Society is already poisoned; it has sipped the Godly chalice for as long as it remembers and birthed its young in the middle of mass. Given a world of stained glass windows to stare at, we're taught to focus on the pretty pictures, until some begin to look for the reality hiding in the light behind them. But we should never be born in the Church to begin with.
That's precisely what modern society is - a giant Church. We can sit in the pews, chained like Plato's prisoners, and discuss what we like, but there's always going to be a home advantage given the unfortunate location for the debate. Modern day conceptions of 'secular society' are quite frankly impossible, because religion is so deeply ingrained in society that it's become the norm - a hidden norm that people refuse to accept as being there.
Let me qualify all this with an example: if someone were to propose an 'atheist' school, perhaps on Gove's free school scheme, society at large would laud the idea as a 'stupid, militant atheist' attempt at putting religion down, like religion is some poorly picked on child that means well, but just needs the other mean kids to leave it alone. We get it, you don't believe in God! Just stop shoving it down our throats please. Right?
This is not the position - religion is the bully. For centuries atheists and blasphemers would be stoned for not towing the party line, but now that this has (largely) stopped we're supposed to see religions as some harmless little book club in a respectful, pluralist society that will treat all points of view with equal credence. But we have hundreds of faith schools in the UK that attract no attention whatsoever. When a new faith school is proposed, there is no backlash saying 'MILITANT CHRISTIANS! What a mean attempt at putting atheism in its place'. As I have said, we are born in the Church. We're born into a world that intrinsically and seemingly unknowingly puts religious views on a higher plane than non-religious ones.
Everything we see has its religious tint, shining through from those seemingly harmless stained glass windows. The world we live in was built on religion and now its walls reek of scripture and bias. Even a pluralist society is completely inconceivable because there is simply no way that all points of view can be fairly and equally respected. Parents, themselves not particularly religious, still continue to baptise their children, you know - just in case, or perhaps go to Church to instil their child with basic values. The fact that these concepts are even acceptable is just blatant evidence of the religious skew that exists so innocently. Overnight religion has become a harmless collection of book clubs who have some nice stories to teach you a thing or two, rather than the man whispering in the executioner's ear.
If I go out onto the street tomorrow and hand out leaflets with lyrics to John Lennon's 'Imagine', telling people to forget about God and the afterlife and just enjoy the ride, I'll be lambasted as disrespectful and pompous and basically like the bad older child going round shouting that Santa Claus doesn't exist. But religious groups do this every day, granted not with much interest, or maybe not even that much respect - but it's accepted. You're not surprised when you see it, you're not offended and it's fair enough that someone's extolling their own values onto others.
You might say that atheism is an absence of religion, and thus extolling its values is paradoxical and thus must be in some way pompous and disrespectful. But whilst to be atheist may be a negative, in this case a negative is required - because we live in a society with the positive religion thrown at you from all directions. Heck, atheism should always be the first stage of thinking when it comes to philosophical ponderance on the issue of God. Why would you be born assuming that there's a God, and then if you wish to challenge this notion then go ahead - but the starting point is that he's there? We should start by thinking there is no God, and if you can reason one from there, then fair enough. But instead we live in a Church where he's put all around us to begin with, and those who choose against a religious life are expected to sit quiet through the mass, while the rest of us start faith schools, societies, pressure groups and street-stalls.
'Secular society' my balls.
Harvey
