OCR ↗︎
Christianity ↗︎
Question preparation ↓

AO1: Secularism & Humanism

• Secularisation is the sociological process by which religion’s influence within the public sphere and wider society changes, e.g., through decline or relegation to the private sphere.
• Secularism is a political and normative principle about the proper place of religion in the public sphere, including the state and shared culture.
  
  
• Secularism takes different forms, with distinct methods and goals:
  
  
• Procedural / open secularism:
• Method: inclusive cultural participation
• Goal: pluralistic coexistence of religious and secular worldviews, allowing religion a visible role in the public sphere
  
  
• Programmatic / closed secularism:
• Method: legal restriction of religion in public institutions and life
• Goal: confining religion to the private sphere, removing it from the public sphere
  
  
• The Enlightenment challenged religion as the primary source of truth and morality.
• Figures such as Galileo Galilei demonstrated the authority of empirical science over religious doctrine.
• Early liberal thinkers such as John Locke emphasised freedom of belief, while Immanuel Kant sought to confine religion “within the limits of reason,” partly in response to religious conflict.
  
  
• Secular humanism develops this trajectory into a comprehensive worldview.
• It is not purely a negative critique of religion, but offers a positive account of how truth and morality can be grounded without God.
• It claims truth is only obtained by reason, evidence and scientific inquiry, not revelation or religious authority.
• Truth is therefore understood as provisional and open to revision, rather than fixed by sacred texts.
  
  
• From this epistemology follows its moral framework.
• Ethics are based on human wellbeing, autonomy and flourishing, rather than divine command.
• It affirms the intrinsic dignity of persons, influenced by Kant’s principle of treating individuals as ends in themselves, which underpins modern conceptions of human rights.
• It therefore combines a concern for autonomy with a focus on human flourishing, in a broadly Aristotelian sense, as the goal of ethical decision-making.
  
  
• Secular humanism provides a framework of values which can justify different political positions depending on what is prioritised.
• If autonomy and pluralism are emphasised, it supports procedural secularism, allowing religion a place within the public sphere.
• If rationality and harm reduction are prioritised, it can justify more programmatic secularism, restricting religion’s public role.
  
  
• Thus, secular humanism aims to replace religion as a source of truth and values, while allowing divergent conclusions about religion’s place in society in the mean time.

AO1: Freud 

• Freud challenged religious authority through psychology, answering the question of why, if there is no God, do so many people believe there is. 
• His answer was that religion functions as wish-fulfilment and social control.
  
  
• Freud’s theory of society was that it depends on socialisation, which he understood as each new generation being conditioned to repress its animalistic “asocial” instincts. 
• The superego is the internalised memory of commands imposed by childhood authority figures. 
• Being raised religious intensifies this process through moralising stories, divine commands, heaven, hell, and an all-seeing father figure God who knows, judges and punishes even private thoughts and desires.
  
  
• Religious belief therefore comforts people by projecting order, protection and purpose onto a chaotic world. 
• During childhood, order is represented by the father; in adulthood, religion extends this infantile mode by projecting an eternal father onto reality. 
• Freud’s issue was not merely that religion represses too much, but that it represses through illusion and infantile dependence on authority. 
• A secular society would still require instinctual restraint, but this would be healthier:
• People would regulate themselves through rational understanding of social necessity rather than guilt, fear and submission.
  
  
• This is:
• More truthful, because it faces reality without comforting illusions.
• Less neurotic, because instincts are managed as human impulses rather than cosmic guilt.
• More autonomous, because morality is obeyed through adult understanding.
• More adaptable, because rational rules can be revised, whereas religious rules have to be treated as divine commands, and thereby become rigid.
  
  
• Freud therefore thought religion belonged to the “ignorant childhood days of the human race” and should be replaced by science, which provides order without illusion. 
• Freud was not a political philosopher, but his model fits liberalism: 
• Free societies require rational self-regulation, public justification and tolerance of uncertainty rather than dependence on divine authority.

AO2: Freud’s views on Christian ethics as infantile

• Freud argues religious ethics extends infantile moral socialisation into adulthood.
• Children’s obedience is managed through fear of the disciplinarian father, which religion projects onto God.
• Religious adults are left with an infantile moral orientation, motivated by appeasement, fear and reward.
• As Aristotle argued, virtue cannot be developed without reason and if viewed instrumentally.
• Freud thinks a more developed mode is possible, where rationality recognizes that laws are socially good.
• Such autonomy makes humans more effective in their self-control and virtue.

