I was wondering what your thoughts about Sam Harris' arguments for torture were. He seems to proffer the view that, by accepting collateral damage from war as inescapable yet demonizing the collateral damage from torture, we are holding to a very irrational double standard. I find his defense of torture emotionally disturbing, but I can't seem to produce a logical argument that counteracts his thesis.

Again, which is worse, water-boarding a terrorist or killing/maiming him? Which is worse, water-boarding an innocent person or killing/maiming him? There are journalists who have volunteered to be water-boarded. Where are the journalists who have volunteered to have a 5000 lb bomb dropped on their homes with their families inside?

I was wondering what your thoughts about Sam Harris' arguments for torture were. He seems to proffer the view that, by accepting collateral damage from war as inescapable yet demonizing the collateral damage from torture, we are holding to a very irrational double standard. I find his defense of torture emotionally disturbing, but I can't seem to produce a logical argument that counteracts his thesis.

I consider myself a form of moral realist, even on his specific definition of it as “the view that moral duties and values have an objective reality that does not depend on any person’s or group of persons’ opinions or beliefs about them”. But I reject his equation of this position with the ideas that (1) that there are “unchanging moral absolutes”, (2) that moral duties and values have always existed, or (3) that morality’s “essential principles are eternally unchanging”.

Our primary value is simply to exist. This is the most fundamental value because it is the precondition of any other values whatsoever.

I have been defending a hard-line form of secularism this month - one that completely condemns the use of religious arguments in defense of or opposition to matters of policy in which people are harmed.

I have done this by looking at a practice that is already totally secular in this way - the presentation of evidence in a court of law. In proving the guilt of innocence of the accused, only secular evidence is permitted. No religious evidence - no assertions of faith-based belief, no divine or supernatural explanations - are permitted.

When court is in session, "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" is entirely, 100 percent secular.

A critic might point out that I have ignored an obvious injection of religion into court proceedings. People sworn in as witnesses to presenting evidence are typically asked to put their hand on a Bible and swear an oath to God.

Does that threaten to undermine my pro-secular argument? Or do I have an answer for this type of religious practice?

Ultimately, my argument concerns the practice of presenting and answering evidence that seeks to prove that the accused is guilty or innocence - that the material facts in the case are such that the harms inflicted on other people are justified.

Swearing in a witness in this manner has no implications either for or against the guilt of the accused. It is a ceremony that is at least popularly believed to make it more likely that a witness will not lie - a belief that may well be true. As such, it may actually support the goal of a trial - to get at the (100% secular) relevant facts.

This has implications for religious ceremonies as a part of government practices in general. If the practice itself is not related to presenting evidence for or against a conclusion that others may be legitimately harmed, then the defense of secularism I have offered raises no objection against that practice.

"God save the United States and this honorable court," spoken as the Supreme Court enters the chamber, an invocation or a prayer before a legislative session, a prayer breakfast, or a manger placed on a courthouse lawn during Christmas, are not presentations of evidence for the legitimacy of harming some individual or group. As such, they cannot be condemned for the reasons provided in this defense of secularism.

This does not imply that other arguments cannot be found against some or all of these practices.

For example, in a bigoted society, we may discover that jurists are inclined to believe the testimony of somebody who believes in a god and to hold that atheists are prone to lie under oath. In this case, it means that a fair trial may require keeping the jury in the dark. We may call for witnesses to be sworn in away from the Jury, and merely acknowledge the fact that they have been sworn in when on the stand. "I want to remind the witness that he is under oath."

For another example, the Pledge of Allegiance and national motto both declare that atheism is un-American. In the case of the Pledge, loyal Americans support a nation under God - a state listed along with indivisibility, liberty, and justice for all as the preferred form of American government. In the case of the motto, the government tells its citizens that "We" trust in God, and those who do not trust in God should not be counted as one of us.

However, these arguments are different from the argument for secularism I have been presenting. The form of secularism defended here would prohibit "Because God likes it that way" or "We are acknowledging the fact that we get our rights from God" from being used in discussing these policies. However, "Because it increases truth-telling among witnesses" or "It prejudices the jury against accepting the evidence of atheists," or "It effectively bars atheists from public office" are legitimate arguments in a secular-reasons-only debate for and against such policies.

People may dispute that, because my defense of secularism does not touch these policies, the argument does not actually defend secularism per se. Instead, they may say that it defends only a part of secularism.

One the other hand, one can say that these other practices are outside of the scope of secularism.

The debate over whether the term 'secularism' covers these other practices and calls for their abolition is not a debate over the facts of the matter. It is a debate over definitions. No substantive conclusions can be drawn from a dispute over what to name things. As such, that debate is outside of the scope of this paper.

