The ACLU’s battle to rid the country of Christian symbols is generally presented as a fight between religion and no religion. However, as David Klinghoffer correctly asserts, the war is really between two religions: Secularism and Jewish/Christian theism.
What we are observing here is not what it may appear to be — a struggle of religion against no religion. It is instead a battle pitting one religion, broadly speaking, against another. On one side we have, primarily, the biblical faith of Jews and Christians. On the other side, secularism. If you object that secularism has no deity, remember that other recognized faiths, for example Zen Buddhism, likewise lack a belief in God. What is a religion, then? Simply, a system of beliefs based on stories that explain where life comes from, what life means, and what we, as living beings, are supposed to be doing with our few allotted years.
Exactly right, and very nice to see in a paper like the LA Times. Klinghoffer concludes
It emerges that, in the controversies surrounding the Pledge of Allegiance and the L.A. County seal, what we’re seeing is an unacknowledged interreligious civil war. Centuries ago in Europe and the Middle East, intolerant faiths sought to suppress one another, erasing symbols of their rivals wherever possible. Churches were converted to mosques, their crosses removed. Synagogues were converted into churches, their Jewish symbols effaced. Today the church of secularism agitates against its rival, the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the interest of honest debate, at the very least it would be of benefit to recognize secularism for what it is: an aggressive religion competing for converts, a faith lacking the candor to speak openly of its aims.