Counter

• However, Aquinas’ natural law ethics integrates Aristotle’s view that virtues are intrinsic goods rather than instruments of self-interest.
• It also incorporates a degree of autonomy; apprehending and applying primary precepts, while virtuously aligning our intentions with our telos.
• Jung shows religious ethics isn’t simply external imposition of law, but enables virtue through psychological development.
• Archetypal stories help us navigate the narrative of our lives and cease unhealthy repression.
• E.g., the Cain and Abel story helps us acknowledge envy rather than dangerously repress it.

Evaluation

• Nonetheless, these refinements do not overcome Freud’s objection when we combine it with Mill’s ethical insight, that a moral system involving heaven and hell inevitably imbues motivation with self-interest, contrary to virtue.
• If one is only being virtuous in order to get to heaven, then one isn’t really being virtuous
  
  
• Christian ethics contains the greatest carrot and stick imaginable: infinite heaven and hell.
• This requires a superhuman discipline to avoid being motivated by them, and superhuman insight to even know whether we are motivated by them.
• The promise of heaven and threat of hell are so powerful that they dominate motivation.
• Moral psychology becomes child-like: merely responsive to reward and punishment.
• So, Freud and Mill show that even refined afterlife teleology inevitably instrumentalises virtue.
• Christian ethics remains an underdeveloped mode of psychology.

AO1: Dawkins: Militant atheism / anti-theism & the rise of New atheism 

• Militant atheism / anti-theism became culturally prominent in the 21st century in the form of ‘New Atheism’.
• Although they accept religious freedom, they want to persuade religious people to abandon their faith, by winning a cultural battle in the ‘market place of ideas’.
• Its method aligns with open secularism: cultural persuasion, not state control.
• But its goal is more radical than programmatic secularism: not content for religion to be a private matter, they seek its complete disappearance.
• Their argument is that society would be better off without religion because it is irredemably harmful, even in its liberal forms, and even as a private belief.
• Its key figures are the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, journalist Christopher Hitchens, writer Sam Harris and philosopher Daniel Dennet.
  
  
• Religion as a virus: 
• Dawkins coined ‘meme’ as the cultural analogue of a gene, ideas and practices transmitted culturally through imitation.
• Religious memes can spread “epidemiologically”, especially to children through parents, communities and institutions.
• Evolution has made children dependent on adults.
• This makes them vulnerable to religious ‘infection’ before their critical thinking abilities develop.
• Religious indoctrination exploits this vulnerability with the fear of hell, which children don’t receive metaphorically but real and terrifying.
• Dawkins points out mental harm can be as damaging as physical harm.
• He points to cases where religious apostates have needed therapy due to their unshakable fear of hell.
• Dawkins thinks these reasons justify the accusation of ‘child abuse’.
  
  
• New Atheists also follow Freud in explaining religion through psychological pressures producing an infantile worldview.
• Fear of death, desire for authority and meaning, and hope of reunion with loved ones encourage comforting religious explanations.
• Dawkins argues religion provides childish and irrational answers to these existential questions.
• He compares theism to belief in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, and calls reliance on others to provide meaning ‘infantile’: the ‘truly adult view’ is that life is as meaningful as we choose to make it.
• Dennett similarly argues that people cling to religion for its comfort, guidance and purpose rather than rational justification.
• He provocatively suggests that many do not straightforwardly believe in God, but instead “believe in belief in God”.
  
  
• These epistemological criticisms reflect New Atheism’s connection to secular humanism.
• Its emphasis on evidence and reason encourages distrust of unquestionable authority and confidence in individual judgement.
• This feeds into liberal ethics and politics, emphasising autonomy, human flourishing, rights and publicly justifiable laws.
• New Atheists therefore object not merely that religious beliefs are irrational, but that irrational methods of forming beliefs can produce irrational moral and political authority.
• Harris and Hitchens develop this consequence:
• Hitchens argues that religion idealises submission to unquestionable divine authority, becoming dangerous when believers claim God’s authority to coerce others.
• Harris argues that treating faith as a legitimate source of certainty enables religious extremism.
• Even moderate religion is problematic because respecting faith in principle protects extremism from rational criticism.
  
  
• So, the fight over religion is ultimately partly a fight over what kinds of reasons are legitimate in a modern society. 
• Scientific inquiry, autonomous ethics and liberal politics all depend upon claims being open to criticism and justification.
• New atheism finds Religion objectionable because faith can exempt beliefs from those demands.