I have defended the proposition that religious arguments shall not be used in policy debates, just as they are not used in determining the material facts in a trial. I will leave it to others to decide for themselves if they want the term "secularism" to extend beyond the range of this argument. Whether they do so or not, those other practices are going to need their own defense. The argument I have provided will not cover them, no matter what they are called.

In my next post, I will bring up an even more serious problem with the idea of removing religious images and symbols from government practices - specifically the practice of a trial. There are religious symbols and images included that not even the most stout secularist is protesting - and would have no reason to protest. I will cover that issue tomorrow.

Secularism is compatible with those religious and non-religious views that are compatible with secularism and incompatible with those that are not.

Sometimes, you need to state the obvious.

One of the objections raised against secularism is that it is atheistic. Because it is atheistic, it is unfair to religion. In fact, we are told that it constitutes a "war on religion".

The premise in this argument is an easy one to support. After all, a prohibition on the use of religious reasons in policy debates is certainly a-theistic (without religion). To say that policy debates that do not include religious arguments are policy debates without religious arguments is quite obviously true.

However, can we get from this true premise to the conclusion that secularism is unfair to religion or, worse, constitutes a war on religion?

Here, we can bring in the fact that trials are a-theistic in this same sense. Religious arguments are not permitted in attempts to determine the guilt or the innocence of the accused. Trials are limited to secular arguments only. It does not follow from the fact that trials are a-theistic in this sense that our current trial system constitutes a war on religion.

If it was possible to make this leap, then we are going to have to require that people may give testimony of the form, "God told me that the accused is guilty," or "The reason that the evidence does not point to the accused is because God is testing our faith." Refusing to do so is "unfair to religion" and constitutes a "war on religion".

Now, let us look at this gap from the other side. If it is not "unfair to religion" to prohibit people from introducing these types of claims in proving the guilt or innocence of the accused, then it is not "unfair to religion" to prohibit these types of arguments in policy debates as well.

The moral situation is the same. We are looking at whether we are justified in causing harm to some person or group. In one case, this harm is inflicted as the consequence of a court verdict. In the other, it is through the effects of legislation. In both cases, secularism prohibits people from making arguments like, "God talked to me and told me that those people may be killed or imprisoned or denied their freedom, that they must be left to suffer from illnesses and injures that could otherwise be treated, or that we may prohibit them from practices that would improve the quality of their life."

We have three options. (1) We can bar religious arguments in policy debates that inflict harms on people just as they are barred in formal trial debates over the guilt of the accused. (2) We can allow religious arguments in court just as they are allowed in debates over policies that bring harm to groups targeted by the legislation. Or (3) We can explain the relevant difference between the two types of cases.

The "unfair to religion" argument has to be interpreted as a Type 1 response. If this response was valid, it would argue for claiming that religious arguments ought to be allowed in policy debates and courtrooms alike. It does not provide any reason to treat the two cases differently.

Consequently, we can respond to the "unfair to religion" objection by asking, "Do we really want to start allowing religious arguments in a court of law? Do we want faith and "God told me," to count as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty?

If we are not willing to allow these types of arguments in a court of law (and I have discussed several reasons why we should not allow them in previous posts), then we are still lacking a reason for treating policy debates differently. We are still lacking any good reason for saying that it is perfectly acceptable to support policies that inflict harm merely because "My religion says inflicting these harms is perfectly okay. In fact, we have to inflict these harms or we are not being true to our religion."

There is a saying that I learned as a young child to understand the scope and limitation to rights. It says, "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

People who use the "unfair to religion" argument are ultimately claiming that it is "unfair to religion" to apply this limitation on rights to religious practices. Instead, they are claiming that, when it comes to religion, the right to swing one's fist is not limited. We are being told, "You are engaged in a war against religion if you say that my right to swing my religious fist ends where anybody else's nose begins."

If I had tried this type of claim with my dad, I can well imagine his response. "Let's give my right to swing my belt against your bottom the same limits you give your right to swing your fist and see how you like the results."

Well, we can answer the church that demands an unlimited right to swing their religious fist the same response. "Let's give every other religion in the world an unlimited right to swing their religious fists and see how you like the results."

There is a reason why many religious people - and many formal religious organizations - support secularism - and this identifies an important part of the reason. It is the same reason why I, as a child, learned to support a restriction on swinging my fist - because it implies an equal limitation on other people swinging their fist. The reason people have for adopting this limit on swinging one's religious fist is because it is also a limit on other people in swinging their religious fists.

Secularism, at its heart, is merely a statement to religious institutions to the effect, "Your right to swing your religious fist ends where the noses of other citizens begin." In the secular case, it says that in policy debates where we are talking about causing harm - when it comes to answering the question, "Why are you doing this to me?" the answer, "God told me to," just us not good enough.

Is this a war on religion?

If it is, then the war on religion started long ago when we applied these principles in courts of law. If this is a war on religion, then the corresponding limit on swinging one's fist must be understood to be a war on fist swinging.

