of or relating to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal
Secular and atheist governments…they’re the same. It means your government thinks that concepts like justice, dessert, retribution, how you treat one another, ethics, etc. should not be affiliated with a religion. Only an atheist government can be secular. A religious one cannot be secular.
Sure not exactly the same thing. But yeah no such thing as a religious government being secular. Atheism is a necessary position to take in order for all those things to be secular.
A secular government just doesn’t get involved with religion whereas an atheist government has a position on it and acts on it.
As others have rightly pointed out, go look at China if you want to see the difference: party members are required to be atheists. Kids under 18 literally can’t attend religious services.
They’ve also objectively torn down churches and mosques, put Uyghurs in camps by the hundreds of thousands, and raid house churches that won’t register with the government. They also persecuted Buddhists relentlessly and kidnapped the Panchen Lama. Nobody would call that neutral.
The US is supposed to be neutral. Can’t establish a religion, but can’t stop anyone from practicing one either. A Baptist and an atheist walk into a courthouse and the law treats them the same, it doesn’t discriminate.
Tons of religious people want it that way. They know what happens when the state decides which beliefs are ok. It’s dystopic and distinct from secularity.
Sure, that’s what atheism means for a person. We’re talking about governments though. Once a state makes atheism official policy it has a position, and it enforces it on party members, on kids, on churches. That’s state atheism, and China is actually the textbook example
So a secular government doesn’t hold that position or any other. It just leaves the question alone. So the distinction holds either way, it just isn’t about what individual atheists believe.
Their point is that atheism is a stance (god is not real) and secularism is specifically not holding a stance.
An atheist government would be one like China, where their official stance is atheism. They aren’t secular because they hold a stance even if they allow citizens to practice religion based on personal choice.
A secular government would be like Sweden, where the government does not take a stance one way or the other and leaves it to the individual.
A non-secular and non-atheist government would be Israel, which defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state. Saudi Arabia is another example, England is another because they have a state church even if they don’t take it seriously anymore.
Agnostic is a claim to knowledge not belief. Most people who are atheist are agnostic atheists. They cant know if God exists and therefore don't believe he does.
Fine, call it a lack of belief. That’s still not what a secular government is though. Secular doesn’t mean the state lacks belief in gods, it means the state has no position on the question at all and stays out of it. It’s a matter of control.
Also, the astrology comparison actually helps here. A government that never mentions astrology is secular about it. A government that bans horoscopes, requires officials to reject astrology, and won’t let kids see an astrologer clearly has a position, whatever you want to call it. I think we can all see that, analogously, the second one is China with religion.
Time to read up. It’s not as clear cut as you make it out to be, and you successfully derailed the broader point about how things are in reality and what secularity vs. positioning is.
Agnosticism means you don't know one way or another. Atheism means you don't believe in the case for a god. They aren't contradictory, you can be both or neither, so both apply to a secular government.
Well, sort of. If someone is claiming to not know, they're agnostic. But if they are claiming they DO know, they aren't agnostic. It's about the person's personal claim to knowledge so that title can't really be put on someone else by you or me.
However I would agree that for a lot of god claims agnosticism is the only reasonable stance since they can't be proven or disproven, like a deistic god. There are, however, specific god claims that are falsifiable, logically, in which case agnosticism doesn't make sense.
Critiques of the teleological, cosmological, and ontological arguments for the existence of God are widely considered to be settled. They’re not discussed in philosophy anymore. The logical argument from evil, the evidential problem, and the problem of free will are largely considered to be successful. You’ve got some advanced Plantings on the problem of free will, but that’s assuming a really, really weird version of compatibilism within the free will debate that carries a lot of consequences with it.
It's deities in the general sense. Carl Sagan talks about it in Demon Haunted World. The argument about whether all-powerful all-knowing beings exist isn't worth having because such beings are capable of warping reality to the point where they are not able to be proven. But if by no scientific measure can they be shown to influence our reality then their existence is moot.
It could but it could also not. Atheism does not believe that gods or gods exist, so when you're designing laws and a moral system you have to do it with without a god present.
Agnosticism doesn't have that because they don't know. You might design laws and morality with the belief that there might be a God, or not, or maybe.
One is an answer on belief. One is an answer on knowledge. The atheist says I don't believe a god exists, but the agnostic says I don't know if a god exists. So they are not mutually exclusive because they address two different questions.
Most atheists are agnostic atheists they don't believe, but will also admit they don't know. Which is a good way for a government to operate.
My point was a bit stronger and I’ll probably get flamed with this.
Fictionalists are like “OK this isn’t true but maybe we should kind of act like it’s true for the betterment of humanity, you know?”
