A Secular World Order-- Is It Possible?

Christer Sturmark: "Sverigedemokraternas och islamisternas motsats är istället den sekulära humanismen. I humanisternas sekulära samhälle är både kristna och muslimer välkomna. I ett sådant samhälle har de mänskliga rättigheterna och den mänskliga friheten alltid företräde framför religiösa dogmer eller kulturella traditioner. Ingen människa ska behöva underkasta sig andra människors uppfattning om Guds vilja, om valet inte är självständigt och fritt."

I noted with pleasure that Sturmark have now a vision of a society which is secular and in which religious people can coexist. When Richard Dawkins talks about his vision it seems, I might be mistaken though, like he wishes that religion should eventually disappear. For an excerpt of his views I can recommend a recent interview on BigThink.com.

Approximately 25% of people believe in something like a God, 25% don't, the rest are in between. Therefore religion will not disappear in the foreseeable future. However, I envision that science will become the new method of searching for God, a new type of worship and that God is Nature. This will definitely happen before man evolves away from the need of having faith. That makes me a religious humanist.

Such a God concept is materialistic, however, we know from the advancement of science since Heliocentric Theory from 1543 that anything seems possible which makes miracles acceptable even. Take the example of the resurrection of Christ. Not possible today but why not tomorrow. Using a materialistic God concept means to put in escrow the explanations of tomorrow.

The reason for why I believe that the advent of monotheism by the Jews was a keystone of the development of our Western Civilization is that it ultimately leads to a materialistic God concept rather than purely personalized dittos. The rest of the attributes of Judeo-Christianism then led to the development of a middle class in Europe and a Reformation and subsequent development of Science.

Exactly how it will be possible to transfer faith from a supernatural Being to a materialistic Nature I don't know yet. But it is possible that people eventually will become sufficiently impressed with science as also China and India comes into play. I am convinced, however, that Sturmark and Dawkins are on the right track but I write this post in order to propose that the idea of a religion based on a materialistic God concept would work whereas a solely secular society, no matter how humanistic, would not work.

One consequence of this world view is that religion will fuse with politics again as the field of political science develops.