07 February 2014

The Faith of the Secular

Without taking the time to summarize it, I can recommend a short article by Ian T. Benson, a Canadian lawyer and professor in the Department of Constitutional Law and Philosophy of Law at the University of the Free State in South Africa. Titled Seeing Through the Secular Illusion, Benson briefly and cogently argues that the common understandings of the great political terms of our day--secular, faith, religion, and the like--have changed since the nineteenth century, and that their current uses lead to "the likelihood of unjust political and legal outcomes for religious believers and their communities."

In short, most folks have been so long immersed in the sea of secularism that they no longer perceive the presuppositions that support it. What once was acknowledged as a "faith" (in the sense of foundational premises the consequences of which could explain the world, human nature, knowledge, etc.) has become received "fact." This explains the increasing marginalization of "non-believers" who operate outside the premises of secularism

Benson's piece is not unique. It is, however, both brief and written by someone outside the typical American "culture wars" context and thus, I believe, worth a read.

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