The Modernist Menace To Islam by Daniel Haqiqatjou

Question: Isn’t the main concept of liberal thought to maximize individual choice and rights? Individual choice and freedom is paramount, and by and large, there is no absolute standard to judge that. So shouldn’t we as minorities in the West support that paradigm?

Answer: The problem is that the existence of law precludes individual choice in any and every society. All people are constrained by laws. Everyone’s will and freedom of choice is constricted by the law. But what liberal secularism claims is that laws are only justified when they prevent people from harming others. That’s why secular law is acceptable in its restricting of people’s unfettered freedom of choice whereas religious law is unacceptable. The former merely prevents harm, which is a universal interest of all human beings, while the latter is aimed at religious devotion, which only some people who belong to that religion care about and nobody else. There are many conceptual problems with this purported distinction between secular law and religious law. Chief among them the fact that what is or is not considered “harm” is highly debatable. Why is the secular conception of harm the only valid conception?

What is or is not harmful depends on one’s greater metaphysical commitments and beliefs about human nature and the world. These commitments are not considered “religion” per se, but are not categorically different from religious theology. This is how secular liberalism smuggles in its metaphysical and normative imperatives: by masking them as universal features of human nature.

A simple and familiar example: Abortion. The issue of abortion is often framed as a debate between a religious and a secular side. Depending on what you think about the fetus, its status as a “person,” the moral responsibilities of the biological parents, etc., abortion is or is not immoral and the subject of legal regulation. The position of the pro-life faction is considered to be driven by religious commitments (which it is), but the pro-choice side is seen as driven by secular concerns and a pursuit of freedom and individual autonomy, but their underlying beliefs about the fetus and the female body, etc., are no less metaphysical than the beliefs of their religious interlocutors. But the debate is not framed in terms of one set of metaphysical beliefs against another, one religion against another. Rather, it is framed as religious conservatism vs. secular liberty, religious conviction vs. freedom of choice.

Why?

If we understood the debate as a disagreement between two sets of metaphysical commitments, then we would naturally ask why should one set be automatically preferred over the other. This is the precise question we should ask for all secular laws. They are all based on metaphysical beliefs that are fundamentally “religious” in nature, but are not perceived as such. Those beliefs are enshrined in the law and imposed on everyone. We are all forced to abide by the secular religious order and the tyranny of the secular theocratic regime.