2004
Volume 3, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2212-4810
  • E-ISSN: 2212-6465

Abstract

It is often claimed that a democratic state ought to be secular, a claim labeled here as the secular requirement. The claim is regularly treated as axiomatic by scholars and intellectuals. In the present paper, the secular requirement is challenged, and an extensive critique of the five most frequent arguments used in its support is offered. It is argued that the foundation of the secular requirement is much weaker than is commonly perceived, and that a secular state may not always be warranted.

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2014-05-06
2025-12-05
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References

  1.  Charles Taylor, “Modes of Secularism”, p. 46,in R. Bhargava (ed.), Secularism and its Critics (1998), 31–53; Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere”, 14 European Journal of Philosophy (2006), 1–25, at p. 4.
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  2.  For instance, while Harris, supra note 16, seems to subscribe to the crude version of ah, he nevertheless identifies Islam as the violent religion par excellence.
  3.  As done, for instance, by Harris, supra note 16, and Paul Cliteur, “Religion and Violence or the Reluctance to Study this Relationship”, 15 Forum Philosophicum (2010), 205–226.
  4.  For example, see Fox, supra note 17, p. 26, where Fox acknowledges that religion is seldom the main issue in civil wars. That only a minority of intrastate conflicts worldwide is over religious incompatibilities is also shown by Isak Svensson, “Fighting with Faith: Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars”, 51 Journal of Conflict Resolution (2007), 930–949.
  5.  Casanova, supra note 9, p. 1059.
  6.  Gunning and Jackson, supra note 27, pp. 378–379.
  7.  Taylor, supra note 1, p. 36.
  8.  Bruce, supra note 50; Michael Minkenberg, “Democracy and Religion: Theoretical and Empirical Observations on the Relationship between Christianity, Islam and Liberal Democracy”, 33 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2007), 887–909.
  9.  Rawls, supra note 63, p. 584
  10.  Habermas, supra note 1, pp. 8–9
  11.  For example, see Nussbaum, supra note 10.
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): democracy; religion and state; secular requirement; secular state; secularism
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