The Funny Thing about Secularism

This article delineates a Christian and a Buddhist basis for secularism in order to demonstrate that secularism can take very different forms. The primary difference is the presence or absence of a cosmological discourse that strives for ontological verity. Although Christian secularism rejects belief in God, it maintains a parallel concern with cosmological knowledge in the form of scientific naturalism. Buddhist secularism accepts references to otherworldly realms but does not presume or require them to be ostensible and mind-independent. Buddhism is ultimately more humancentered in its focus, but for that reason it falls short of the transcendent aspirations of Christian secularism.