Secularism Discussion (Offshoot Thread)

Solair wrote: »

You realise secularism is a division between church and state? It's not a belief system.

Solair wrote: »

I think you'll find it has a very clearly defined meaning even in most dictionaries. The issue is that many people either accidentally or deliberately confuse secularism with atheism.

Secularism is indeed defined in most dictionaries, but not as “a division between church and state”. It is, in fact, defined as a belief system.

Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary definition:

“The doctrine that morality should be based solely on regard to the well-being of mankind in the present life, to the exclusion of all considerations drawn from belief in God or in a future state.

a. As the name of a definitely professed system of belief, promulgated by G. J. Holyoake (1817–1906).

b. In wider sense, as denoting a mode of thought more or less implicitly held and acted upon.”

So, a secular person is one whose moral decisions take no account of beliefs in god/an afterlife. Such a person could in theory believe in god, but in a god who is unconcerned with human morality. Some of the religions of classical Greece and Rome did take this form, I think, but in modern Western society a secular person will probably be an atheist, an agnostic or someone completely indifferent to religion.

But, in the context of a discussion about public policy, calls for “secularism” are usually calls for state secularism. I think the suggestion is that individual citizens, and groups and associations of citizens, should take ethical decisions according to their own lights, and may or may not act in a secular way, but the state should take all its decisions and undertake all its actions on a secular basis.

Even this doesn’t necessarily mean, though a rigid separation of church and state. Suppose the state is putting out, say, the establishment and running of a hospital to tender. Two tenders are received; one from a not-for-profit non-religious medical organization, the other from a non-for-profit religious medical organization. In deciding which tender to accept, it seems to me, a secular state will disregard entirely all considerations relating to belief in God, and will judge between the two tenders on other criteria - value for money, competence, experience, provision of a full range of services, whatever. The result may well be that the religious body wins the tender.

That would be an entirely secular decision on the part of the state, but one which would offend at least some concepts of the separation of church and state. A very strong concept of church/state separation would say that the state should not accept the tender from the religious body even if it is, judged purely on secular criteria, the best tender.

You can argue for, and defend, such a strong concept of church/state separation, but I don’t think you can say it’s something required by secularism. A secular basis for awarding the tender would disregard the religious character of one of the tenderers. A “strong separation” basis, by contrast, requires the state not only to have regard to the religious character of the tenderer, but to treat it as a factor in its decision which outweighs all other factors. In some ways, that’s pretty much the opposite of secular.

Dades wrote: »

I'd suggest that in your example, unless the religious tender provided an absolute commitment to run the hospital in a secular manner (e.g. not withhold certain medical services, or treat differently on the basis of a religious doctrine) then this would be contrary to even a mild concept of secularism.

If such a condition is to be imposed, it must be imposed on all tenderers or on none. Singling out the religious tenderers would be unacceptable.

But, yes, in principle. If, e.g., it was a requirement that the services provided in the hospital include male and female sterilisation, family planning clinics and pregnancy terminations, you could exclude any tenderer who wouldn't provide those services - which, forseeably, would have the effect of excluding at least some religiously-motivated tenderers. And you could require tenderers to address this in their tenders.

(You shouldn't, though, add those requirements for the purpose of excluding religious tenderers. You should only add them if your overall health plan is that these services will be provided in all hospitals, or on all hospitals of this type.)

Dades wrote: »

Indeed. Tenders wouldn't be excluded on the basis of the ethos behind them, but rather on the basis that they may not offer all the services required in a new hospital.

Absolutely.

I recently brought the grandkids to see my 93 year old granduncle (their great-grand uncle -yup 5 generations of us are around to annoy the good people of Cork) in the Mercy Hospital in Cork - or to give it it's correct title Mercy University Hospital. 6 year old Hermoine asked if we were in a Church due to the overwhelming amount of Catholic iconography glaring down on us from the walls, niches, alcoves etc etc.
Granduncle (an Atheist all his life) genuinely finds this upsetting and says he feels like he can't even die in peace without those 'terrorists' (his words) who made his school years a misery and him an outsider in his own country leering down at him.

