This is gonna leave a mark.
That segment of academia that loves to encase itself in hermetically-sealed secularism — and will brook no contradiction — must be livid.
It turns out that a panel of European judges ventured off the reservation, and has dared challenge Secularism’s claim to the ideological throne.
If such “Captain Obvious” moments catch on, the public might actually begin to (*gasp*) question secular assumptions! Secularists might be forced to back up unchallenged claims that a few generations have taken for granted.
The irony? This ruling was in response to standard-issue atheist offense-mongering. By now, you know it well: “Is that a religious symbol I see? Quick! To the courthouse!”
But this time, it backfired. When the “European Court of Human Rights” heard a case about a crucifix being visible to the public, they did the unthinkable. They ruled against the complainant.
And their reasons for doing so were exactly what might upset the secular Brownshirts most. They denied the keystone upon which secularism’s supremacy depends. That claim without which, they cannot judge other beliefs from their ivory tower. The judge dared to say:
SECULARISM ISN’T NEUTRAL.
Quoting from the source article:
Judge Power said that: “Neutrality requires a pluralist approach on the part of the State, not a secularist one. … secularism (which was the applicant’s preferred belief or world view) was, in itself, one ideology among others. A preference for secularism over alternative world views—whether religious, philosophical or otherwise—is not a neutral option.”
Judge Bonnello said that “Freedom of religion is not secularism. Freedom of religion is not the separation of Church and State. Freedom of religion is not religious equidistance – all seductive notions, but of which no one has so far appointed this Court to be the custodian. In Europe, secularism is optional, freedom of religion is not.”
These statements are in considerable contrast to the pronouncements made by the Judges in Johns v Derby City Council, who stated that they were ‘secular Judges’ in a ‘secular Court’ and gave the impression that secularism was a position of rational neutrality that the Courts necessarily adopted.
Secularism is NOT neutral – secularism is an ideology itself. It is also driven largely by atheism, another belief system. Atheism, in its rejection of God and its hostility towards Christianity, is a non-tolerant belief system which encompasses a very large terrain – often including the promotion of homosexual rights and other aspects of the prevailing political orthodoxy. There is nothing neutral in either atheism or secularism.
Read the rest, here.
