Secular Bigotry

Prejudice, discrimination, or hostility directed against religious, spiritual, or metaphysical individuals or groups, perpetrated by those who identify as secular and who treat secularism as the only rational, modern, or acceptable worldview. Secular bigotry often uses language like “irrational,” “delusional,” “medieval,” or “superstitious” to demean believers, and it demands that religious expression be confined to private spaces or eliminated from public life entirely. Unlike legitimate secularism (which protects freedom from religion), secular bigotry seeks to suppress religious freedom and stigmatize believers as intellectually inferior.

Example: “He argued that no religious person should hold public office because their beliefs are ‘irrational’—secular bigotry, using the label of reason to justify political exclusion.”

Secular Prejudice

A reflexive bias against religious or spiritual people, assuming that they are less intelligent, less educated, or more authoritarian than secular people. Secular prejudice operates through stereotypes: believers are “sheep,” “brainwashed,” “afraid of science.” It often ignores the diversity of religious experience and the many believers who are also scientists, scholars, and critical thinkers. This prejudice can be subtle—a raised eyebrow at mention of church, a joke about “sky fairies”—but it reinforces a hierarchy that privileges secular worldviews as the default mature position.

Example: “When she mentioned she prayed, he assumed she was anti‑science—secular prejudice, equating faith with ignorance without asking about her actual views.”

Secular Bigotry by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal April 16, 2026