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This month's Goanet operations sponsored by an Anonymous Donor ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Santosh Helekar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dear Selma, Being a non-secularist > would be an unenviable thing. Such a person would > not > have a serious commitment to religious tolerance or > to > separation of church and state. Typically, we would > find him to be a pharisaical religious chauvinist. > > Cheers, > > Santosh ------------------------------------------ Dear Santosh, Here atlast is a debate I can wrap my arms around. I never said I'm a non-secularist, I said I'm not an Indian secularist. Let me construct a hypothetical example to illustrate why a true secularist would not have "religious tolerance" and "separation of church and state" on the same side of the balance sheet. A and B live on an island. The only other inhabitant is C, who also acts as general arbitrator of disputes. The island is home to about 50 armadillos who for ecological reasons must not be killed. A is fine with this. B on the other hand believes in ritually killing atleast 2 armadillos every year to propitiate his God. A, tired after years of suffering the stench of dead armadillos calls on C to arbitrate. C says, he has to be tolerant of B's religious beliefs and cannot do anything. In time, all the armadillos are dead, A and B have grown to hate each other, C dies of cholera or boredom and the island is on the brink of an ecological disaster. Now, my example may seem facile and absurd but far more absurd things are tolerated in the name of religion, from female circumcision, to polygamy, denying women their rights, body mutilation, self-flagellation, denying children education, honour killings, the list is endless. It is not the duty of a truly secular state to be tolerant of religious ideology. The state's primary responsibility is in continuously creating a society devoid of religious ideology and one based on scientific reasoning, the tenets of common law and commonsense morality. Yes, I am deeply respectful of people's sensibilities especially religious ones, be they Hindu, Muslim or astrologists, but that is not because I am "tolerant" of their ideology. It is because I am respectful of them as human beings who all share the common bond of DNA, a moral compass and the deeply human ability to experience pain, suffering, injustice, rebuke and offense. There is no difference between Albert denouncing homosexuality and abortion and inferring the superiority of Christianity, based on his beliefs, and a Christian zealot from the bible belt of America, or a Muslim fundamentalist from Afghanistan, blowing up clinics, or beheading a homosexual in the name of Allah. Passivity does not make one's ideology any less benign and we must, absolutely must denounce it when it we see it raise its ugly head. selma ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss an email again! Yahoo! Toolbar alerts you the instant new Mail arrives. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/