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Secularism - Coggle Diagram
Secularism
History of Secularism
1) Premodern age of antiquity and the medieval synthesis: "impossible not to believe"
2) Modernity: "it became possible not to believe"
3) Late modernity (our present time): "impossible to believe"
Was America founded to be secular?
America's founder's views
Thomas Jefferson
In the Declaration of Independance: "All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"
"The purpose of government was to protect those rights already endowed upon human beings by God"
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?"
George Washington
"Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."
"of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports"
Benjamin Franklin
"Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure; Nothing more bondage than too much liberty"
Samuel Adams
"Let Divines, and Philosophers, Statesmen and Patriots unite... [in] instructing [citizens] in the Art of self-government... In short, of leading them in the study, and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system"
James Madison
"The belief in a God all powerful, wise, and good is... essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man..."
John Adams
"The doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe was the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization"
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholy inadequate to the government of any other"
"Science, liberty, and religion... have an inseparable union. Without their just influence, no society can be great, flourishing, happy."
Joshua Charles' conclusions (Writer & Researcher at the Bible Museum)
"Liberty came with moral demands and boundaries"
"A free society divorced from religion could not work and would not survive"
"The founders did not demand that anyone believe in any particular religion or even in God. Quite the contrary. But while they understood the value of a secular government, they feared a secular society, one without religion."
What is secularism?
means "without God"
Government without God
Life without God
Education without God
The State is the only authority
Types of secularism
Atheist Fundamentalist Secularism
The State telling the church what to do
The State telling us what our morals are
Moral Secularism
Believes in separation of Church and State