I mentioned in an earlier posting the tax breaks that benefit religious institutions in the US, which is just a particular blatant example, but by no means the only one, of a privilege that benefits religion and not the institutionalised defence of other systems of ideas. In response, Tom Nagel disputed the specifically religious character of these tax benefits. He wrote:

“To answer Dan Sperber’s question, the tax breaks for religious institutions in the U.S., notably the tax deductibility of contributions to them, are part of a general regime of allowing individuals to benefit their favourite charities at the expense of the government.”

Actually, the tax benefits of churches and other religious organisations in the US are of a quite different scale and nature than what Tom Nagel’s answer suggests. To quote the New York Times (October 10, 2006):

“ The property tax exemption is one of the oldest tax breaks granted to religious organizations, but it is not the only one. Lawmakers and judges have also approved what amounts to special tax treatment for religious organizations and some of their employees, including exemptions on personal-income and payroll taxes, and have made it easier for them to get tax-exempt construction loans for purely religious projects.

Like the exemptions from federal and state regulations that have proliferated for religious groups in recent years, these tax breaks are widely defended both as an acknowledgment of religion’s contributions to society and as a barrier to unjustified government limitations on the liberty that religious organizations enjoy under the First Amendment."

These tax exemptions are given because churches and religious organizations are automatically considered charitable or philanthropic organisation. They may indeed consider themselves as acting for the common good, but so do Trotskyistes, vegetarians, militant atheists, and so on. Nor do I dispute that some activities of some churches would indeed qualify as philanthropic in a tax-relevant sense. What seems unwarranted is the view (to which Nagel alludes without expressing reservation) that all religious activities are intrinsically philanthropic or charitable and automatically deserve the type of benefits which are granted to regular philanthropic institutions only after serious scrutiny.

Blasphemy is another area where it is often felt that religions deserve, if not special rights (which still formally exist in a number of Western countries but are not enforced anymore), at least special protection. During the recent crisis triggered by the publication of cartoons representing Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, there were of course many people who pointed out, as did Ralf Dahrendorf, that “Defending the right of all people to say things even if one detests their views is one of the first principles of liberty” (The Guardian , October 13, 2006) but then many others, and sometime the same, argued for self-censorship: one should not hurt the feelings of religious people, and those who nevertheless do so deserve public blame.

Now, it is true that knowingly hurting people’s feeling without reason is not commendable (even if doing so is, as it should be, protected by freedom of expression). On the other hand developing in oneself and one’s children feelings and attitudes that render one easily hurt by other people’s behaviour is not commendable either. Just as personal touchiness is an imposition on others, public manifestations of self-righteous collective touchiness are a form of intimidation that should be resisted. A good reason to profer blasphemy is to uphold one’s right to do so (a right that I am not inclined to exert otherwise). Actually, the cartoons of the Jyllands-Posten were drawn and published as a way to resist intimidation that took the form not only of violent expressions of indignation but also of death threats (made credible by the murder of Theo Van Gogh in Holland the year before). Again, quoting Dahrendorf, “Self-censorship is worse than censorship itself, because it sacrifices freedom voluntarily.”

What deserves underscoring here is the difference of treatment between religion and others systems of thought. No doubt, many vegetarians are profoundly hurt by having to watch meat being sold, eaten, and advertised all the time around them. However, we expect them to plead for the right of animals not to be ill-treated, and not for their non-existent right to have their deeply held feelings impose constraints on the behaviour of others. True, some religious people are intolerant of blasphemy not just because of their hurt feelings but also and more importantly because they believe that it is their sacred duty to oppose blasphemy, maybe at all cost. This however does not make it their sacred duty.

Maybe religion should enjoy some special rights because religion itself is special. Roberta Monticelli has been the only one so far to focus on the nature of religion. She writes: “ one should first ask whether there is or not a consistent set of common characteristics of religions – an essence of religions, so to speak. Her answer is that “there are some properties shared by most religions that have survived Modernity” these properties having to do with transcendence on the one hand and a deconstructive approach to the roots of evil. (I am not sure whether she means that other "religions" fail to partake of this essence of religion; I tend to read her claim as implying in fact that there is no essence of religion, a view that, as an anthropologist, I wholly support).

When Sam Harris proposes a much more down-to-earth characterisation of properties of religion relevant to this debate on secularism, Monticelli objects:

“ Is such a complete ignorance of serious religious spirituality (as opposed to childish, ignorant, immature or fanatic religious ideology) a legitimate basis for fair discussion? …Can we really mistake Avicenna, Averroes or Anselm of Canterbury – or, for that matter, Florenskij, Bultmann, Bonhoefer for a contemporary American literalist worshipper of the Bible, or a witness of Jeova?”

She concludes:

“what most participants in this debate take to be the very actuality of religions, is according to most of the existing, purely religious traditions the very opposite of religion, namely ideology, that is, idolatry.”

I am afraid that most people in History, before, during, and after Modernity would fail to qualify as properly religious in the sense that Roberta Monticelli is trying to capture. If she is right about religion, then the problem that secularism tries to solve was never raised by religion true to its essence, but by “its very opposite,” ideology parading as religion. Isn’t this a mild and sophisticated philosophical version of the common tendency found in many religions to consider that other religions, or even other interpretations of the same religion are work of the devil? Isn’t it, in less polemical terms, a plea for real religion, a contribution to religious thought itself rather than to sociological or political thinking about religion?

Reading Monticelli, it feels as if true religion and secularism were mutually irrelevant. Maybe so. But then there remains a political issue raised in different forms at different times and places by the contemporary demand of (pseudo-)religions in pluralist societies (or in this more and more continuous world) not to be treated just as any system of beliefs but to be granted a unique moral authority and also some special rights. It is easy enough to understand historically and sociologically why there are such demands. After all, not so long ago, the authority and the rights of religions were incomparably greater. Understand why the demands are made does not come near however justifying them. At this point, it seems to me that the onus of proof, or more modestly of serious argument should be on defenders of special authority and rights for religions.

Tom Nagel objected to a defence of Secularism in the name of a “party of reason.” Well yes. The defence of Secularism should be done in the name of freedom of thought, of expression, of assembly, and of association. It is the defence of atheism – an altogether different issue – that should be pursued in the name of reason, but not by a “party of reason”. Reason, I hope we all agree, is too precious a common good to be entrusted to a party.