Toto

This is an extension of Devnet's earlier thread on forcing secularism, which went off topic before the issues could be discussed. This op ed piece in today's LA Times brought it to mind:

<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-taheri17dec17,0,4010669.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcom ment%2Dopinions" target="_blank">Europe Is Courted by an Islamic Wolf in Secular Clothing</a> (requires free registration)

Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern state of Turkey, is credited with establishing a modern secular state. He did not do this democratically - he took power militarily, and autocratically banned some traditional relgious expression, such as the veil and the fez.

He also established a Bureau of Islamic Affairs which took over some of the functions of the Caliphate in the Ottoman Empire. It is this bureau that owns the vast lands that are the equivalent of the real estate holdings of Christian churches in this country. It also hires (and fires) imams, and screens and edits the sermons that they deliver.

A current, allegedly cryto-Islamist political party is challenging this arrangement, and it would clearly never pass muster in American to have a governmental authority telling a religious leader what he could say from the pulpit.

But if this bureau is removed, it will allow Islamists to use the wealth of the religion and its institutional structure to agitate for an Islamic state, just as the Religious Right in this country is using the political process to carve holes in the wall of separation of church and state. This could mean the end of secularism in Turkey.

This is a dilemma if you think that religious expression should be privleged, and that full freedom of religion is a basic civil right.

I think that this illustrates what Dev was trying to get at.

Jamie_L

I don't know much about Turkey's government, so I can't even speculate about what can and can't legally come to pass in the current system.

Ultimately, I think it's not a good idea to support government suppression of ideas. It's very easy to argue - "Well, it was okay to suppress religion X, so now that the government has changed, it should be okay to suppress religion Y instead. And, naturally, atheism has to be stamped out."

Generally, I think people who experience a halfway-decent democracy are less likely to support radical revolt than those under an oppressive system. But, it's the double-edged sword of freedom. Just as here in America, it's quite legal to preach that the government should be overthrown. Every now and then, you end up with an Oklahoma City Bombing.

Jamie

emotional

The goal of an enlightened state should be pluralism - a free-for-all. Now, what must be asked is: under which system of governance can pluralism be attained? If in the name of pluralism and tolerance you let such an exclusivist sect as Orthodox Judaism, Fundamentalist Christianity or Radical Islam have an unrestricted freedom of expression and action, you dig the grave of pluralism and tolerance. These sects are not kind, and pluralism and tolerance are not their way. Therefore, however unpluralistic and intolerant it may sound, the secular government must slightly restrict their freedom in order that no intolerant, exclusivist sect may gain the upper hand. Negative negative = positive. Only intolerance towards intolerance can safeguard future tolerance.

It is important that YHWH and Allah be kept in the same pantheon as Jupiter, Zeus, Toutatis, Osiris and all the rest, and not be allowed to be elevated to the status of the One and Only God. Secular governance allows all religions to express themselves, but must restrict the freedom of the cancer-mentality religions so that tolerance may be sustained.

"We look on the same stars, the sky is common, the same world surrounds us. What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth? We cannot attain to so great a secret by one road."

- Senator Symmachus, 384 CE