For the past couple of weeks I have been defending secularism - defined as a the view that religious claims are illegitimate in the discussion of public policy.

Many secularists assert that secularism is a good thing. Yet, when asked to defend it they tend to come up with feeble arguments that are incoherent, require the invention of useful fictions, or come dangerously close to being sectarian.

The challenge I have taken up this month is to actually defend secularism.

I have been illustrating my points by looking at the institution of the public trial. In a public trial, religious augments are strictly prohibited. Only secular arguments may be used to establish the material facts of the case. We can easily see how messed up trials would get if evidence was not limited strictly to secular claims.

I argued that the problems with using religious arguments in policy debates are the same as those facing the use of religious arguments in a court of law. That these problems argue for using strictly secular arguments in a trial, hey also argue fir using strictly secular arguments in matters of public policy.

I then pointed out that secular arguments are required fir all matters of fact, that courts if law appeal to an external law giver to determine what the law requires. Similarly, we can argue that, on matters of policy, we may restrict the debate over material fact to secular arguments only, but we must appeal to an external law giver (God?) to get the law. Secular arguments may be required on all matters of fact, but we must go to religion to discover all matters of value.

I will address the alleged need for an external law giver in a later post. Today, I want to look at the line separating fact from value.

That the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and that it formed from heavy elements manufactured in a previous generation of stars that blew up - scattering these elements through space - is a material fact.

That life evolved on this planet. It started with a basic life form and, through a process of random mutation and survival of the fittest, evolved to produce the creatures we see around us, including humans. The evidence for this is so strong that if this issue were to come up in a court of law, evolution would be proved beyond a reasonable doubt as a material fact.

Another matter of fact would be that scriptures were authored by primitive humans with severely limited understanding of the world around them in which they attributed their own bigotries and prejudices to a divine being. This, too, is a material fact - the type of fact that, insofar as it affects public policy, can only be legitimately defended using secular arguments. Taking scripture as inerrant would be comparable to asserting at a trial that a particular witness must be assumed to be infallible and perfectly honest, disallowing all cross-examination or counter-evidence.

By the way, this does not contradict the claim that there is a God that is the foundation of all moral law. It only asserts that the Torah, the Koran, the Bible, the Iliad, and other religious books - when it comes to matters of public policy - are to be taken as flawed human contrivances guessing at what such a being would command.

Everybody, in every religion, already believes that this is the case of every religion to which they do not belong. Many people in each religion are willing to admit that this is the case even within their own religion. This is not an argument for atheism and against religion. It is, instead, an argument for the proper approach to take to scripture in terms to its relevance to public policies that affect real human beings. Scriptures are contrivances invented by humans who have been dead for over a thousand years reflecting the prejudices, moral beliefs, and opinions of its flawed human authors.

In our list of material facts, we can add that as a matter of fact wine remains wine and the communion cracker remains a cracker during Catholic mass. The belief that the wine transforms to the blood of Christ and the cracker to the body of Christ even though its sensible properties remain the same is nonsense.

We can imagine a witness at a criminal trial claiming that he is innocent of cocaine possession because, through some magic ritual, the white powder in his bags was transformed into powdered sugar even though all of its sensible properties (including those that can be determined by chemical analysis) are those of cocaine. For all practical purposes - the substance remains cocaine in spite of these outlandish claims. The prosecution does not have to prove that transubstantiation did not take place.

Gay pride parades are not a factor influencing the course or severity of hurricanes. It is surprising - well, sickening, actually - how many people will assert that there is not sufficient evidence to support the claim that atmospheric CO2 contributions have an effect on such things as storm severity claim with absolute certainty that homosexual marriage does have an influence. Either way, just as it is not permissible in a court of law to declare as a defense, "God did it," it should not be taken as a legitimate argument in defense of or opposition to a matter of public policy.

These relationships of cause and effect (such as between hurricane severity and homosxual marriage) are material facts no different from the relationship between a bullet shot through the heart on the subsequent death of the victim. Let some shooter try to argue that the course of the bullet had nothing to do with his intent but, instead, was guided by a God to kill the accused for the crime of sodomy or for worshipping a false God. We will see how far that type of argument goes in a court of law. It should go no further in matters of public policy.

Even if we were to accept the claim that a requirement for secular arguments is only applicable to matters of material fact and not at all relevant at all to matters of value, we can come up with a huge list of material facts that need this application. We see around us far too many violations of this principle - and far too much need to return to the same secular standards for evidence we find in a court of law.

However, we can go further. The distinction between fact and value is not as sharp as some like to pretend. Many questions of value are, at the same time, matters of material fact that would also require a restriction to strictly secular arguments where those facts touch on matters of public policy.

I will have more to say on this in my next post.