Adonis Diaries

Is secular simply an interior state of mind? Think again

Are secular States and anti-clerical States qualitatively the same in ideology and practice?

Should religious belief systems and values be confined in the privacy of homes and particular praying places?

Should public domain streets and squares be opened to religious ceremonies and display of religious customs and traditions?

Is an anti-clerical State demanding a one-way involvement into religious systems, while religious hierarchy should have no say whatsoever in State-power functions and responsibility”?

Does a secular State allow a two-way involvement in power sharing, at least in election periods, but the laws are not enacted in the name of a superior God and not explicitly applied in the name of a particular religious value system?

Does a secular State means that the political system has no rights to judge or condemn a religious sect behaviors and practices? Or religious beliefs should have no weight in the functioning of civil service institutions?

Does a secular State means that an individual religious clerics has all the basic rights as any citizens, no more no less, but the religious organization has no rights in intervening in State power in the name of faith, or expect any State subsidies to sustaining and maintaining its normal functions among the believers?

Are all secular States of “hypocrisy systems”, implicitly applying religious value systems in the name of explicit civil laws?

Are totalitarian States, dogmatic States, and theocratical States the same qualitatively in their persecution of freedom of expression and the exercise of religious belief systems and values?

The societies have witnessed and experienced all kinds of political domination power-control systems, and all powers were declared to emanate from a more superior source, even claiming the superior “power of the working people in factories”, or those working the lands, or those working in civil servant positions, or those working in the military, or those working in the internal security forces, or the elite class of nobility, or elite class of landowners, or the elite class of the bankers, or the elite portion of the upper middle-class of intelligentsia, or a God, or an amalgam of Gods, or the power of the majority of eligible voters in election period, or the majority of the elected official…

In any case, all States systems, regardless of ideological structure can transform into a totalitarian-form of government, ruled and guided by a totalitarian elite class (who want the best for their chattel citizens…)

Can we claim that secularism is meant to institute the “liberty of the spirit” so that individual citizens are capable of ferreting out dogmatic inclinations in any power institution?

Can we claim that secularism is basically an internal individual spiritual condition, a permanent discipline, an individual asceticism…that refuses the domination of abstract concepts and belief-systems on the reality of life and the true needs and wants of the common people…?

If you think that secularism should be confined to the individual state of mind, then how many of us can consider himself secular, and know the power struggle among civil and religious mind domination?

Ultimately, the living adult is an individual responsibility of a series of due diligence, but heaping up all kinds of responsibilities on the individual is blatant excuse of the power-to-be to shirk out on its basic duties toward the citizens.

The individual is already crumbling under so many responsibilities, in the name of a capitalist ideology and supported by religious sects, and expecting a secular mind to come alive is above the capabilities of even a few to shoulder.

Why it should have taken me over 50 years of living, and many higher education degrees in engineering and sciences, and constant reflective inclination on conditions and situations, personal and community, and still feel unable to discriminate the thin red line in community power struggle for domination of the citizens?

The establishment of the foundations of a secular State is the responsibility of the community.

Citizens needs to be educated how to differentiate among abstract concepts that cannot be demonstrated, concepts that can be measured and experimented with, concept that can be made operational to be measured, evaluated and tested (such as mental and emotional abilities…), concepts that required tolerance, and concepts that we should never tolerate under any excuse...

A Secular State main function is to enact civil laws that agree with the basic common denomination belief system of values, of facilitating the process for any individual to ask for a review of a law, to codify how organizations are entitled to demand their rights…

A secular State is expected to protect individual rights for freedom of expression, for learning and reading any published documents, for getting engaged in discussions that affect any power structure…

Democracy is fundamentally the process of instituting a credible civil and secular community.