The point is that Mercy University Hospital is both a teaching hospital and a public hospital which receives public funding and is intended to serve all of the people of Cork, yet it's Catholic ethos hits you in the face as soon as you go in the front door. It's so obvious that my 3 year old grandson commented and he usually doesn't notice anything that isn't Buzz Lightyear or Ben 10 related.

It may seem like nothing, but there is a 93 year old man who is deathly ill lying up there surrounded by a visual reminder of that very Irish Catholic ethos with it's fingers in every aspect of Irish life which made him feel unwelcome here and drove him out of this country in 1938. He is a citizen of this country and should not be subjected to this propaganda paid for out of the public purse.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Perhaps. But for every 93-year old patient who is bothered by the iconongraphy, there’s another who is consoled and comforted by it.

It’s not the business of the state to prioritise the feelings of the bothered over the feelings of the consoled, and to require that public hospitals should not display iconography. Or, at any rate, the notion that the state should be secular does not require the state to implement such a rule, and arguably requires that the state should not do so.

You are a font of compassion and inclusiveness arn't you.

I am sure Protestant patients are just delighted to see images of Catholic Clergy glaring down at them..and those women who were incarcerated in the Magdalene Laundries must be very comforted...as are those people who were abused in Industrial Schools...and those abused by their parish priest....

There is no need for the iconography of any religion to be on display in a publicly funded hospital.

I object to my tax euros being used to clean and otherwise look after Catholic Iconography in our public hospitals when the budget for health care is being cut.

Couple of points:

Everybody seems to be assuming that the religious iconography is publicly funded. Is this in fact the case? I appreciate that the hospital is publicly funded, but it’s not necessarily exclusively publicly funded; whatever non-state agent is involved usually brings something financial to the party as well, and the statues, etc, may well be coming from that source.

There seems to be an assumption here that in a publicly funded institution, people of a secular mindset are entitled to an aesthetic environment which which pleases them, while people of a religious mindset are not. I’m not seeing any reason why secular citizens should be privileged in this way and, more to the point, I’m not seeing anyone in this thread trying to construct a coherent argument in support of this claim.

If you have a diverse society – and I think we do, and should – then most people, some of time, are going to find themselves in a minority in some regard or other. They are entitled to demand a reasonable accommodation for their rights, desires and tastes; they are not, so far as I can see, entitled to demand an accommodation which they deny to others.

A demand that all publicly-funded hospitals should be free of religious imagery looks, to me, as absolutist as a demand that all publicly-funded hospitals should display religious imagery. It expresses the same sense of arrogant entitlement, bizarrely combined with the same sense of insecurity, that the Catholic church expressed for so long, and in some respects still expresses – we are entitled to have our views and beliefs endorsed and reflected by the state, and if this is not done we are being oppressed.

pauldla wrote: »

Meaning, we paid for this, so you’re looking at the BVM whether you like it or not...?
What if there more than one non-state agent is contributing? Can we see a crucifix next to a picture of Mao?

Yes, if you can find a hospital jointly conducted by the Medical Missionaries of Mary and the Communist Party of China!

pauldla wrote: »

Not at all. If you want a picture of the BVM over your bed, stick one up! A believer is sure to have a ready selection of images to choose from, I’ll wager. But no complaining if an adherent of the First Church of Satan across from you puts up one of their pictures, too, OK?

Um, the hospital is fitted out by the hospital board, Paul, not by the patients.

pauldla wrote: »

In our secular hospital, the default setting for religious iconography is ‘off’, as attempting to cater for all beliefs is nonsense. This I would consider to be a reasonable accommodation. But, as I stated above, if you want to put up a little picture of the deity or spirit of your choice for the duration of your stay, go right ahead. Within reason.

In your secular hospital, that’s fine. It’s your hospital, run it how you like. In other people’s hospitals, however, which may not be quite so secular, you don’t get to dictate what they hang on the wall. They have the same rights as you do, remember.

pauldla wrote: »

So which imagery are you going to use? Catholic? Presbyterian? Hindu? Buddhist? Will we swap them around wards, in an effort to accomodate? Or will we just use one set of imagery, and let it represent all religions? Or maybe we could amalgamate the images, and have an eigth-armed Laughing Christ?

