ABSTRACT
Civil atheology appeals to human rights, civil rights and liberties, and social justice in order to argue that god-belief should be abandoned to advance the full realization of those ideals. Civil atheology stands out from the wider field of religious criticism. Religious criticism of an uncivil religion appeals to social norms and local laws to condemn religious conduct and religious groups, but it does not target god-belief directly. Civil atheology surpassed political secularism by advancing the position that religion was more harmful than beneficial to the civil order and good government. Civil atheology can observe historical relationships between the spread of universal ethics and a few large religions, but it denies that the validity to universal ethics or human rights rests on an adherence to theism. On the theological presumption that theistic religion supplies an abiding universal ethics, at least in essentials, the unsuitability of secular politics implies the suitability of theistic secular government.
