Need To Re-Assert Our Secularism

I VERY much appreciate Ms/Mr Shikongo’s letter last Friday about the need to re-assert Namibia as a secular state, as proclaimed in the Constitution.

For too long, religionists have been allowed to erode this secularity, and the outpourings of religious ‘faith’ and ‘visions’ permitted to go unchallenged – even as in the recent case, up to the heavenly ‘visit’ of a Cabinet minister. When anyone, even if not an agnostic or atheist, attempts to assert the principle of secularism, he/she is attacked for being tactless and aggressive, and not deferring to the sensibilities of religious people.No doubt Mr Shikongo will be similarly attacked in these pages.Yes, I suppose we are meant to respect the delicate sensibilities of fundamentalists, inquisitors, crusaders, jihadists, creationists, green-monkey-god worshippers, and assorted burners-at-the-stake and howlers-at-the-moon.All I can say is, atheists have never been guilty of going to war, razing cities, burning scientists, stoning women to death, and exterminating heretics (i.e.people with an imperceptibly different notion of God than what we have).As the latest intrusion of religion into human life, we learn today that the Catholic Church, and its assembly of scarlet-robed buffoons, has instructed its followers to cease financial donations to Amnesty International, because they are ‘sanctioning abortion’! Take this to its logical conclusion, and it will be OK to shoot the doctors at fertility advice clinics dead, as happens in the US, a country where religious fundamentalism has assumed a frightening stranglehold over government policy.That is actually the one thing that all religions have in common – despite their baffling and bizarre ‘theologies’, they all exhort their adherents to breed like flies, even though this leads to abject poverty and destruction of resources throughout the world.Mr Shikongo mentions the excellent books ‘The God Delusion’ and ‘God is not Great’, which I recommend all to read.I hope people can obtain them.I was amused to see that Amazon.co.uk has withdrawn ‘God is not Great’ from its catalogue – I wonder if they received death threats from peace-loving Jesus-niks? Every weekend, in the leisure section of the papers, we get interviews with local ‘celebrities’ who burble on about how God plays a central role in their lives.Time they actually got a real life I think.Religion is based on fear – chiefly the fear of death, which people will turn to for consolation and hope, even if it is a vain hope.It takes great courage to resist this.Man has made God in his/her own image, not the other way round, and this is only sense in which one can say, metaphorically, that God exists.Atheist Via e-mailWhen anyone, even if not an agnostic or atheist, attempts to assert the principle of secularism, he/she is attacked for being tactless and aggressive, and not deferring to the sensibilities of religious people.No doubt Mr Shikongo will be similarly attacked in these pages.Yes, I suppose we are meant to respect the delicate sensibilities of fundamentalists, inquisitors, crusaders, jihadists, creationists, green-monkey-god worshippers, and assorted burners-at-the-stake and howlers-at-the-moon.All I can say is, atheists have never been guilty of going to war, razing cities, burning scientists, stoning women to death, and exterminating heretics (i.e.people with an imperceptibly different notion of God than what we have).As the latest intrusion of religion into human life, we learn today that the Catholic Church, and its assembly of scarlet-robed buffoons, has instructed its followers to cease financial donations to Amnesty International, because they are ‘sanctioning abortion’! Take this to its logical conclusion, and it will be OK to shoot the doctors at fertility advice clinics dead, as happens in the US, a country where religious fundamentalism has assumed a frightening stranglehold over government policy.That is actually the one thing that all religions have in common – despite their baffling and bizarre ‘theologies’, they all exhort their adherents to breed like flies, even though this leads to abject poverty and destruction of resources throughout the world.Mr Shikongo mentions the excellent books ‘The God Delusion’ and ‘God is not Great’, which I recommend all to read.I hope people can obtain them.I was amused to see that Amazon.co.uk has withdrawn ‘God is not Great’ from its catalogue – I wonder if they received death threats from peace-loving Jesus-niks? Every weekend, in the leisure section of the papers, we get interviews with local ‘celebrities’ who burble on about how God plays a central role in their lives.Time they actually got a real life I think.Religion is based on fear – chiefly the fear of death, which people will turn to for consolation and hope, even if it is a vain hope.It takes great courage to resist this.Man has made God in his/her own image, not the other way round, and this is only sense in which one can say, metaphorically, that God exists.Atheist Via e-mail