This is a matter for the hospital board. Isn’t that obvious? And – gasp! – different hospital boards might make different decisions in that regard!

Let’s get a little bit real here.

It is the responsibility of the state to see that its citizens get proper healthcare.

It’s not the responsibility of the state to carry out the interior decoration of hospitals. That can and should be left to the people who run the hospitals, and no principal of state secularity is infringed by doing so. Likewise the question of whether and to what extent inpatients are allowed to add that personal touch is not really something which need take up a lot of time at cabinet meetings; it, too, is a matter for the hospital board.

A secular state should be indifferent as to whether healthcare is delivered through hospitals with a religious character (and corresponding interior décor), or through hospitals without.

Ideally, citizens would have some choice about where and how they get treatment and, if they choose to make the interior décor the basis on which they exercise that choice, well, that’s their choice. The whole point of their having choice is that they can exercise their choice by reference to criteria which might not appeal to you or me.

Realistically, of course, healthcare funding being the nightmare that it is, giving patients choice will often be more of an aspiration than a reality, and patients may find that they have no real option but to obtain treatment in a hospital whose interior décor does not appeal to them. That is unfortunate for those of them who care passionately about interior decoration - the absurdly pious, the doggedly atheistic and the stereotypically camp. Still, in that situation the principle of state secularity does not require the state to ensure that people who prefer religion-free décor are catered for in priority to those who prefer holy pictures and Infants of Prague at every corner. On the contrary; it requires them to disregard the matter entirely, and make their funding decisions based onrelevant criteria, like getting the best quality of healthcare delivered at the lowest cost. Whether and how people express their religious convictions – including convictions that religion is irrelevant, oppressive or ridiculous – is a matter out of which a secular state must butt.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

What I don't get is the fact that Peregrinus cannot see what even a group of nuns take as obviously self-evicent.

I volunteered for two years for a charity in Cork set up to teach asylum seekers and other foreign nationals English, free of charge. The ethos of the school was that it would be run on secular lines, no favour to any religion, no advertising for any religion and no iconography in public spaces. The only clues that it had religious ties were the nuns themselves and in a couple of the offices there were a few small icons of Jesus and Mary.

This was a private organisation (receiving little to no state or local government support; the Guards diverting a portion of their community support budget very generously) run out of a building donated by a convent, headed and staffed mostly by nuns, and yet they had a more sensible approach to religion in public than some of the posters in this thread.

But that's up to the people who run the school. The point is that this isn't something that should be imposed on them by the state, as a condition of getting any kind of public funding.

Peregrinus wrote: »

No. And a voluntary hospital isn't a state office either. It doesn't become so if the hospital receives state money, any more than my home does.

Did you miss the bit where I said it was a University hospital?

As a teaching hospital affiliated with UCC where, mainly nursing students, train it is not quite the same as, for example, the Bons.

Who pays for these students to be trained?

Nor was my granduncle given the option of attending another hospital...he has no choice but to be surrounded by iconography.

jank wrote: »

Not sure what the point here is. Are you saying that medical students working in a hospital owned by a religious organisation shouldn't be exposed to a religious iconography?

It is quite common for medical students to train in hospitals run under some religious patronage, happens all the time here in sydney. Many of the best private hospitals are still run under the auspices of some type of order. Those that attend don't have to be Christian or catholic, I don't think it's an issue or maybe they aren't as sensitive as us Irish.

No I am saying a UNIVERSITY hospital which receives STATE funding should not be publicly displaying religious iconography as per the Constitution which declares the State shall not endow any religion.

It is not a private hospital. It is a public hospital that also treats private patients.

No public hospital I was ever in in Sydney had religious iconography publicly displayed so I'm not sure what your point is bar arguing for the sake of it....

jank wrote: »

Clearly you were never in St. Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghusrt, right in the heart of inner city Sydney.
http://exwwwsvh.stvincents.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=120&Itemid=149

Check out the photo and read the mission statement.
They treat people of all creeds and religion, much much more so than Ireland and I don't think bit and pieces of religious iconography has upset anyone bar the odd radical maybe. As I said, maybe they are thankful they are getting excellant medical treatment rather than give out about a piece of wood or clay.