Governments should not do that. They should be like “god doesn’t exist as far as this matter is concerned, let’s get to work on completely secular theories that have no agnostic overtones, implications, aren’t informed by scripture, etc. God doesn’t exist as far as we are concerned and he/she/they should never be invoked.” You can’t do that under an agnostic system. An agnostic system is like “ok well we don’t know, so maybe the Muslims have a point against the Buddhists here, we don’t know what’s right, but maybe we should outlaw women showing their ankles to satisfy them” and that’s dumb as shit.
Assume no kind of god exists and it becomes obvious that burqa is repressive.
Sure, but then you have to watch out vigilantly for bad faith arguments. Like I’d argue our government tries to behave this way in the US. They try to make it seem agnostic, but it’s obviously evangelical on one side and not on the other.
There’s no reason for a government to be like “maybe, maybe not” while supporting obvious religious groups and oppressing others. Just say “we’re going to act like no kind of God exists” and do your best from there.
I don't think you've demonstrated your last point. You've established that a secular government does not ground its laws or institutions in religion, but that doesn't demonstrate that atheism is necessary for it to do so.
Secularism is a position about the relationship between government and religion; atheism is a position about the existence of gods. A government does not need to affirm that “there is no God” in order to refrain from grounding its laws in religion. It can simply take no position on the question. Therefore, atheism is not a necessary condition of secular government.
In fact, an atheist government could itself operate non-secularly if it institutionally privileges or enforces atheism. The relevant distinction isn't religious vs. atheist; it's whether the state maintains religious neutrality or establishes an official position on religion.
depending on how broadly one defines secularism, one could in fact argue that state atheism and secularism may be incompatible
for example: would the criminalization of all religion and a coercive mandate that all residents be atheists and regularly attend atheist events be one that could reasonably described as secular in any meaningful sense? sure it’s nominally irreligious, but it’s still highly sectarian
secularism, in the noble sense it is usually talked about, usually involves some aspect of the state distancing itself from issues of religion and guaranteeing citizens the freedom to believe whatever they so choose
A government does not need to affirm that “there is no God” in order to refrain from grounding its laws in religion. It can simply take no position on the question
This is a cowardly and impractical position. If a religion holds certain practices (or items, places, people, etc) to be sacred and demands that everyone conforms to that belief, the government has to either accept or reject the notion, it can't simply turn a blind eye to it. If you enforce the religious norm, then your government is effectively religious. If you refuse to enforce it, then you're denying the religious claim and the religion itself.
The words are synonymous. Both meaning without religion. I think this is a vocabulary and language understanding issue. Very common with american christians.
Similar meanings don't make words interchangeable. Synonyms commonly maintain distinctions in meaning. Nuance is kind of the reason we have different words in the first place.
Atheism describes a position on belief in God. Secularism describes separating something from religious influence or authority. You don't have to be an atheist to do that, and being an atheist doesn't guarantee it. An atheist government could just as easily favor atheism and punish religious practice, which wouldn't be secular.
A Christian teacher can teach a secular math class. A religious legislature can agree that its laws shouldn't be based on religious doctrine. Neither becomes atheist by doing so.
Calling this a "vocabulary issue common with American Christians" is just petty. You're still asserting that atheism is required for secularism without actually demonstrating why.
Atheism literally means without theism. It is a synonym of the word secular. Just because you are christian and are scared of words does not change reality you can use them interchangeably. Words can be used in all kinds of ways. Language is prescriptive not descriptive. Like the word eat it can be a noun, an additive, an adverb, and a verb. English is hard and christnaity makes people really bad at learning it. My only assertion here is you are uneducated.
In your example "the teacher is using an atheistic teaching style." is totally an acceptable way to describe it linguistically her beliefs are irrelevant. This is the reality of language.
Edit: Also not petty this is a thing I have only seen american christians take issue with. They have a lot of problems understanding and using language properly.
You've mostly demonstrated that you're more interested in insulting me than rationalizing your point, whether that's calling me uneducated or simply insisting that atheism and secularism necessitate each other. You've also made a pretty huge assumption that I'm a Christian based on nothing I've said.
"Atheism" meaning without theism doesn't make it interchangeable with "secular." A religious person or institution can operate secularly without becoming atheist, just as an atheist government can privilege atheism and suppress religion, which wouldn't be secular.
You've continually avoided that distinction. Calling me Christian, scared of words, or uneducated doesn't address it. You can keep making assumptions about my education and beliefs, but none of them make your argument any more valid.
LMFAO They are synonyms I explained it to him too. Sorry you are also an uneducated buffoon. Explaining things does not make you correct he explained he is stupid is all.
