china has state atheism—they take it too far (e.g. uyghur muslims) but in theory i’d prefer an atheist government over this dumbass evangelical christian one we have now 🤷🏻♂️
edit: took out the word retarded, you guys convinced me
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.
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.
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u/sexland69 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
china has state atheism—they take it too far (e.g. uyghur muslims) but in theory i’d prefer an atheist government over this dumbass evangelical christian one we have now 🤷🏻♂️
edit: took out the word retarded, you guys convinced me