AO1: The value of Faith schools

• The issue of faith schools epitomises the wider tension over Christianity’s place in modern Britain. 
• Many state schools were originally founded by the Church of England or Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century, before being integrated into the public system. 
• This legacy was formalised by the 1944 Education Act, which secured state funding for faith schools if they met national curriculum standards. 
• Today, over a third of primary schools and just under a fifth of secondary schools retain Christian affiliation, showing religion remains institutionally embedded in national life.
  
  
• Supporters argue faith schools provide high academic standards, moral formation and a strong sense of community. 
• They meet the wishes of parents who want education within a particular worldview and remain popular, often oversubscribed. 
• Research suggests even non-religious parents apply due to perceptions of good discipline and ethos. 
• Defenders also argue faith schools contribute to diversity, since the UK system includes Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu institutions, reflecting multicultural Britain.
  
  
• However, critics argue faith schools promote segregation and indoctrination, undermining social cohesion. 
• Concerns have been raised about their willingness to teach sensitive topics such as LGBT+ inclusion, especially where religious conscience conflicts with equality expectations. 
• Admissions policies in Christian schools have also been criticised for privileging middle-class families willing to attend church to secure a place.

AO2: Faith schools & science

• Dawkins argues faith schools exploit children’s dependence on adults before critical thinking develops..
• He especially condemns threats of hell.
• This can give children an unscientific mindset, accepting important claims through faith and authority rather than evidence and investigation.
• Dawkins visited a faith school where he was told all pupils rejected evolution, while the science teacher struggled to explain why monkeys still existing does not conflict with human evolution.
• This illustrates how religious schooling can obstruct scientific understanding and reasoning.

Counter

• McGrath agrees that indoctrination is wrong, arguing beliefs should face evidence-based reasoning and blind faith is not truly Christian.
• But he argues Dawkins’ reasonable point gets lost in the “noise of the hyped-up rhetoric”: calling religious upbringing ‘child abuse’ and implying religion survives only through indoctrination.
• Faith schools done well could instead encourage critical examination of religious claims and inherited beliefs.

Evaluation

• However, while Dawkins ‘Child abuse’ accusation is overgeneralised, it is not empty rhetoric, since some ex-Christians do require therapy to overcome fear of hell.
• McGrath is right that arguments for religion exist, but few believers appear to acquire faith through them.
• Studies suggest around 80% of religious people share the religion of at least one parent.
• This is far higher than expected if belief were typically reached through independent reasoning.
• Faith schools are part of this problem, forming children within one religious framework before they can really assess alternatives.
• So, Dawkins is correct that faith schools involve at least a soft form of indoctrination. 
• Given how strongly religion tracks parental belief, it is plausible that religion would struggle to persist without social transmission exploiting children’s underdeveloped critical thinking and inculcating an unscientific mindset.
• So, we should not grant parental religious influence the institutional reinforcement of faith schools.

AO2: Faith schools & democracy

• The faith-school debate reflects the wider ideological importance of education in a democracy.
• John Dewey described democracy as a “mode of associated living”: not merely political institutions, but a society in which citizens communicate and cooperate across divisions.
• Democracy therefore depends on education developing the critical and social capacities needed for autonomous citizenship.
• A multi-faith society requires schools to help pupils critically engage with competing worldviews.
• Feinberg’s “right to an open future” similarly suggests that parental authority does not outweigh children’s ability eventually to decide their own beliefs.
• Faith schools privileging one worldview while children are developing therefore seem to conflict with the democratic project.
  

Counter

• However, liberalism also protects religious freedom and pluralism.
• A state which bans faith schools could appear to insist that only secular frameworks are legitimate.
• Faith schools can balance a religious ethos with legal educational standards requiring critical thinking, democratic values and exposure to other religions.
• This may best reflect liberalism’s balance between freedom of and freedom from religion.

Evaluation

• However, religious freedom protects belief and worship; it does not necessarily entail a right to faith schools.
• Dawkins argues that calling someone a ‘Christian child’ is as inappropriate as calling them a ‘Conservative’ or ‘Communist child’.
• Extending Dawkins’ point to education, we would ordinarily reject schools organised around promoting communism or conservatism.
• Religion may only seem different because faith schools are historically familiar, not because there is a principled distinction.
• Children should instead encounter religions critically and pluralistically as possible worldviews, rather than being formed within one.
• Parents would remain free to practise and teach their religion outside school, while children’s developing autonomy receives fuller protection.
• The point is not that such education would be perfectly neutral.
• Liberalism is itself a worldview which privileges autonomy, critical inquiry and democratic citizenship.
• The point is that confessional schooling conflicts with those values.

AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology

• The scientific method provides what the current evidence gives us most reason to believe.
• Whereas, Dawkins argues faith is an excuse to believe what one wants.
• E.g., in the doubting Thomas, Jesus implies the less evidence a believer needs, the more blessed they are.
• Christian epistemology makes a virtue of blindness to evidence which can harm society (e.g. resisting embryo research & blood transfusions).
• More broadly, faith imposes a child-like reliance on authority, opposed to the critical thinking needed for a healthy democracy.
• A population with unscientific epistemic habits is more vulnerable to emotional manipulation by political demagogy.

Counter

• However, McGrath responds that this overlooks the role of natural theology.
• E.g., Aquinas’ 5 ways aim at a posteriori inductive proof of a higher power, supporting faith in the Christian God as reasonable.
• Rational people are persuaded towards belief later in life by this, including McGrath himself and Antony Flew.
• So, faith is not unscientifically blind but reason-supported and evidence-sensitive.
• We could say the 5 ways are incorrect, but cannot say they are dangerously irrational.

Evaluation

• However, Dawkins’ misunderstandings aside, natural theology is still irrational.
• God’s arguments at best prove some higher power.
• So, using them to support faith in a particular God unscientifically stretches them beyond what they can show.
• Natural theologians argue this leap is where faith has its proper application.
• Yet this concedes that belief goes beyond what evidence justifies.
• McGrath assumes rationality is secured by granting a role to reason.
• But using reason to support faith is rationalisation, not rationality.
• Hume’s dictum of empiricism states the wise person proportions their beliefs to the evidence. 
• Only that secures rational belief sensitive to the ever-changing balance of evidence.
• Religious belief may be consistent with the evidence, but it is not proportioned to it.
• So, even sophisticated theology still promotes a harmful unscientific mindset.

AO2: The harmfulness of religion

• Dawkins characterises the old testament God as an “ethnic cleanser … misogynistic, homophobic, infanticidal, genocidal” and “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”
• The implication is that worshiping such a God reflects and perpetuates violence and prejudice.
• He points to our evolved tribal tendency to favor members of our group and distrust the ‘other’.
• Religion exacerbates this by splitting us into believers and non-believers, illustrated by the history of religious conflict.

Counter

• McGrath counters that Dawkins unfairly focuses on fundamentalists.
• Religion is distorted by extremists to legitimise their prior prejudices.
• No worldview can be justly blamed for its misuse by the motivated reasoning of fanatics.
• McGrath adds: Jesus is biblically presented as our role model. 
• He embodied agape: selfless love of all regardless of background (e.g. good samaritan).
• Christian ethics thus orients us away from our propensity to dehumanisation.

Evaluation:

• Ultimately, McGrath’s argument is true but misleadingly incomplete.
• He risks committing a No True Scotsman fallacy, redefining “true Christianity” in a way that excludes violent interpretations.
• This overlooks the flaws in the heart of the tradition, namely biblical passages which can motivate extremism. 
• E.g., subordination of women, condemnation of homosexuality and tacit endorsement of slavery.
• So, extremists don’t simply misuse Christianity; aspects of the faith can also attract and enable them.
• So, religion is both a symptom and a cause of prejudice.
• McGrath claims theological reinterpretation of such passages address this.
• But religion’s self-understanding as revealed eternal truth from a God makes such sophisticated reframing difficult.
• Fundamentalists can always point to the prima facie meaning of problematic verses.
• As Sam Harris put it, the problem with religious fundamentalism is the fundamentals of religion.
• Religion will forever be burdened with the brute reality of its texts, which Mill described as “in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people”.

AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism 

• Dostoyevsky warned that if there is no God, everything is permitted.
• Ratzinger argues that secularism collapses morality into human opinion and relativism. 
• This risks granting power over morality to the state, leading to 20th century totalitarianism.
• Implicit here is a “dependence” anthropology, that ethics requires a transcendent ground.

