Religious Establishment

Secularist Hypocrisy

One of our parochial secularist bloggers has opined on the subject of parliamentary prayers.  His "personal" view is that there should not be any official prayers in the parliament.  He writes:

I personally don’t think Parliament as an institution should have a prayer. Religious belief is a personal decision, not an institutional one. MPs who wish to offer a prayer should be able to do so as they see fit, but my preference would be that there be no official prayer led off by the Speaker as this jars with being a secular country. [Kiwiblog]

This statement is unremarkable insofar as it is typical of the hypocrisy found in almost every place in our day.  Let's see if we can de-construct the statement  to illustrate.  We are given the following justification for not having parliamentary prayers: "Religious belief is a personal decision, not an institutional one".  The question is immediately begged, "Who says so?" Or, by what standard, or rule, or principle can the assertion that religion is a "personal decision" stand? It is, after all, a claim of universal dimensions.


If the claim that religion is exclusively to be a personal or private matter (which is really the unspoken premise here) upon what universal standard does that assertion rest?  Where does it come from?  Who, or what, sanctions it? Or, more quixotically, are we entitled to assert, on the statement's own ground, that the dogma, "Parliament as an institution should not have a prayer" is a religious dogma, because the one who holds to it acknowledges it is his personal view. 

Someone will doubtless retort that we have just committed the fallacy of composition.  To hold that all religious beliefs are private does not mean that all privately held opinions are religious ones, in the same way that whilst a dog is a four footed animal, it does not mean that all four legged creatures are dogs.  But how would we know? By what standard would we distinguish or determine whether a private opinion was also a religious precept?  Certainly it has the hallmarks of a religious commitment, since if a religion is to have any bona fides at all, it must trade is some way with ultimacy and universals.  In this case, the writer has a personal view that true religion is a personal matter only, but his view also leads him to bind the consciences of others.  His view is that parliament should not open with prayer.  The last time we checked parliament was a deliberative, corporate body of other people. 

If the writer had opined that his view on whether parliament should have prayer or not was a private one and not for public consumption or consideration he would have been perfectly consistent. But he necessarily denies his own profession when he wants his view of religion to bear upon, and bind others.

We conclude that the statement, "religious belief is a personal decision, not an institutional one" is itself an intensely religious dogma.  But worse, in this case, the devotee of the "religion is a private matter" religion is also holding the view hypocritically, since he wants his dogma universally to hold over all other human beings, societies, and civilisations. 

But the plot thickens and the waters become murkier still. There is an allusion to a higher and wider body of doctrine upon which the "personal belief" of this bona fide religion is grounded.  Opening the parliament with prayer "jars with being a secular country". A secular country is one which acknowledges no god or deity or ultimacy of any kind, except the ultimate principles of secularism.  Pushed further, secularism draws upon the ultimate belief systems of materialism and atheism.  All three are congruent ultimate belief systems.  All are religions in their own right. 

All three--secularism, materialism, and atheism--seek to impose their respective dogmas upon society, the community, the schools, and upon individuals.  This in itself is a perfectly mundane and unremarkable situation.  All religions, being ultimate belief systems, attempt to do the same.  What is both peculiar and remarkable is that the devotees of all three are usually found sneering at other religions attempts to see their beliefs established in society, whilst striving mightily, by means deceptive and misleading, to establish their own religion, demanding the submissive servitude of all other belief systems to their own.  It manifests both dishonest self-deceit and hypocrisy.

Our religious view is this: all societies represent the establishment of one religion or another.  Secularism is just one more religion vying for influence and power so it can be the controlling doctrine of the nation.  It will gladly share its power with two other human-created idolatries--atheism and materialism.  It is the Devil's trinity.  But one way or another we will have an established religion.  It is inevitable. The legerdemain and self-deceit of those who deny this reflects either ignorance (the willing suspension of self-critical faculties), or deliberate duplicity.  

Either way, we are neither amused, nor fooled.