Pros And Cons Of Modern Nationalism Is Only Possible In A Secular Society

“Modern nationalism is only possible in a secular society.” I completely agree with this quote from our text. I will discuss what I understand this quote to mean, and I will then discuss the pros and cons of a secular society. What is a secular society? A secular society is a non-religious values based society. Legislators and government officials are opposed from making and furthering laws and/or policies with the intent of furthering a particular religious agenda based law or policy. A secular society is not intended to be antireligious, but they do not promote religion in laws. It actually maintains a separation of influences between religion and civil establishments. In other words, a secular society keeps a majority religion’s set of beliefs from interfering laws and the government views.
Western European nations followed a secular society: religion in person, but separate from politics.
This philosophy is a great concept for other nations too, such as, United States, which we follow, but it could be tuned up. A secular nation also claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid privileged treatment for a citizen from a certain religion/non-religion. However, unlike America, Islam does not separate religion from the state. Secularism in Turkey came after the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. With the country getting down Mustafa Kemal Atatürk led a political and cultural revolution. Turkish modernism went through a reversal of the Islamic Ottoman system and the adoption of a west-oriented mode of modernization. This resulted in the abolition of the Caliphate. Also, a secular civil code was adopted to replace the previous codes based on Islamic law, which outlaws all forms of polygamy, annulled religious marriages, granting equal rights to men and women, in matters of inheritance, marriage and
divorce. One pro of a secular society are the power is given to all the people, not to religious representatives. Another advantage is a view of one person’s values or religion is not the choice for all. And lastly, in theory, it keeps any religion from gaining absolute power and overruling the government. I believe this to be tremendous advantages for secularism, because of the different religions in all the lands, not one is better than other and influencing the laws of nations. The only disadvantage I can point out of secularism is that countries with a weak government will be more difficult to run and flow with ease. With this disadvantage is with anything and seems vague, but I do not see disadvantages except for more change for nations that do not have a secular society. I do believe secularism is only possible for a modern nationalism and the first step to modernizing all the lands. A secular society does not follow a religion based policy, and it does not create religious laws. In other words, a secular society keeps a majority religion’s set of beliefs from interfering laws and the government views. Power is given to all the people, not to religious reps, and that is what people should aim for.