Secularism had not always been regarded as a universal good. There are many who fail to find secularism and the process of secularization to be beneficial. They argue that it and atheism the sources of all society's ills. According to them, abandoning atheistic secularism in favor of an explicitly theistic and religious basis for politics and culture would produce a more stable, more moral, and ultimately better social order. Are their critiques of secularism reasonable and accurate?
A common objection to secularism as a philosophy is its emphasis on this world rather than any future life or the disposition of a human soul. According to secularist principles, we should be guided in our actions and beliefs first and foremost by the consequences our actions have for our lives and the lives of other humans here and now. The existence of something beyond our material existence is not denied, but it is also not accorded any special status. Indeed, the very fact that we can't know for sure if such an existence awaits us is a reason not to spend time worrying about it. Since we cannot know if a god, heaven, soul, or afterlife exists, then they cannot rationally motivate our actions or beliefs.
This is contrary to the doctrines of many of the world's religions. They, too, are interested in improving human life, but not on secular or materialistic terms. Their primary consideration is the ultimate fate of a person's soul, karma, or some other immaterial and transcendent substance. Motivations based solely on current considerations are inadequate and even inappropriate because they miss the very point of our lives. This is not an adequate criticism of secularism as a political philosophy or secularization as a political and social process. Te mere possibility that the basic doctrines of a religion may be correct does not justify establishing those doctrines as basic political or social principles for all citizens.
People may choose not to be secular in their personal lives, but it has to be their choice rather than forced upon them. Secularism as a personal philosophy rejects the relevancy of transcendental beings or values, but secularism as a political and social philosophy rejects the validity of establishing any transcendental beings or values as central to the political and social realm.
Another objection is that it is unable to provide a sound basis for morality, which requires the existence of transcendental, eternal, and absolute principles or values which are unavailable in purely materialistic and this-worldly philosophies. When social and political systems eschew such principles and values, they also become morally empty — and an amoral social system is doomed to chaos, corruption, and destruction.
This might be a valid point if a god exists, if transcendental values exist, if they are necessary for morality, if materialistic philosophies cannot provide a basis for morality — and if a host of other, equally questionable premises are also true. Unfortunately, it would be easy for any of them to be false, and there are good reasons to think that many are false. This objection fails if a single premise fails, and because so many are questionable the objection itself is questionable at best.
Another problem is that even if we grant the existence of a god or transcendental values generally, we cannot grant the existence of a particular god, particular values, and a particular moral system. Which one should be implemented as a basis for our social and political system, to be imposed upon even those who follow a different god and different set of religious principles? Without an answer, a neutral secularism which neither grants a preference nor imposes a burden upon any particular religious system is preferable in a pluralistic and free society.
A final criticism of secularism is how it has separated people from the religious roots of their culture. In a secular society the dwindling domination of their religious tradition means that there is less opportunity or need for people to learn about the religious traditions and doctrines which constitute the basis for their culture. This is an interesting but ineffective argument. It is true that people in America today know less about Christianity than Americans may have known in the 19th century, but while that is unfortunate from a pedagogical standpoint it isn't a political or social argument. People also don't know much about ancient Greek and Roman religion, politics, and culture which played an important role in the development of Western culture. That ignorance is lamentable, but it isn't a reason to start integrating Greek and Roman religious values into our political system or cultural institutions.
Conservative religious leaders would disagree because their goal is to promote their religious system, both by converting new members and by encouraging current members to hold the present course. This is more difficult to do when neither the power of the state nor the power of mass culture are supporting them. When they have to compete as equals alongside every other religion and philosophy, they are less likely to maintain their dominance. Naturally they don't approve of this, but there isn't much they can do about it. If their beliefs are to be popular, it will only be through the merits of those beliefs. When they ask for the state or the culture to help them, they admit that they cannot make it on their own.
There is nothing wrong with arguing that people should not adopt secularism as the basis for their personal philosophy and as the basis for the way they conduct their lives — in the marketplace of ideas, it is a positive value to have many competing viewpoints. However, only those philosophies which seek to dominate society and eliminate the marketplace can also consistently and honestly desire the abolition of secularism as the mediating context among the various religious alternatives which the average citizen faces.
