I'm the eleventeen millionth person to say this, but it's going to need repeating until it sticks: There is a pervasive, persistent myth that secularism is a neutral, neutralizing framework that levels the playing field vis-a-vis religion. (1/n)

Secularism emerged as a criticism and response to Christian rule, bc Christianity is inherently intolerant, even as it markets its benevolence. The supposed goal of secularism is to allow for plurality. (2/n)

However, secularism never cleaved itself from the metaphysical structure of Christianity, retaining a framework that separates the Divine, humans, animals, the Earth. It not only retained it, it normed it under the pretense of being a neutral container for plurality. (3/n)

You see this manifest in the sarcasm that Indian "secularism" proudly projects re: Sanatana Dharma. Mocking the notion that the Divine is in animals & that Divine energy flows through the earth, reducing murthis to artifacts and temples to buildings...(4/n)

...None of this is pluralism, nor is it neutral. It is the distinct and clear application of the Abrahamic rule against the "worship of false gods". (5/n)

Following the Gregorian calendar instead of any number of lunar calendars is not neutral, pluralistic, or natural. It detaches us from connecting our natural rhythms with the moon; it shifts us from the indigenous onto-epistemology and forces us into an Abrahamic one. (6/n)

But when it is normed and attached to the global endeavors of "modernity" and "progress", it appears logical and neutral. It is not neutral - it is dominant. (7/n)

If the goal is to hold space for multiple ways of thinking about our existence (and not just society or culture, which also cleave humans from nature), then the genuine question is not "How can we be secular" but "How can we be pluralist"? (8/n)

Indigenous, pagan traditions like Sanatana Dharma are inherently pluralist and therefore inherently tolerant. (This is why we get accused of being "polytheistic religions" by One God in Heaven folks). (9/n)

This is not to say that things are always perfect in society; we are imperfect humans. But a tradition that embraces pluralism will have a system and practices in place to uphold it. (10/n)

Nothing is neutral. Secularism resides in a Christian container; Christianity is inherently intolerant; both assume that everything they call religion is as well. A model of pluralism exists in Sanatana Dharma; Sanatana Dharma is inherently tolerant. (11/n)

If suggesting that Sanatana Dharma's framework for pluralism is legitimate and indigenous to India makes one "anti-secular" (and therefore oppressive), then the assumption is that we must all adopt the metaphysical framework of Christianity in order to be fair and good...(12/n)

Which is the very premise of conversion, forced upon the practitioners of indigenous traditions by an intolerant faith.

Not so neutral, is it? (13/13)