AO1: Secularism & Humanism
- Secularisation describes the social decline or changing influence of religion.
- Secularism is a political view about how much influence religion should have in public life and the state.
- Procedural secularism allows religious and non-religious worldviews to participate in public life, aiming for pluralistic coexistence.
- Programmatic secularism is more restrictive, seeking to keep religion largely within private life.
- The Enlightenment helped weaken religion’s authority over truth and morality.
- Galileo strengthened confidence in empirical science, while Locke defended freedom of belief.
- Kant also argued that religion should remain “within the limits of reason.”
- Secular humanism turns these developments into a positive non-religious worldview.
- It argues that knowledge should come from reason, evidence and science rather than revelation.
- Its beliefs are therefore open to revision when better evidence appears.
- Humanist morality is based on human wellbeing, autonomy and flourishing rather than commands from God.
- It stresses the dignity of individuals and is influenced by Kant’s principle that people should be treated as ends in themselves.
- This helps support human rights and the idea that morality should allow people to flourish.
- Humanism does not require one single form of secularism.
- A strong emphasis on autonomy and pluralism can support procedural secularism, allowing religion a public voice.
- Greater emphasis on rationality and preventing harm can support programmatic secularism, restricting religion more strongly.
- Secular humanism therefore aims to provide truth and morality without God while leaving room for disagreement about religion’s proper public role.
AO1: Dawkins: Militant atheism / anti-theism & the rise of New atheism (short)
- New Atheism became prominent in the 21st century.
- Its supporters accept religious freedom but seek to persuade people to abandon religion through the “marketplace of ideas.”
- Their method therefore involves persuasion rather than state control, although their goal is religion’s eventual disappearance.
- They argue society would be better without religion because even private religious belief can be harmful.
- Major figures include Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.
- Religion as a virus
- Dawkins describes culturally transmitted ideas as ‘memes’ and argues religious memes can spread like infections.
- Children are especially vulnerable because they depend upon adults before their critical thinking is fully developed.
- Religious beliefs may therefore be transmitted through authority rather than independent reasoning.
- Dawkins particularly attacks teaching children about hell, which may cause lasting psychological fear.
- He therefore provocatively describes some religious upbringing as ‘child abuse’.
- New Atheists also follow Freud in seeing religion as a response to psychological needs.
- Fear of death and desires for meaning and protection can make religious beliefs comforting.
- Dawkins calls dependence upon religion for meaning ‘infantile’, arguing adults should instead create meaning for themselves.
- Dennett similarly suggests some people “believe in belief in God” because religion provides comfort and social value.
- New Atheism connects closely with secular humanism through its emphasis on evidence, reason and individual judgement.
- This supports autonomy, human rights and laws which can be publicly justified.
- New Atheists worry that faith-based beliefs can therefore produce irrational moral and political authority.
- Hitchens argues religion encourages submission to divine authority, while Harris argues that treating faith as legitimate can protect extremism from criticism.
- Even moderate religion may contribute by giving faith itself respectability.
- New Atheism therefore asks what kinds of reasons should count in modern society.
- Science and liberal politics require beliefs to be open to evidence and criticism.
- New Atheists oppose religion because faith can allow beliefs to escape those standards.
AO1: McGrath’s defence of Christianity in ‘The Dawkins delusion’
- McGrath argues there is a “lunatic fringe” on both sides of the religion debate.
- Religious fundamentalism exists, but Dawkins’ militant atheism can represent an equally dogmatic extreme.
- His main criticism is that Dawkins often attacks a distorted version of Christianity.
- Dawkins attributes “because it is absurd” to Tertullian, although Tertullian did not actually write this phrase.
- McGrath argues this careless use of sources conflicts with Dawkins’ own commitment to evidence.
- Dawkins also uses Luther’s attacks on reason to portray Christianity as irrational.
- McGrath responds that Luther was mainly rejecting the idea that human reason or achievement could earn salvation, not reason itself.
- He therefore describes Dawkins’ treatment as “inept” rather than genuine “evidence-based scholarship.”
- Militant atheism can consequently become propaganda rather than fair criticism.
- McGrath also worries that anti-religious education could simply replace one dogma with another.
- He compares this danger with Soviet education which taught that science had disproved religious superstition.
- Children should instead learn “fairly and accurately, what Christianity actually teaches.”
- Finally, McGrath argues Christianity can be rational and morally valuable.
- Natural theologians such as Swinburne and Polkinghorne offer sophisticated arguments rather than simple God-of-the-gaps reasoning.
- Jesus also provides Christians with a moral model centred on love.
- McGrath therefore supports procedural secularism, where religion remains an active participant in modern society rather than being excluded from it.
AO1: Emphasis on the the social relevance of Christianity: liberationist approaches (poverty, etc)
- Christianity can respond to secularism by stressing its social relevance.
- Secular Western culture is often criticised as materialistic, encouraging people to seek fulfilment through wealth and consumption.
- Christianity instead offers meaning through service, community and concern for the poor.
- Catholic social teaching has long emphasised duties towards the vulnerable, with the preferential option for the poor giving special priority to those most in need.
- Liberation theology took this approach further in Latin America during the 1950s and 1960s, where extreme poverty existed alongside great wealth.
- Gustavo Gutiérrez and Leonardo Boff argued that charity alone could relieve suffering without changing the structures that caused it.
- They therefore used parts of Marxist analysis to understand how economic systems could exploit the poor, while rejecting Marx’s atheism.
- This contributed to the idea of structural sin, where injustice exists within social and economic institutions rather than only individual choices.
- Liberation theology consequently stresses orthopraxis (right action) rather than theology being purely theoretical.
