Last monthI posted a critique of the movie The Hunger Games. It came to my attention that Fred Edwords posted a short piece at the American Humanist Association’s website addressing the general evangelical response to the movie. He linked to my original article and broadly addressed my comparison of the society of The Capital to where today’s societies are leading. Mr. Edwords had two main points of contention that I feel need to be addressed.
Secular vs. Agnostic Society
The first point of contention that I considered the society in The Hunger Games to be secular and not merely agnostic. Edwords claims that there was no mention of God (which he’s correct), thus the society must be concluded to be secular. He implies that that distinction removes the society from critiques of agnosticism. But is there really a distinction between secularism and agnosticism that allows such an escape?
In order for a society to avoid either label of “theistic” or “atheistic”, it cannot affirm or deny either. It must simply hold the position that God’s existence cannot be known. This position is called “agnosticism”. Secularism necessarily entails “agnosticism”. Since secularism necessarily entails agnosticism, secularism is subject to critiques of agnosticism by the necessary connection.
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point to various Nordic and European countries as models for how good things can be when faith has no public voice. They work hard at trying to produce facts on the higher education levels, lower crime rates, and other various statistics that support their case of secularized societies being ‘better’ than those where religion has a strong presence.