Some artificial distinctions and self-serving generalisations have been made in the letter "Differentiate 'secular' from 'secularism'" (Aug 27).

'Secularism' only differs from 'secular' in being a noun instead of an adjective. There's no evil, anti-religious transformation associated with this change. Why the writer tries to have it both ways is beyond me.

The writer states: "Even a genuinely secular government must govern according to a moral order, no matter how implicitly."

This is a fair assertion, but then the writer goes on to make a mockery of it with: "Secularists have tried to argue (but unconvincingly, even to many fellow secularists) that there exists a normative moral order without any reference to God."

That an unquestionable religious authority sets absolute moral rules for everybody, regardless of differing religious beliefs, is manifestly fallacious. The first problem (other than the objective evidence for this authority) is: Which God are we talking about? Jehovah? Allah? Odin? Osiris? Vishnu? Thor, or hundreds of others? But of course, to a true believer, only their particular god(s) are the ones that matter.

Then we have to ask: Which of these religious rules should we follow? All of them? Or just the ones that we like? How, to pick an Old Testament example, does "Thou shalt not kill" square with God drowning most of humanity in the Genesis Flood?

So of course normative morality can exist without reference to god(s). The fact is, even the most devoutly religious pick and choose which aspects of morality suit them.

The rest of us, of different religions or of no religion, tend to generally agree on what is a socially acceptable standard of moral behaviour based on enlightened self-interest and the degree of coincidence with the socially acceptable parts of our particular religious texts and that standard differs from year to year, country to country and culture to culture which makes the existence of some absolute moral authority a nonsense.