Counter

• Liberal political theory counters that state power is limited by democracy, rights and constitutional controls, without religion.
• Kant developed an ‘autonomy’ anthropology, where moral law derives from rationality.
• Liberalism can fail, E.g., Germany’s sinking into Nazism.
• But empirically, secular democracies avoid totalitarianism more reliably than theocracies and typically have better social health markers in education, health and crime.
• Correlation does not establish causation, but Sam Harris argues that secularists need only show that secular societies are compatible with flourishing.
• That sufficiently challenges the claim that secularism necessarily produces nihilism.

Evaluation

• Nietzsche shows how even if the ‘death of God’ caused some nihilism, that doesn’t justify Ratzinger’s conclusion. 
• Our dependence on religion might be conditioned rather than necessary: 
• Christianity encouraged us to associate value with transcendence and distrust moral autonomy.
• Breaking free could cause moral disorientation, which Ratzinger points to as confirmation that transcendence was necessary all along.
• But nihilism could just be a transitional crisis we could overcome.
  
  
• If Nietzsche is right, Ratzinger’s argument has the logic of an abusive relationship: 
• It activates an insecurity religion itself cultivated, that we don’t know how to live without religion.
• This encourages us to interpret the difficulties of independence through fear and regard life outside the relationship as hopeless.
• History supports Nietzsche, because Ancient Greek philosophy developed non-nihilistic this-worldly ethics, as do modern secular philosophers.
• This undermines the supposed necessity of transcendent value and supports the liberal autonomy view that humans can find the confidence to stand on our own two feet morally.

AO2: The place (if any) for religion in modern society

• Anti-theists aim for religion’s disappearance.
• Hitchens argues religion cannot be safely contained to private life, because it claims a God-given right to direct people “not just in their public but in their private lives.”
• Its ‘arrogant’ ‘certainty’ tends towards theocracy, making religion a “threat” to peaceful society.

Counter: 

• Williams’ procedural secularism rejects this crypto-authoritarian picture.
• Religion should be separated from state power but free to contribute alongside other worldviews
• Liberty of conscience, religion and speech must protect all views, including religion.
• McGrath argues Dawkins sounds “uncomfortably like” Soviet anti-religious propaganda.

Evaluation: 

• However, McGrath confuses methods and goals.
• Anti-theists want religion to disappear, but through persuasion in the marketplace of ideas, methodologically aligning with procedural secularism.
• Wanting everyone freely to become atheist is no more authoritarian than evangelists wanting everyone freely to become Christian.
  
  
• The appeal to procedural secularism overlooks a fundamental tension.
  
• An epistemological premise of liberalism is human fallibility, from which Mill inferred the importance of freedom of opinion and public debate.
• Politically, worldviews must therefore tolerate criticism.
  
  
• Religion also accepts human fallibility, but regards some truths as guaranteed by divine revelation.
• Religion therefore cannot straightforwardly take Mill’s route to valuing liberty and tolerance.
• Especially since religion historically claimed that revealed truth legitimated political authority.
• Procedural secularism requires religion to abandon that connection, but revealed universal moral principles make this especially difficult.
• The religious politics surrounding Roe v. Wade illustrates this:
• If abortion is objectively forbidden by God, accepting that it may be legitimately permitted by society becomes difficult.
  
  
• So, aspects of religion’s self-understanding continually tear at the liberal social contract, making full domestication by modernity seem doubtful.
  
  
• McGrath’s Soviet comparison may itself illustrate this tension.
• Why is liberal criticism heard as a totalitarian threat?
• Perhaps because, to a worldview historically accustomed to political privilege, criticism can feel like an assault on its ‘rightful (privileged) place’ in society.

Question preparation

Key paragraphs:

• AO1: Secularism & secularisation: religion in today’s society 
• AO1: Replacing religion as the source of moral values: Secular humanism
• AO1: Freud 
• AO1: Dawkins: Militant atheism / anti-theism & the rise of New atheism 
• AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
• AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
• AO2: Freud’s views on Christian ethics as infantile
• AO1: The value of Faith schools
• AO2: Debating faith schools

Question types:

Scholar/ideology focused questions:

How convincing are Freud’s views on religion? [40]

• AO1: Freud
• AO2: Freud’s views on Christian ethics as infantile
• AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
  
  • Critiques secularism and thus by extension the mode of society Freud was advocating.
• AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology
  • Debates whether religion really is as irrational and unscientific as Freud would say.
    

