Prioritise pragmatism in governance

The writer of the letter, “Religious values behind principles of secular democracy” (July 29, online), while worth commending for the salient point that religious views deserve to be heard within public discourse, makes two problematic assumptions.

First, he implies that without a singular, absolute and omnisciently judicious God, there would be no benchmark differentiating right and wrong.

Even within Singapore, however, various religions exist that possess different ideas of right and wrong, for example, on matters relating to sex and sexual practices. Perhaps the right question is: Whose God are we talking about here?

The writer further conflates cause and effect by suggesting that secular democracy was caused by a belief in God, a reductionism glorifying religion to the exclusion of other contextual and historical factors such as racial and secular political clashes.

He equates godlessness with automatic hedonism by stating that “if there is no God, however, there is no objective basis of right or wrong and no value in altruism or unconditional love”.

This echoes my first point and also suggests that groups and cultures can never arrive at what is right and wrong via secular, social consensus.

This discounts the presence of laws and other group norms that have operated away from the influence of religion, in societies across the globe.

Finally, on the larger question of the relationship between religion and state, I opine that religion is incompatible with secular democracy insofar as there is no separation between the proverbial church and state.

While democracy entails that within the public forum religious viewpoints should be heard, it must not irrationally valorise, or prioritise, the latter. Such would undermine pragmatism in governance.