There are two strains of secularism, I would argue, which are usually intertwined but philosophically distinct: A soft secularism that argues for a legal separation of church and politics - no school prayer, no federal funds for churches, etc - and a hard secularism that militates for a complete separation of religion and politics, and shades easily into hostility toward organized religion in a general. But neither form precludes private belief in the supernatural. A perfectly "secular" society would be defined not by universal atheism, but by a religion-free politics in the short run, and probably a long-run "decoupling," as Razib puts it, of supernatural beliefs from religious institutions.To which Andrew Sullivan responds,
The conflation of secularism with atheism in the popular vernacular is one of the more corrosive abuses of the English language today. It is perfectly possible to be devoutly religious and aggressively secular. Yes, that combo is rarer than it was, but its possibility is a lynchpin of liberal democracy.
And all I can say is, "no fricking duh." Gee, I wonder who conflated secularism with atheism in the first place? It's not the popular vernacular. It was conservative doublespeak and done with a purpose: to undermine liberalism and thwart the very democratic ideals that prompted the founding fathers to create a secular society in the first place. Guys, please meet Bill O'Reilly.
Tune in next week when conservatives discover the virtues of multi-culturalism ("conservatism is wise enough to know that no one view is always correct, and so embraces the diverse marketplace of ideas in order to find the best solution for any given problem.")
