Are you religious?

[Brutus Beefcake]

I see what you mean, but secularism is also advantageous to the religious.

[Borboski]

I see what you mean, but secularism is also advantageous to the religious.

A-ha, yes, "render unto Caesar's" and all that.  My suspicion is that free-thinking rational people who perhaps weren't really all that commited to Christianity were the main reason for the success of secularism within the church.

I mean, the creation of the CofE being a case in point.

But, obviously, that's that based on any real evidence.

[MojoJojo]

I'm not a great historian, but isn't it more likely that secularism grew out of the protestant split, and everyone getting pissed off that the national religion chnaged everytime the monarh did? There is probably also a strong influence from the way the Romans did things.

[Borboski]

The growth of secularism appears related to a whole range of factors, the liberalising reformations of the church being a good starting point - and not just that people were annoyed about the lip service being paid by leaders, but that Lutherism questioned to what degree "truth" is located within human authority, and suggested that instead we have a personal relationship with God.

But this in itself was not just a spiritual question but a political one, about rebellion against the power and legitimacy and abuse of the Catholic church.  In fact, "Q" by Luther Blissett is a fun novel about this period.

But we can think of lots of different developments which would support secularism:
- the way economic development created a mercentile middle class, which led to questioning of established elites...
- further enfranchisement of the masses...
- developments of mass communications and transport...
- developments of public communication of science, which fundamentally challenge the authority of the church...
- philosophy and political ideology, the communication of ideas across society about the best way of organising society, and it being clear that these ideas aren't grasped from the Bible.

The previous argument we'd had was that Christianity had "invented" secularism, which I took issue with as you'd have to either show that:
a) The first, or at least exclusive recorded examples of secularism were in Christian countries.  When I say exclusive I mean that if secular trends emerged in other civilisations later, but without drawing upon Christian ideas... it isn't really relevant that Christianity was the first.
b) Most importantly by people drawing their reasoning from the Christianity.

[Janek's Little Black Box]

developments which would support secularism:
- the way economic development created a mercentile middle class, which led to questioning of established elites...
- further enfranchisement of the masses...
- developments of mass communications and transport...
- developments of public communication of science, which fundamentally challenge the authority of the church...
- philosophy and political ideology, the communication of ideas across society about the best way of organising society, and it being clear that these ideas aren't grasped from the Bible.

Could you expand on those, Borboski? Like a couple of sentences describing an example of what you mean by each one of those bullet points?

[Borboski]

Christ, don't encourage me!

[Janek's Little Black Box]

Christ, don't encourage me!

Well I am encouraging you!...alright then, just this one:

- further enfranchisement of the masses...

What does that mean?

[Borboski]

I mean everyone getting the vote - "enfranchisement" is often used in that sense.

Broadly, what I'm saying in those points is that the world is vastly changed since the days when you had a few kings claiming absolute power on the basis of heriditary kingship, albeit one claimed on behalf of God.

There's lots of reasons for why and how everyone got the vote, but as more and more people did, one of the duties of the state (to protect or claim 'truth') changed, it had to be more honest, truth itself was democratised, you couldn't just claim a policy because "well, God made me King".

[Janek's Little Black Box]

That's clearer, thanks. I thought I knew what enfranchise meant but didn't.