They receive state funding, should the federal and state goverment demand that they 'cleanse' their hospital of all iconography before they receive one more dollar in funding?

No I did not go to Darlo to visit a hospital as I had a choice and received excellent care in Marrickville and Newtown without a holy picture in sight.

One also cannot compare Australian society to Irish as the RCC (or any other religion) was never allowed to dominate Australian society in the way it was/is allowed to dominate Irish society.

You are not comparing like for like and you know it.

jank wrote: »

Oh but I am, the main teaching hospital for the UNSW is St. Vincent's.
University of Sydney use various hospitals including those of a religious ethos. By your reckoning this shouldn't be allowed. Please correct me if I am wrong as you brought up the issue of hospitals being a teaching hospital.

Would you care to address the point I actually made that you are not comparing like for like in terms of the domination of one religion over civil society?

pauldla wrote: »

Bannasidhe has pointed out the details of the hospital, I believe.

Yes. She’s pointed out that it has a link with UCC – part of the UCC medical school instruction is delivered there. I don’t think that makes it a “state institution”, and I’m not seeing anyone advancing a coherent argument that it does. Bannasidhe points to the fact that the state (presumably) is the ultimate paymaster for most of the teaching carried on at the hospital, but I’ve already pointed out that merely receiving money from the state doesn’t miraculously turn you into a “state institution”.

pauldla wrote: »

To clarify, to ‘fund’ and to ‘receive money from’ are the same thing?

“To be funded by” and “to receive money from” are pretty much the same thing, yes. The way you fund an organisation is by giving it money, and if somebody gives you money to carry on whatever it is you carry on, they can reasonably said to be funding you. My lifestyle – the cars, the girls, the cocaine – is funded by my salary, the money my employer gives me. Is the same not true for you?

pauldla wrote: »

I’m assuming that some areas of state institutions will be open to, and frequented by, the general public. Dangerously totalitarian? Please explain.

I don’t think that’s your assumption. You seem to me to be assuming that any part of the hospital that is open to, and frequented by, the general public is, because of that public access, a “state institution”. (You haven’t suggested any other reason why the wards are state institutions and the offices not). And, of course, expanding the role and responsibility of the state to encompass the entirety of the public square is pretty much totalitatianism 101.

pauldla wrote: »

As far as I am aware, it is not being argued that the state should only do business with secular agencies. I am arguing against the inappropriate use of religious icons in state-funded institutions, such as hospitals; and the state, if paying the piper, has the right to impose contract conditions such as “don’t display your religious iconography on our premises”, does it not? I am not an expert, but are conditions in contracts unheard of?

The issue is not whether the state can impose such a condition (it might be found to infringe constitutional or ECHR guarantees on freedom of religious expression, but that’s for another thread); the issue is whether it should.

My argument is that a secular state should not. The principle of secularity is that decisions should be taken without regard to religious considerations. Thus, in its hospital funding decisions, the state should neither favour nor disfavour hospitals which display a religious character or ethos; they should disregard that question entirely and take their decision on non-religious considerations.

You can certainly argue that the state should, by law or policy, seek to minimise or even forbid the expression of religious character or ethos in public places. And you can argue that it should use its economic muscle as a purchaser of goods and services on behalf the public to do so, by insisting on contract terms like the one you are suggesting. But if you do that you’re not arguing for a secular state; you are arguing for a state which explicitly relies on considerations of religion in its decisions and actions.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Its operated by the HSE, what more do you want?

Cork University Hospital is not just state funded, but state operated, therefore the rest of your argument is invlaid. It should not display any religious iconography itself.

That's a different hospital, Mark.

CUH, in Wilton, is indeed operated by the HSE. It's a state institution, and I agree it should have no religious character.

Bannasidhe's post refers to MUH, in Grenville Place, and that's the hospital we have been discussing. It's an explicitly religious institution with an explicitly religious mission, established by the Sisters of Mercy. In Health Service funding terms, it's a "voluntary hospital", i.e. not one established or run by the state or under a state mandate, but established and run by private organisation which has no legal obligation to do so.