Secularization as a way to build a fair Western society
When it comes to arguing as to what should represent guiding lines for building a truly fair society, which will provide its members with an opportunity to actualize their existential potential, one can hardly skip pointing out at what prevents today’s Western societies from being considered rationale-driven, in full sense of this word. And, the foremost obstacle on the way of improving social dynamics within just about any Western society, is religion.
Nowadays, the process of Western countries’ secularization had attained exponential subtleties – that is, as of today, the number of native-born Westerners who consider themselves truly religious is best defined as utterly neglectable. The validity of this statement appears self-evident, once we assess the strength of people’s religiosity in countries that feature world’s highest standards of living – Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
According to most recent sociological surveys, only 1% of these countries’ native-born citizens affiliate themselves with any religion, whatsoever. The reason for this is simple – people who enjoy a nice life, do not need some tribal God representing an integral part of their worldviews. In his book, Dobbelaere (2004) states: “Examining the impact of CNP per capita, as a context variable, on church commitment for the eleven European countries… we found a significant and negative relationship: the higher the country’s GUP per capita the lower individual church commitment was” (p.167).
Nevertheless, for some strange reason, the process of designing socio-political policies in Western countries continues to be observant of two thousand years old Christian fables, which involve talking donkeys, sun standing still in the sky and Jewish tribal God Jehovah creating universe in six days. Even the former American President George Bush used to publically state that it was Bible, upon which his administration based country’s foreign policies, while making many progressive people increasingly suspicious about the sincerity of America’s pledge to protect democracy.
Nevertheless, the realities of post-industrial living point out at religion as not just being irrelevant, but essentially counter-productive aspect of public life. In Globalized world, it is namely science that will become people’s new ‘religion’, because unlike religion proper, science provides people with practically valid answers as to how they should address life’s challenges. As Dawkins (2006) had put it: “Perhaps there are some genuinely profound and meaningful questions that are forever beyond the reach of science… But if science cannot answer some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can? (p. 56).
Given the fact that world’s Semitic religions, such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, are being concerned with conveying the message that it is perfectly moral for the ‘chosen people’ to go about exterminating ‘infidels’, the self-appointed ‘messengers of God’, affiliated with these religions, should be deprived of a chance to exert influence onto Western societies, as the foremost precondition for these societies to continue becoming ever more civilized and fair.
The full legitimacy of an earlier suggestion can also be explored within the context of how today’s immigration policies undermine the integrity of Western countries from within. Because, during the course of recent decades, the promoters of multiculturalism were given a green light to spread the ‘message of tolerance’, we now have a situation that, every large Western city features so-called ‘ethnic ghettos’, the residents of which take pride in being endowed with rurally-based ‘spirituality’, the closer analysis of which reveals it as being utterly intolerant.
Upon setting their foot into Western countries, the immigrants from Third World that profess primitively-rural values, embark upon creation of their own societies within a host-society, while often refusing to obey Western secular laws, due to the sheer strength of their tribalistic religiosity, and while becoming preoccupied with making babies, as their foremost priority in life.
Once, these legal and illegal aliens realize themselves being in big numbers, they often go as far as telling native-born citizens how to live their lives, while aiming for nothing less but turning the whole Western post-industrial megalopolises into huge Third World villages, where people ‘celebrate diversity’ by dumping garbage right onto their houses’ front-lawns, and where secularly-minded citizens are being afraid to lose their lives, on the account of their free-thinking practices.
For example, in 2005, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had placed on its pages a rather innocent caricature on Islamic prophet Muhammad. As a result, the representatives of country’s Muslim community, began setting cars on fire and attacking people in Copenhagen in broad daylight – thus, expressing their anger with the lack of ‘spiritual sensitivity’, on the part of native-born citizens. In his article, Belien (2005) state: “The publication (of a cartoon) led to outrage among the Muslim immigrants living in Denmark. 5,000 of them took to the streets to protest. Muslim organizations have demanded an apology” (The Brussels Journal). In other words, despite holding Danish passports, country’s Muslims had failed to embrace the values of democracy.
Apparently, it never occurred to them the very reason why Denmark is being considered one of the world’s most prosperous and happy countries (which had prompted them to immigrate there in the first place), is Danes associate the very concept of religion with primeval barbarianism. Therefore, it will only be logical to conclude that the process of building a truly fair society should be concerned with getting rid of people, whose primitively functioning mentality prevents them from being able to contribute to such a process.
The keys to building progressive society
The fact that the activities, on the part of promoters of multiculturalism, had resulted in increasing the levels of religion-based and race-based intolerance within Western societies, suggests that these people should be stripped of their governmental offices. Moreover, the utter failure of multiculturalism, which is now being recognized by even many Western top-officials, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, points out to the conceptual fallaciousness of a great number of multiculturalism-inspired social policies. For example, in today’s America, there are millions of people who rely on social assistance as the solemn source of income, while refusing to even consider finding themselves a job.
Why bother, if a particular couple can simply make 5-10 kids and start receiving $500-$1000 in monthly payments for each of these kids from the government? Apparently, these people seriously believe that, for as long as they consider themselves ‘ethnically unique’, they are being automatically entitled to generous payments from the government, on the account of such their ‘uniqueness’.
Left-wing politicians, who strive to make Western free-market economies to begin functioning by essentially Socialist principles, are supporting them in their belief. According to these politicians, the situation when a small number by hard-working people are being stripped a half of their monthly income in taxes, so that the millions of social parasites could make living, is absolutely normal.
Yet, one does not have to hold PhD in economy to realize the sheer fallaciousness of such suggestions – he or she would simply have to familiarize itself with the history of Soviet Union. The reason why this country had collapsed like a stack of cards in 1991, is because for decades, country’s economy was being methodically ruined by self-proclaimed ‘experts on equality’ – much like what it is the case in many today’s Western countries, where neo-Marxian politicians continue to design social policies.
Thus, the earlier articulated arguments provide us with the insight on what are the keys to building socially, culturally and scientifically progressive society:
- Delegitimizing organized religion. There is not even a single instance in history of religion having helped to advance any progressive social, cultural or scientific cause. On the contrary – the very function of religion is to place obstacles on the way of progress. Therefore, in 21st century, the members of religious clergy would have to find something else to do to make living, instead of exploiting the naivety of elderly and undereducated citizens.
- Putting an end to an uncontrolled immigration from Third World. The potential immigrants of Third World should be given a chance to explore their ‘cultural uniqueness’ and ‘spirituality’ on their own soil, while simultaneously dealing with the absence of many things that Westerners take for granted, such as availability of affordable Medicare, governmentally paid housing and clean streets.
- Putting an end to the process of Western free-market economies becoming governmentally controlled. It is utterly inappropriate to deprive industrious people from being able to advance in life, simply because some politicians continue to profess an obscure belief on ‘people’s equality’. As Communists had proven – people can only be equalized in poverty and suffering, but never in making the best of their lives. If this was otherwise, the process of biological evolution would have been deemed impossible. Therefore, the beneficence of a variety of currently active social policies, designed by people with the mentality of housewives, such as the availability of free Medicare for newly arrived and non-working immigrants, should be reconsidered.
References:
Belien, Paul “Jihad Against Danish Newspaper”. 2005. The Brussels Journal. Web.
Dawkins, Charles “The God Delusion”. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. Print.
Dobbelaere, Karel “Secularization: An Analysis at Three Levels”. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2004. Print.