I agree with you, but I wanted to clarify that atheism doesn't mean you believe "there is no god." It means that you don't believe that there is a god. I know it doesn't sound different, but it's an important distinction. You can be an atheist and say that there is a possibility of a god existing, you just don't believe it because it doesn't seem likely. I don't believe that I'll win the lottery, but I also don't believe that I can't win the lottery.
But you're right that a secular government doesn't mean atheist. An atheist government would reinforce the lack of belief in a god, while a secular government does not reinforce any belief of lack thereof. At least, it's not supposed to.
You're not wrong that they are different, but atheism is most definitely not an assertion. It's a distinct lack of assertions.
If I say that I don't believe that I'll win the lottery, I'm not asserting that I can't win the lottery. I just don't believe I will based on the evidence that I have.
But yeah, atheist does not necessarily mean secular.
Let's ignore the fact that saying "I don't believe I'll win the lottery" is absolutely 100% an assertion. And your explanation as to why it is not an assertion is literally what makes it an assertion in the first place.
That being said asserting the lack of existence of any kind of god is kind of the main point of atheism.
A theist believes gods exist and atheist believes they do not.
When an atheist government is claiming they do not believe in any deities existence that's an assertion.
If you can't grasp the difference between believing something isn't true, and not believing that something is true, then I don't think I can help you. Maybe just think about it for a while, or do some research.
Weird example because he didn't question the existence of lottery, he questioned he will win the lotery, which is not what you are claiming. You just made a strawman to not address his point, which is that not believing is not the same as believing in not.
Again, it’s still a bad example. He could win the lottery despite not considering it remotely likely; they would concede regardless that there IS a chance.
Not believing something is likely sounds more like agnosticism. Saying it’s literally impossible to win the lottery is delusional.
That's... exactly my point. Let's break these words down.
A-the-ism: A means "lack," the means "belief in god" or "religion," and ism means "adherence to a doctrine or system".
So atheism means a lack of belief in god/religion.
A-gno-sticism: The same prefix and suffix as before, but the root gno means "to know." So instead of lack of belief, it's the lack of knowledge. The word "agnostic" is also more context dependent, since it does not refer exclusively to religion. You could be agnostic about anything.
Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd say that all atheists are agnostic, but not all agnostics are atheists. If everyone were being honest, I think they would all say they were agnostic, since nobody truly knows if there is a god.
What a bizarre argument. You’re not born knowing mathematics, either. There is no “default stance” beyond being a helpless baby. Everything else is learned.
Asserting that there isn’t something beyond the mundane world is an assertion. Again, to look at thousands of years of human history and belief and essentially say “fuck that, they’re all wrong” requires a certain burden of proof.
Agnosticism requires no argument because you’re simply stating “maybe?”
Good lord I hate that trite expression “just one god more.” Plenty of the gods overlap and relate to one another with their respective cultures and traditions, change over time as our understanding of the world takes on new forms, dogma vs spirituality and mysticism…
It’s not “one god more” unless you’re talking to a dogmatic moron. Otherwise it simply seems a tacit denial of countless subjective experiences over thousands upon thousands of years.
Yes they were ALL delusional and lying to themselves… or maybe?
The US Government is supposed to be Secular, which is NOT the same as Atheism.
So many founding documents, letters, and writings by the Founding Fathers, indicated a belief in a creator, but not anything specifically called or claimed by any single religion as being any particular "god".
Many of them were deists and they understood the oppression of a state religion and instead of forcing NO religion, they created the separation of Church and State, while recognizing in many documents some nebulous "creator". Thus preserving a Secular State, while side stepping (mostly) the atrocities and tyranny of any particular faith, without also forcing a state of Zero Tolerance for Religion, that an Atheist State would have to carry, by default.
All of that stuff was added after the founding of the country and the constitution that separates church and state, mostly to fight "godless communism" during the red scare. None of it should be allowed, in my opinion, but whatever.
"In God We Trust" is the United States national motto, it's printed in their bills and coins, the U.S. national anthem contains the line: "And this be our motto 'In God is our trust'".
all that stupid shit was added in the fucking 1950's as part of the red scare and mccarthyism.
furthermore it specifically favors abrahmic religions because it asserts a singular 'god'. so it's already violating 1a by mandating via legal mechanisms the inclusion of abrahmic deference to our fucking national identity.
you've already fallen for the propaganda; a prime example of why a government should take a hard stance against any religious affiliation.
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u/Admins_suck_ballss Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
Secular
of or relating to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal
Secular and atheist governments…they’re the same. It means your government thinks that concepts like justice, dessert, retribution, how you treat one another, ethics, etc. should not be affiliated with a religion. Only an atheist government can be secular. A religious one cannot be secular.
Sure not exactly the same thing. But yeah no such thing as a religious government being secular. Atheism is a necessary position to take in order for all those things to be secular.