thewatcher wrote:


One wonders whether you study the discipline at all. The evaluation of concepts is precisely one of the most important roles that philosophy has to play.

And, of course, if you read my posts, you will find that I am not merely bandying about labels but rather producing substantive criticisms of secularism as a concept. My position is precisely that secularism, as a concept, is incoherent because religion is not, in principle, seperable from other areas of society (because intellectual, social and institutional frameworks are essentially interrelated complexes of ideas, institutions, forces and so on, pace Foucault/Heidegger/Deleuze, among others). This inseperability, in principle, likewise translates into practical realities about secularist policies: that they are doomed because of the aforementioned conceptual/institutional/social interconnectivity. There is the argument. It is quite clear and very much capable of being subjected to scholarly, rigorous philosophical discussion (as indeed it is in journals and classrooms all across the Western world). Address it or admit your inability or unwillingness to do so, but, for the sake of your own credibility as a scholar, kindly cease your attempts to cloud the issue by casting wholly unsubstantiated aspersions against my conduct in this discussion.



I have offered both responses and substantive criticism to all of your points. I eagerly await your responses to my arguments or your concession that you are unable or unwilling to provide such.

thewatcher wrote:


You arent making any arguments. That is precisely the problem. I offer an evaluation of the concept of secularism and, rather than provide a defense of that concept, you cloud the issue by claiming that I am attempting to redefine the meaning of the word secular! Let me make this quite clear: There is no dispute here as to the meaning of the word secular. What IS in dispute is its coherence as a concept and it is precisely THIS issue that you have failed to address and THIS issue that is important with respect to the topic at issue (namely, the possibility or coherence of a demarcation against religion)!

thewatcher wrote:
Are you seriously suggesting that the coherence or incoherence of as widespread and pervasive a concept (I would say myth) as secularism is irrelevent to practical concerns? You yourself have brought up numerous examples of people and institutions attempting to put secularism into practice. If my criticism is correct, all of these efforts are fundamentally wrongheaded and, indeed, dangerously misleading. Your claim that my argument has no bearing on practical reality is, quite simply, absurd. Indeed, the critical evaluation of concepts is one of the most important duties philosophy is able to preform with respect to political affairs.

I shall eagerly await your response to my arguments.

thewatcher wrote:

And I have indeed provided you with a criticism of the concept of secularism based on how ideas, institutions and forces interact. The coherence of secularism as a concept has (as you have already conceded) serious policy implications. Indeed, the concept of secularism underpins your whole argument about the superiority of secular (sic) states to religious ones. Therefore, if you are to defend your earlier position you must defend that the states in question are secular in some meaningful sense. Not merely that they are SAID to be secular or that they SELF-IDENTIFY as seculr but that they are, in fact, secular. You have failed to do so. Therefore, your entire argument throughout the course of this thread is refuted quite soundly.

thewatcher wrote:
Prove otherwise? You yourself have asserted otherwise! You have asserted that there exist secular states and that they are more succesful than religious ones and you have reasoned (or attempted to reason) from this to certain conclusions about the social efficacy of religion as an institutional and intellectual force.

Now it may be that you are giving up the ghost here and conceding your arguments throughout the course of this thread (this does seem to be suggested by your refusal to engage my arguments; arguments that have direct bearing upon every aspect of your own stated position). If that is the case, by all means say so, that we may move on and consider the question at issue in this thread from the proper perspective (ie one that does not employ so incoherent a notion as secularism)!

thewatcher wrote:


Please show me any place during the course of this argument in which I have attempted to redefine the meaning of the word secular or any related term.

thewatcher wrote:
And finally, you actually make a reasonable attempt to address my point. Perhaps there is hope for you yet! If your sole criterion for secularism is merely religious observance, then I think perhaps that it is you who should look again to the definition of the term. Would a theocracy that ruled over a non-religious population be secular? Surely not! The reason I challenge your assertion that these nations are secular is precisely because their institutions, value systems, intellectual and scoial contexts and so on are religious in origin/nature. What's more, even though formal observance of religious practices has dropped off in some of these countries, it is not at all clear that other forms of spirituality have as well.

thewatcher wrote:
I think I have already addressed this point. You have failed utterly to demonstrate any causaul link whatsoever between the success of the societies you consider and their supposed secularism (which, as we have already observed, is a misleading characterization of these societies to begin with). I suppose you could try to make the case that a diminution of religious observance is to a given country's benefit, citing these societies as examples, but here too you would have to demonstrate some sort of causal link between the aforementioned diminuition of religious observance and the supposed success of these nations. So far, you have failed to even attempt to do this.