You better counter my arguments, rather than laughing through the looking glass.

Ha! Ha!!

Thanks!

Yapa its better sometimes to be silent and assumed foolish than to speak and remove the doubt!

The popular superficial ideologies flow from the west through our English speaking babies of this countries immediately get high recognition in this country. Political ideologies, Economic theories, social theories or even fashion designs if come from the west the market is not a problem. No hesitation to embrace them.

For our pandiths, the ideologies coming from the west are no different from “mantras” for people believe in them. A believer has to take mantras uncritically as working miracles for them. For our political and economic pandiths, a theory cannot go wrong as it is coming from the west. They believe those theories as undeniable axioms in judging any society, irrespective of their differences. For those axioms they think context is immaterial. Backgrounds are immaterial. Immaterial of anything they are universal axioms suitable to plant in a desert or a daily flooding land. For them, because they are of the west there cannot have a slightest possibility for going them wrong. Secularism, democracy, freedom of choice, freedom of expression, R2P,Liberal values, are such universal moulds that can be used to cut bricks in everywhere in the world.

In a country what we have to do is to see to the total/optimum welfare of the society, rather than moulding the society to a particular political model prescribed by somebody, who believe it as the panacea. Before prescribing/applying some thing to our societies, it is always better to look at it rather than taking it by faith. Even theories of Physics developed until 20th century have invalidated by the dawn of the 20th century. What to say about the theories of Social Sciences. A theory is a theory, because it has not been proved true or correct. Therefore no political theory is proven true, and hence should not be taken for granted.

With regard to debate of state and religion, as the author rightly pointed out those two things cannot be considered in separation from the other things of a society to assess their validity in society. They should be assess in the background(such as historical, geographical, ethnic, social, cultural…..) of the particular society and the relevant context. They cannot be taken in abstraction and cannot form abstract theories as in Pure Mathematics.

In addition in comparison of the two entities, given the other factors constant, I think the quality of the state mechanism Vs Quality of the religion shold also be considered.Because there are qualitative differences in states and different religions.All the states are not similar and religions too are not similar.

Really in a homogeneous society, if a religion has a supportive relationship as in the case in the Muslim countries, it is better to prevail them together for the welfare of that society, unless it does not do any harm to others.

When there is a hostility among them as in the Europe in the western countries, it is reasonable to keep them separate.

However, in a heterogeneous country country mulch-faiths, one cannot blindly prescribe any of them as the suitable model.

Today with traveling has become an insignificant thing, uniformity of societies are being vanished. So, it is clear that the validity of a particular religion linking to state is becoming invalid. Even Muslim states cannot maintain their faith tightly bind with their states. Keeping a religion tightly tied is becoming more and more challenging with the increase of mingling of different people with each other. So, the traditional bond a religion had for a long time with the state is threatened and feeling of insecurity among them rises. That is what is happening in Sri Lankan Buddhists and also with the rise of the extreme religious groups in many countries. Feeling of insecurity is the reason for religious unrest, and its reason is mixing of the people.

I think one of the greatest challenges today’s political ideologists face is to devise a new political model for the countries with mulch-faiths. No government(especially democratic)cannot force a country or its people to be give up their religions to prevent these challenges, instead governments should look into the aspirations of the people. I cannot see secularism as a realistic answer, against the will of the people.

On the other hand why anybody should think there are only two options? This issue is not a middle excluded one, I suppose. There could be thousands of combinations and permutations of blend of two, as the writer discussed. Why we should imprisoned in Two Ended Logic? The whole knowledge system (other than theology)west is based on Middle excluded Aristotelian Two Valued(Ended) Logic, that may be one of the reason for two alternative thinking in this case. But the reason for western scholars to take many big things easily as axioms is a trait they inherent from their religious belief. They are used even to take such a big thing as God as an axiom.

Thanks!