Secularism requires believers to hold their beliefs lightly or detached from conduct

Evidence

This wider category of torture or cruelty could in theory be applied to the anguish and mental suffering experienced by people in societies obliged to give up their beliefs and act “humanly” (in the sense understood by Euro-Americans). But by a curious paradox it is a secular relativism that prevents such an application of the category. For that anguish is seen as the consequence of a passionate investment in the truth of beliefs that guide behavior. The modern skeptical posture, in contrast, regards such passionate conviction to be “uncivilized”—a perpetual source of danger to others and of pain to oneself. Beliefs should either have no direct connection to the way one lives, or be held so lightly that they can easily be changed. Otherwise secularism as a political arrangement cannot work very well. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 564

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates and deepens the vaulted Cooper argument: both Cooper and Asad show ‘secular modernity’ imposes a particular Protestant-shaped epistemology on all religiosity; Asad adds the psychological demand that belief be held lightly.
• DEFINE: Defines what secularism functionally requires of citizens’ beliefs, not just what it officially believes about itself.