4.1.2   Definitions

(This is an archived page, from the Patterns of Power Edition 3 book.  Current versions are at book contents).

This book is primarily concerned with governance, so its criterion for what is ‘moral’ is taken as being behaviour which is acceptable to other people.  People put pressure on each other to behave acceptably. 

The term ‘belief’ is used in this book to describe people’s convictions as to why they should behave in a particular way. 

Many people derive their beliefs from a religion, which is taken here to mean that they believe that there is an omnipresent superhuman authority who should be obeyed. 

There are several quite different types of belief that don’t appeal to an external authority to legitimise morality:

·      'Atheist' is defined as denying, or disbelieving in, the existence of any non-human authority such as a God. 

·      The term 'agnostic' can either be used to describe those who regard it as impossible to know of anything beyond material phenomena, or for those who are uncertain about the question.

·      A ‘Deist’ believes in one God who created, but does not now intervene in, the universe; this definition precludes an appeal to God to legitimise morality and is therefore incompatible with the major religions.

·      The term ‘pantheist’ can be used to describe someone who equates God with the forces and laws of the universe, or someone who worships all gods.  Pantheists don’t believe in a personalised God who must be obeyed.

All the above beliefs are termed ‘non-religious' in this book.

To avoid confusion, this chapter avoids using the term 'secular' because it has too many meanings:

1.      Anti-religious: as, for example, in Britain’s National Secular Society.

2.      Impartial to all religions: allowing freedom of belief, as described later in the example of the American Constitution (5.4.3.2).

3.      Unrelated to religion.

This book treats anti-religious behaviour as a form of divisiveness (4.4.5.2), and it sees impartiality as one of the political countermeasures to avoid divisiveness in government (6.7.4.8).  The term ‘non-religious' is used to convey the third sense of ‘secular’, meaning ‘unrelated to religion’ and using reason or some other basis for determining what constitutes moral behaviour.

© PatternsofPower.org, 2014