Is America a Christian Nation: Why Secularism is Necessary     

Is America a christian nation essay? Imagine being forced by the government to practice a religion you do not believe in. Imagine this religion and its ancient scriptures, in many cases written thousands of years ago by racist, misogynistic slave-owners, affecting the laws of a modern society. Imagine being persecuted for your personal beliefs, or lack thereof, in the 21st century. Heartbreakingly, this is still a reality for millions of people living in non-secular states. Secularism, as defined by The Oxford English dictionary, is “the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions”. It can also be thought of as neutrality towards religion. In order to attain peace, freedom or equality as a society, we need secularism. Ensuring both freedom of, and from religion, secularism provides the negative liberty for self-determination. In a secular state no group gets favored in the name of religion and thus people don’t feel alienated to an extent where they result to hurting others and causing conflict. Equality and democracy can only be achieved when all citizens are equal before the law, which is only possible in a secular society.

Secularism, by definition, provides both freedom of, and from religion. This means that people who are religious are allowed to exercise their religion, as long as they don’t impinge on the rights and freedom of other people. Being allowed to practice what you believe is a human right. Freedom from religion means having the right to choose no religion without interference from the government. This is also extremely important, as not everybody subscribes to any religion. These people should not be forced, especially by the state, to adopt a certain belief and to live by it. Just like everybody has the right to exercise a religion of their choosing, they also have the right to choose no religion. The idea of a government telling people what to believe is absurd. Many of those who are against secularism position themselves that because they think secularism would mean the state enforcing atheism on to the citizens. This is not the case. As previously stated, secularism means neutrality towards religion. In a secular nation public authorities aren’t permitted to help citizens enforce their ideas on other people, religious or atheist. Paraphrasing Vera Pegna, vice president of the European Humanist Federation, our idea of society needs to be open to choice. According to her “Neither religion nor atheist humanism must be obligatory or prohibited”. Furthermore, a secular state provides an individual with the negative liberty for self-determination. A negative liberty means freedom from interference by others. If the government regulates its people’s religion, and by extension their actions, the people aren’t free. They are obligated to act in accordance to the religion of the state. In a secular state these people can practice, or not practice, their respective religions without interference. Therefore; freedom of religion, a human right, cannot be achieved in non-secular nation.

Surprisingly, a lot of people see secularism as a threat to society. They believe that morality comes from religion and by extension that you cannot be moral without religion. However, there is no evidence to support this, it would almost appear to be quite the opposite. Highly secularized countries, such as Denmark, Sweden and South Korea, tend to have the lowest crime rates and nations with high religiosity, such as Nigeria, Columbia and Venezuela, tend to have high violent crime rates. The Los Angeles Times states: “Take homicide. According to the United Nations’ 2011 Global Study on Homicide, of the 10 nations with the highest homicide rates, all are very religious, and many — such as Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador and Brazil — are among the most theistic nations in the world. Of the nations with the lowest homicide rates, nearly all are very secular, with seven ranking among the least theistic nations, such as Sweden, Japan, Norway and the Netherlands.” They also note that the most peaceful nations are the most secular. One cannot conclude from this that secularism in itself causes peacefulness or that religiosity causes the opposite, but this is definitely evidence, that secularism isn’t the threat to society as many seem to believe. In a secular country no group gets treated better or worse than another in the name of religion and thus nobody feels isolated enough to resort to violence. Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK and President of Humanists International, says in a video on the humanists UK website: “The only way to avoid an ongoing war of everyone against everyone else, is to have a state that tries to mediate that diversity by securing a fair and open society and for all groups so that no one group or individual will feel alienated to the extent that they get pushed over into violence or conflict”. When all people, religious or not, get treated fairly, society will be more peaceful.

Democy is defined as a system in which everyone has equal rights and opportunities, and can help in making decisions. This can obviously not be achieved, if one group gets favored for their religion and all others are discriminated against. Secularism values human rights above religious demands. It protects minorities from religious discrimination by legislating equality laws. Secularism enables democracy. No religious group should be able to pressure the state to make decisions favoring them. In a secular democracy all citizens are equal before the law which ensures that there’s no privilege or penalty for having or lacking religious belief. Hence no faith receives special protection from criticism, which is a crucial part of democracy. No idea or ideology being off limits for criticism is one of the core elements of democracy. Secularism is the foundations of democracy as it boosts the broad distribution of power and resists concentrating the power to only a few people which is what would happen if one religion was considered a state religion. No state only has one religion. There will always be representatives of different faiths in a country and even inside the same faith people often disagree on doctrine. It would be unfair to give one religion or one interpretation of one religion a special position in legislating the laws effecting all the people in the country. It is only fair that all religions get treated the same. 

Overall, all democracies must be secular at least to an extent. Even America, which is often considered a Christian nation, is in fact secular constitutionally. The Founding Fathers wanted America to be secular, and so the U.S. Constitution is entirely secular. “It (the Constitution) contains no mention of Christianity or Jesus Christ. In fact, the Constitution refers to religion only twice in the First Amendment, which bars laws 'respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' and in Article VI, which prohibits 'religious tests' for public office.” writes the website “Americans United” in an article intitled “Is America a Christian Nation?”.” One can simply not have democracy without secularism. For a state to be fair, it must treat all its citizens equally, no matter their religious beliefs.