congressional session. This does not mean that having a religious inclination or like having “In God we Trust” motto of the United States would mean that the state would not take care of the people not associated with the religion of the majority, there have been various examples of religious countries displaying amazing instances of taking exceptional care of the religious minorities. However, secularism ensures that state is run as rationally and consistently as possible. Secularism ensures that the minds of the population are not corrupted with emotions. Religion is about faith while the state should be run by logic and thus philosophy and logic should form the foundations of a nation. Secularism also ensures that there is lesser confusion and divide.
There a lot of religions in the world who contradict with each other and this have given rise to extremist activities like killing in the name of religion too. There are a lot of people in the general population who do not follow any religion and secularism ensures that not only are they catered to logically but also makes sure that they do not fall into the victim activity that the state is out to get them because of the lack of transparency in the system due to the involvement of religious institutions and dignitaries.
The reason why the world is not becoming more secularism is because most of the religions in the world do not elect their supreme leader unanimously, rather most of the population does not have a say in the selection of the leader and thus the person who comes to power might be against the teachings and might disregard the rights of the opposition. While the latter is also true of democracy as the losing party might actually face the shorter end of the stick after their leader loses but at least the people have an apparent say in choosing that leader. Which ensures that there exists a need for a system to ensure transparency and accountability.
Secularism is not prevailing over the entire world because of the lack of the original secularism school of thought. Secularism nowadays is associated more with intolerance, which makes it equal to religious fanaticism. Secularism today is mostly people becoming intolerant of anyone religious and that in itself negates the entire purpose of secularism. While it is good to not associate any religious affiliations with any decision of the state to ensure that the system is fair and just but it also not sensible to disregard the opinions and says of anyone who is slightly inclined towards religion as irrational because that beats the purpose of secularism and increase in tolerance.
The world is not becoming more secular also because of the vast outrage that occurs due to the intentional emotional damage incurred on the emotions and views of those following religion. Secularism is opposed by the school of thought which believes that religion and logic are not mutually exclusive and the sign of a true religious person is his/her ability to logically decide things with the help of his/her religion as religion is supposed to guide and instruct people how to act out in the best way for society as well as themselves so people who are going astray and killing and spreading religious discrimination are not really the religious people and thus this small, albeit more vocal percentage, of people who are putting a bad name to religion should not be the basis to spread secularism while disregarding religion as this can be defined as a huge generalization due to flawed data sample.
Hence, secularism has a lot of benefits, as mentioned above, and it also has a huge population of people defending the secularist school of thought but the biggest backing of secularism is logic and this very logic questions the move to completely secularize the entire population of the world as nonsensical as this would suppress and disregard the rights and emotional freedom of speech and expression of a vast majority of the population. Thus, the rise of secularism is a good sign and hopefully it will result in either secularism prevailing the entire religious fanatic finally seeing some sense and light to include more logic and rationality into their decisions.
Bibliography
Aldridge, A., 2000. Religion in the contemporary world: a sociological introduction.. Oxford: Oxford: Polity Press.
Bruce, S., 2002. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Fenn, R., 2001. The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell.: Oxford: Blackwell..
Goldstone, J., 2009. Why Europe? The rise of the West in world history. New York: McGraw Hill.
Kurtz, L., 1995. Gods in the Global Village: the World's religions in Sociological Perspective. London: Pineforge Press.
Moyser, G., 1991. Politics and Religion in the Modern World. London: Routledge..
R.Inglehart & Norris, P., 2004. Sacred and Secular: religion and politics worldwide.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
S.Kalberg, 2005. Max Weber: readings and commentary on modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Super, J. & Turley, B., 2006. Religion in world history. London: Routledge.
- APA
- MLA
- Harvard
- Vancouver
- Chicago
- ASA
- IEEE
- AMA