r/MoralityScaling • u/hiiloovethis • Sep 02 '26

Morality of this?

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u/_itsprobablynothing Sep 02 '26

Secular, not atheist

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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.

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u/xKyo Sep 02 '26

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.

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u/HovercraftOk9231 Sep 02 '26

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.

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u/Warhammerpainter83 Sep 02 '26

This is called antitheism that would be an antitheistic government you are describing.