I don’t want this to be mistaken for standing up for European colonialism, European colonialism is the greatest crime in world history, but the rationale wasn’t as much “This land was ordained to us by God” (Well, it was a thing for Spanish and Portugese colonists) as it was “You aren’t even real people and you can’t own anything if you aren’t a real person with a flag. Tallyho now be a dear and work to death for me”
Sure the church of England and the Catholic church spent centuries justifying genocide theologically, but it’s not like secularism stooped the muurdering
but it’s not like secularism stooped the muurdering
Yup; I had a similar conversation with a lib I know who insists that religion is the cause of all wars and oppression in the world and thinks that when I mention secularism being guilty of similar that I’m talking about China or North Korea (those are a whole other bag of worms I decided not to get into cause it would’ve taken us WAY offtopic), instead I pointed out that France prided itself on being secular for ages and their colonialism was utterly barbaric, and pushed French supremacy (killing local languages and cultures for example, which is why so many countries in Africa speak French as their main language), and this was not related to religion at all; ultimately capitalism is very adaptive and would use either religion or secularism to murder nations and rob their resources. The French, back then as well as now, believe themselves culturally superior to so many nations they’ve brutalized and colonized; the violent British treatment of India didn’t come from a religious stance, it came from a cultural and racial one. Certainly in both North and South America people were oppressed because of religious differences (even recently, during the coup in Bolivia, the woman responsible referred to the indigenous population as Satan worshippers which…is both stupid and makes no sense), but then even with Israel, as people have pointed out previously, you have atheists (I hate this; I keep misspelling this the first time because ‘i before e except after c’) who don’t believe in God who still consider themselves God’s chosen people, which makes zero sense.
I agree mostly with what you say, and maybe I’m just picking on a semantic misstep, but secularism isn’t “guilty of similar”.
Religion is the cause of at least some meaningful number of wars and major oppression, and although it didn’t drive colonialism, it certainly helped justify colonial oppression. Whereas secularism has effectively never been the cause for any of the above.
Wanting to keep religiosity out of official law does not bolster colonialism or ethnonationalism. I would argue that being somewhat secular avoided those things being (somehow) even worse than they were.
I don’t want this to be mistaken for standing up for European colonialism, European colonialism is the greatest crime in world history, but the rationale wasn’t as much “This land was ordained to us by God” (Well, it was a thing for Spanish and Portugese colonists) as it was “You aren’t even real people and you can’t own anything if you aren’t a real person with a flag. Tallyho now be a dear and work to death for me”
Sure the church of England and the Catholic church spent centuries justifying genocide theologically, but it’s not like secularism stooped the muurdering
Yup; I had a similar conversation with a lib I know who insists that religion is the cause of all wars and oppression in the world and thinks that when I mention secularism being guilty of similar that I’m talking about China or North Korea (those are a whole other bag of worms I decided not to get into cause it would’ve taken us WAY offtopic), instead I pointed out that France prided itself on being secular for ages and their colonialism was utterly barbaric, and pushed French supremacy (killing local languages and cultures for example, which is why so many countries in Africa speak French as their main language), and this was not related to religion at all; ultimately capitalism is very adaptive and would use either religion or secularism to murder nations and rob their resources. The French, back then as well as now, believe themselves culturally superior to so many nations they’ve brutalized and colonized; the violent British treatment of India didn’t come from a religious stance, it came from a cultural and racial one. Certainly in both North and South America people were oppressed because of religious differences (even recently, during the coup in Bolivia, the woman responsible referred to the indigenous population as Satan worshippers which…is both stupid and makes no sense), but then even with Israel, as people have pointed out previously, you have atheists (I hate this; I keep misspelling this the first time because ‘i before e except after c’) who don’t believe in God who still consider themselves God’s chosen people, which makes zero sense.
I agree mostly with what you say, and maybe I’m just picking on a semantic misstep, but secularism isn’t “guilty of similar”.
Religion is the cause of at least some meaningful number of wars and major oppression, and although it didn’t drive colonialism, it certainly helped justify colonial oppression. Whereas secularism has effectively never been the cause for any of the above.
Wanting to keep religiosity out of official law does not bolster colonialism or ethnonationalism. I would argue that being somewhat secular avoided those things being (somehow) even worse than they were.