Critically assess secular humanism [40]

• AO1: Replacing religion as the source of moral values: Secular humanism
• AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology
  
  • Debates whether secular humanism is right about epistemology: whether religion is really more irrational and unscientific.
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
  
  • Debates whether religion failing to center ethics on humans does indeed make it ethically flawed as secular humanists like Dawkins claim.
• AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
  
  • Debates the claim that a secular humanist society has its own, potentially worse, flaws.

Evaluation the views of Richard Dawkins on religion [40]

• AO1: Dawkins: Militant atheism / anti-theism & the rise of New atheism
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
• AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
• AO2: Debating faith schools

Issue focused questions:

“Faith schools have a valid role in today’s society” – Discuss [40]

• AO1: The value of Faith schools
• AO2: Debating faith schools
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
  
  • If religion is as bad on morality as Dawkins argues here, that undermines the legitimacy of faith schools 
• AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology
  
  • If religion is as irrational and fostering of an unscientific mind as Dawkins argues here, that’s an argument that children have a right to an education free from religious influence.

Weirdly worded questions:

Are secularism and secularisation are opportunities for Christianity to develop new ways of thinking and acting? [40]

• AO1: Dawkins: Militant atheism / anti-theism & the rise of New atheism
  • Dawkins would say no. ‘Anti-theists’ think secularism should aim at destroying religion and totally removing it from society – not developing it. They argue this because of: 
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
  
  • Debates whether anti-theists are right that religion is too harmful to have a place in society.
  • McGrath counters – this critique only applies to religious extremists.
  • So Dawkins may just be helping religion develop by identifying and rooting out its extremists.
  • But in the end arguably the problem of religious extremism cannot be solved except by abandoning religion.
• AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology
  
  • Dawkins thinks religion is too irrational to develop.
  • But this has led to a development in Christian apologetics, finding the rational grounding for faith – which McGrath defends.
• AO2: Freud’s views on Christian ethics as infantile
  
  • Freud thinks Christianity is just something to be grown out of, not developed.
  • We can defend religion: Aquinas’ incorporation of virtue shows development in Christian ethics which supersedes Freud’s concerns
  • But Mill thinks this fails and that no afterlife-theology can be ethically advanced because it makes people selfishly seek heaven rather than become virtuous.

Are spiritual values just human values? [40] 

Spiritual values are those obtained through religious means, such as revelation.

Human values are those obtained through human means, such as by reason and empiricism, e.g., in secular humanism.

The debate is whether there’s any distinction between spiritual and human values. Religion is premised on the idea that spiritual values are higher/better than mere human values – because they genuinely come from a God and are thus ethically superior; create better societies, better enable flourishing, etc.

Whereas anti-theists will argue spiritual values don’t come from a God, but stone-age primitive social conditions – and that their effect on society betrays this lowly origin.

• AO1: Replacing religion as the source of moral values: Secular humanism
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
  
  • Dawkins: human values are better than spiritual values.
• AO2: Freud’s views on Christian ethics as infantile
  
  • Freud: human values are better than spiritual values.
• AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
  • Ratzinger: spiritual values are greater and better than human values.

‘Christianity significantly defines today’s culture and values’ – Discuss [40]

• AO1: Secularism & secularisation: religion in today’s society
• AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
  
  • Ratzinger: today’s culture still needs religion as an anchor for objective values – look what happens when you get rid of it – Nazism, communism, etc.
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
  
  • Dawkins: christian morality is outdated and barbaric, we don’t need it anymore – mainstream culture has moved on, and in a much more ethical direction.
• AO2: Freud’s views on Christian ethics as infantile
  
  • Freud argues religion is childish, belongs to the childish phase of the human race, is outgrown by modernity’s focus on rational autonomy – and that there’s no hope for Christianity ever properly 

Could Christianity realistically be confined to private life? [40]

Procedural secularism: allows religion into the public sphere, just not direct state power.
Programmatic secularism: confines religion to private life
Anti-theism: allows religion into the public sphere – but challenges it in the public sphere, aiming to persuade it out of existence.

• AO1: Secularism & secularisation: religion in today’s society
• AO2: The harmfulness of religion
  
  • Dawkins: religion is a relic of ancient barbaric ethics and needs to be outgrown, even in private life, for the good of society.
• AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism
  
  • Ratzinger: look what happens when religion is marginalised – society is worse.
• AO2: Debating faith schools
  
  • Banning faith schools is part of the argument for relegating religion to private life, or eliminating it altogether.