fbpx
37.5 F
Spokane
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeCommentaryAskAsk An Atheist: Atheist or Secular?

Ask An Atheist: Atheist or Secular?

Date:

Related stories

My Journey through Homelessness Part Five: Learning to Live Outside the Box

The value of my homeless experience lies not so much in having learned how to live outside — at least not in the geographical sense. The value of my homeless experience lies in having learned how to live outside the box.

Lost in Translation: Isn’t It Time We Moved Beyond a Fear-Based Repentance?

When I hear the kingdom is at hand, followed immediately by the command to repent, the good news is overshadowed by the fear that I’m not good enough to be part of the kingdom of God.

Inspiring Others: How Our Marriage Turned 50

As we prepare to celebrate 50 years there are so many thoughts and memories going through my head. I have joked about how I don't know how you've put up with me for this long, which is really true in a sense with my Irish enthusiasm and temper.

Taking the Road ‘Less Traveled by’ Has Made ‘All the Difference’

Pete Haug remembers hearing Robert Frost read his poem "The Road not Taken" 65 years ago. It reminded him of his spiritual journey out of the Christianity of his youth into choosing the Baha'i faith as an adult.

Ask an EOC: Can You Confess in Private to God but not in Church Confession and be Forgiven?

Concerning the sacrament of Confession, Christ directly gave the authority to his Church to remit or retain the sins of the penitent. 

Our Sponsors

spot_img
spot_img

What do you want to ask an Atheist?  Fill out the form below or submit your question online

By Jim Downard

Am I secular or atheist?

Both. Though the two intersect, they’re not identical. To be secular in a personal sense means not governing ones life based on religious dogmas, even though one can appreciate their social sides.  Christmas as a secularized winter celebration, for example. In that respect I was raised in a secular household.

But there’s also a civil side to secularism, where even if one is religious, one would not favor the intrusion of purely religious mandates on the general society, and that secularism is enshrined in our Constitution.  Freedom of religion, but even freedom from religion (especially ones not your own).

Atheism relates more deeply to the metaphysical nature of things, if any, and that depends on how you use the word. So everyone is an atheist in the sense that they disbelieve in some gods that other people think are real. Whether any of those gods actually are real (and the atheist would contend they’re not) that issue would not alter how people ought to behave in a civil context governed by a secular instinct.

Jim Downard
Jim Downard
Jim Downard is a Spokane native (with a sojourn in Southern California back in the early 1960s) who was raised in a secular family, so says had no personal faith to lose. He's always been a history and science buff (getting a bachelor's in the former area at what was then Eastern Washington University in the early 1970s).

Our Sponsors

spot_img
spot_img
spot_img

1 COMMENT

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
trackback
2 years ago

… [Trackback]

[…] Read More here: favs.news/ask-an-atheist-atheist-or-secular/ […]

spot_img
1
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x