As moderators of this debate - and as philosophers - we would like to take the opportunity to add some concluding remarks to this lively discussion.

The debate has raised many interesting issues, neatly summarized in the last intervention posted by Marcel Gauchet. Some conclusions were reached, but many questions were posed that led to further ones.

So we suggest to sum up in the form of a list of open questions those main points made over the past few weeks that would require further discussion:

1. What is secularism, or laicity? Is it just a constraint against the use of state power to support a particular religious view, or is it a stronger position, which implies an active intervention of the state against the influence of religion on citizens?

2. What are the risks of a “strong” secularism, say à la française? Wouldn’t it imply defending citizens against religious identity of any sort in the name of a national or republican identity, itself a debatable concept? In France this is surely the case: the Panthéon, that is, the “sacred temple of laicism” as Saul Bellow once called it, is an instance of a state reinforcement of a cultural French identity that should matter more than any private or religious identity for the citizens. But is this an exportable model? Since the 1789 Revolution, and maybe earlier, France defends a universalistic model of culture, based on rational and egalitarian principles. But this is the French way, and it is debatable whether it should be exportable elsewhere. We’re sadly aware of the harm wrought by the reinforcement of national identities, not only in Europe…

3. Should we take into account the “core” question about what religious experience is? Is such an intimate experience relevant to the discussion about laicity in society?

4. Is the opposition between religious secularism - as derived from Enlightenment values – and absolutism always valid? Or should the analysis of religious absolutism take place alongside the analysis of the faith in other, secular but totalitarian systems, such as fascism, communism and so on? Is the discussion about the status of religion in society not actually about the struggle between liberalism and absolutism? Isn’t this the fulcrum of the political heat today? The discussion or defence of secularism in terms of an opposition to faith might well perpetuate the very cleavage that we are trying to resolve, as Mark Lilla has recently observed in his The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. How then do we kick-start the argument for secularism in a novel fashion, one that takes fully into account the many versions and expressions of faith – in a doctrine, a story, an ideology, a worldview, and so on - and the powerful need humans have for it?

5. An ideal solution for a free society that is tolerant of various religions would be to advocate a kind of “ecumenicism”, but isn’t it that monotheistic religions based on a textual corpus define themselves as the “true” religions against the others? Jan Assmann, in Le prix du monothéisme, has recently argued that monotheisms are “counter-religions”, that is, religions that define themselves through an opposition between true and false, rather than through other oppositions like pure and impure or sacred and profane. The names of the Gods were translatable from one culture into the other in ancient polytheisms; the name of God becomes untranslatable within the religion of Moses. One could wonder whether this intolerance with regard to other religions is an intrinsic, non-negotiable feature of certain religions, essential to their very identity.

6. To what extent should the State protect our children from “religious infection”? Should this protection consist in an educational curriculum that avoids teaching religion as a form of revealed truth and insists on empirical facts, as Dennett advocates, or should it stop inculcating religious “values” in children at all? Which “infection” do we want to avoid? A moral one, where children are “infected” with received notions about which actions are allowed and which ones aren’t, or an epistemic one, where they are told which facts they should believe as true about history? And is it possible to pry apart the normative and the factual dimension of religious teaching? To put it simply, in a Dennettian world, could a Roman Catholic family go on preaching against abortion and for pity and solidarity with the others while stopping telling stories about the Holy Trinity and the virginity of the Madonna?

7. Should we owe a special respect to religious beliefs? In his intervention entitled “Is religious freedom special?” Dan Sperber argues against the excessive respect for the susceptibility of the religious as a form of self-censorship. He says that we wouldn’t do the same with vegetarians, for instance. But wouldn’t we? Would it really be acceptable, as standard moral behaviour, to force vegetarian people to eat meat or not to take into account their different values? Most airline companies propose a vegetarian meal to their customers and in many restaurants it is now common to display a vegetarian dish on the menu. The needs of vegetarians are respected just as much as those of religious people, perhaps because in both cases their beliefs and values refer to a “salvation” of sorts, to a morally different world that, in some of its aspects, looks like a credible, moral alternative to ours. So we respect those beliefs that point to a possibly different moral world insofar as this world doesn’t harm the fundamental moral achievements of our actual world. Thus, we wouldn’t respect a religious belief that is based on the defence of violence against women, while it is easier to respect a value that pits itself against vulgarity. And so we ask, would it be acceptable as a moral attitude to respect those values - that believers ask us to respect even if we do not endorse them - which are compatible with a morally credible alternative to our actual world, just as the vegetarian alternative is?

If, as seems clear, the most desirable state of affairs in a society is one of reciprocal tolerance, then such a society must encourage the conversation about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in the views of the world we do not endorse. One can be an atheist but able to empathize with a concern with abortion, say, or be religious while not accepting racist claims about essential differences among human beings. Strong secularism is defendable insofar as the secular are able to maintain a tolerant conversation with believers and that believers are able to maintain a tolerant conversation with atheists, on a moral common ground. But the very existence of such a conversation depends on the cultivation of political, cultural and indeed religious pluralism.

These, then, are some of the questions and comments inspired by the conversation you took part in. Thank you again for having joined us. The open questions we have proposed could perhaps be the starting point for a future debate, and we hope you would be willing in taking part again.

Gloria Origgi and Noga Arikha