- Christians should work to liberate oppressed people and reflect on their faith through that action.
- Liberation theologians see this as biblical because Exodus presents God liberating slaves and Jesus repeatedly showed concern for the poor.
- The Kingdom of God is therefore understood not only as future salvation, but as something Christians help bring about by creating a more just society.
AO1: New religious expression & movements in response to secularis-m/isation
- Secularisation does not necessarily cause spirituality to disappear.
- Some people identify as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), rejecting organised religion while continuing to seek meaning, transcendence or spiritual wellbeing.
- They may draw on practices such as meditation, mindfulness, yoga or New Age spirituality.
- Personal experience becomes more important than scripture, clergy or religious institutions.
- Heelas and Woodhead describe this as a movement from “life-as religion” towards “subjective-life spirituality.”
- Traditional religion expects people to follow external beliefs and roles, whereas subjective spirituality encourages individuals to discover meaning for themselves.
- Secularisation can therefore transform and individualise spirituality rather than simply destroy it.
- Fresh Expressions represents a Christian response to this more individualised culture.
- Developing from the Church of England’s Mission-Shaped Church report (2004), it aims to reach people unlikely to attend traditional parish churches.
- Christian communities may instead form in cafés, pubs, homes or around shared interests.
- They often begin by building relationships and serving local communities before introducing worship.
- This can appeal to people who distrust formal religion, although the aim remains explicitly Christian discipleship.
- The British house church movement developed particularly during the charismatic renewal of the 1960s and 1970s.
- Many house churches were restorationist, believing established denominations had become too institutional and should return to the simpler New Testament Church.
- They emphasised small communities, lay participation, charismatic gifts and direct engagement with Scripture.
- Christianity could therefore feel more immediate and participatory without relying on large denominations.
- Unlike SBNR, however, house churches remained strongly evangelical and doctrinal.
- SBNR, Fresh Expressions and house churches therefore show that secularisation can produce new forms of spirituality and Christian organisation, not simply religious decline.
AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology
- Science aims to believe what current evidence gives us reason to accept.
- Dawkins argues faith instead encourages belief without sufficient evidence.
- The story of doubting Thomas appears to praise those who believe without seeing.
- This can encourage reliance on authority rather than critical investigation.
- Such habits may become harmful when religious beliefs influence medicine.
Counter
- However, McGrath argues religion is not always based on blind faith.
- Natural theology uses reason and evidence to support belief in God.
- Aquinas’ Five Ways reason from features of the world towards a higher power.
- Faith can therefore be evidence-sensitive even if particular arguments fail.
Evaluation
- However, these arguments do not establish Christianity itself.
- At most, they support belief in some higher power.
- Moving from this to belief in the Christian God therefore goes beyond what the evidence justifies.
- Natural theologians may say faith is needed to make that leap, but this admits the limitation.
- Hume argues that rational people should proportion belief to the evidence.
- Christianity may be compatible with evidence, but it is not fully proportioned to it.
- Even sophisticated theology therefore still risks promoting an unscientific mindset.
AO2: The harmfulness of religion
- Dawkins argues religion can encourage violence and prejudice.
- He describes the Old Testament God as “misogynistic, homophobic” and “genocidal”, suggesting worship of such a God may legitimise harmful attitudes.
- Humans already favour their own group, and religion may worsen this by dividing people into believers and outsiders.
- The history of religious conflict suggests this tribal effect can have serious consequences.
Counter
- McGrath argues Dawkins focuses too heavily on extremists.
- Fanatics may distort Christianity to justify prejudices they already hold.
- Christianity can also oppose tribalism, since Jesus models agape towards outsiders, as in the Good Samaritan.
- Religion may therefore challenge prejudice rather than simply cause it.
Evaluation
- However, violent interpretations cannot simply be dismissed as distortions.
- Biblical teachings concerning women, homosexuality and slavery can themselves support prejudice.
- Extremists therefore do not simply misuse Christianity; parts of the tradition may also encourage them.
- Religion can be both a symptom and a cause of prejudice.
- Liberal Christians may reinterpret difficult passages, but fundamentalists can still appeal to their apparent meaning as revealed divine truth.
- As Harris argues, religious fundamentalism can therefore arise partly from the fundamentals of religion itself.
- Religion remains burdened by problematic texts even when many believers reject their harmful interpretations.
AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
- Dostoyevsky warned that if there is no God, everything is permitted.
- Ratzinger argues secularism reduces morality to human opinion, making relativism and abuse of state power more likely.
- His view assumes morality needs a transcendent foundation.
Counter
- Liberalism argues political order can exist without religion.
- Democracy, rights and constitutional limits can restrain state power, while Kant argues rational people can recognise moral duties for themselves.
- Modern secular democracies generally avoid totalitarianism more reliably than theocracies.
- Sam Harris therefore argues secularists only need to show secular societies can flourish.
- That is enough to reject the claim that secularism necessarily leads to nihilism.
Evaluation
- Nietzsche provides a stronger response.
- The ‘death of God’ may initially create moral confusion, but this does not prove morality permanently depends on religion.
- Christianity may have taught people to connect value with God, so losing faith naturally produces disorientation.
- Ratzinger may then mistake this temporary crisis for evidence that transcendence was necessary all along.
- Nietzsche’s point resembles a relationship which creates dependence and then treats the difficulty of leaving as proof that independence is impossible.
- Ancient Greek and modern secular philosophers developed this-worldly ethics.
- Humans therefore appear capable of meaningful morality without transcendence.
- Secularism need not end in nihilism; moral autonomy may simply take time to develop.