Secularism versus atheism

I have been thinking recently about secularism versus atheism. Certainly atheism is a more militant concept, and perhaps because of that more enjoyable. It is easy and amusing to mock the religious fundamentalists.

However there is the risk that you come to resemble that which you despise, strident and intolerant. Not necessarily, or inevitably surely, but a risk. However, perhaps that kind of militantism is indeed what is needed to combat the rise of religious fundamentalism.

Maybe in the ecology of ideas perhaps fire must be fought with fire, fundamentalism with strong atheism. Certainly the former has spread dangerously far outside of its original niche, and the latter is similarly evolving and adapting so as to move out of its traditional niche, in large part in response to the former.

However I have my doubts that strong atheism will by itself be able to turn back the rising tide of superstition. The niche for strong atheism, whilst growing, would have difficulty capturing the middle ground.

The costs involved in becoming and being a strong atheist, essentially independent thought, are too high for most people. In contrast in terms of thinking it is relatively easy to become and be a religious fundamentalist, just uncritically accept whatever you are told by a designated source.

Actually by requiring the outsourcing of thinking to others fundamentalism has an evolutionary advantage over a meme that requires time and effort to be invested in thinking, though obviously the quality of the thinking is detrimentally effected.

However strong atheism does play an important part in balancing the ecology, as it changes the environment it which it operates, and the middle has to adapt to it as well, instead of just the fundamentalists.

Secularism however is not militant, and is all about the middle ground, staking it out as a common ground where everyone can safely come together.

"George Holyoake's 1896 publication English Secularism defines secularism as:

Secularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life, founded on considerations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable. Its essential principles are three: (1) The improvement of this life by material means. (2) That science is the available Providence of man. (3) That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.

Holyoake held that secularism and secular ethics should take no interest at all in religious questions (as they were irrelevant), and was thus to be distinguished from strong freethought and atheism. In this he disagreed with Charles Bradlaugh, and the disagreement split the secularist movement between those who argued that anti-religious movements and activism was not necessary or desirable and those who argued that it was." (Wikipedia Secularism article)

So secularism significantly reduces the costs to an individual in comparison to atheism and religion, by simply declaring that it isn't worth the effort to argue about that which can't be known. Instead it advocates just acting on what what we can know and presumably agree on, that this life is real and must be lived.

It also seeks to reduce the costs involved in conflict between different religious groups, by seeking to have public life based on common secular values, based on what it is required for people to survive and get along.

Such a system has been essential to the evolution of modern society, and history has shown that the costs of sectarianism can be very high indeed. It has never been easy for one sect to establish a seeming monopoly on a society, and the ability to do so is less so now due to the realities of the modern world.