Secularism - A Failed Idea!

TS - First of all Saudi is one of the most open country. secondly, people are free as fiddle.

haha how is it possible? :)

He dont believe in GOD but he believes in God's Curse. Sometimes he gives me an ar5e laugh. :)

TS - Why do you say so. It's the centre of millions of people's spirituality.

Saudi is a perfect country.

OMG no dont talk about Saudi.. Long time Saudi and other middle east countries stopped following religion in politics.. they call it as religion but as per the doctrines they are not. They kept few laws as such and manipulated most of them to retain their own kingdom. There are so many examples but one of them is that religion dont support transfer of power from father to Son..that is BS.

A nation with one religion would be an ideal state.Look at Saudi Arabia and some other countries at ME.

Do you think Human Brain is defective at large? Then millions of human population today earlier and tomorrow will have these believes (in common )..ok if it is one or two or thousands I could agree there is something wrong..but not with more than double or more than 1/3rd of them. If more than double or more than 1/3rd of them have something common and u dont agree with it may be you have something defective inside you. :)

Lonious. You can't use your brain if you choose religion! You have to believe. I guess you do that with your stomach.

Oh really? u gotta be kidding me.. religion gives you a choice as simple as that and to choose you need brain.

I think religion looks like a barrier for you all but it makes my life easy with peace of mind today and tomorrow, inspires me to be good and stops me from being bad..very simple.

The violence you are talking about is not cuz of religion, it is and it was the absence of religion. From few decades world never fought anything cuz of religion, War were to maintain and retain their power & their dominance and which if of course again absence of religion.

With religion or without religion you cant fix this world as it is not heaven however with good religious believes ( not misguided or not manipulated for self empowerment) world would be in peace.

You guys still still did not came up with a good definition of secularism. One of you tells secularists are fed up of religion and another one tells secularists wants freedom for all which is contradictory.

Kareena: Have you ever read it or just heard it? or may be you are just confused. The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are from the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago such as the Omo remains of Ethiopia and the fossils of Herto sometimes classified as Homo sapiens idaltu.[26] Later fossils of archaic Homo sapiens from Skhul in Israel and Southern Europe begin around 90,000 years ago. Prior to that all were not 100% humans. The First fossil you have mentioned had bones 40% as human.

Religions had peace, religions put an hold on suppression, religions brought rich and power, king and slave in the same queue. You ancestors accepted religions because it was better than their current living and for the same reason they wanted their next generation to follow those good things. If you dont follow religion you will be following something pirated from religion.

Kareena ur asking religion or science? There are scientists who are very religions, science progressed with religion. Little knowledge of science makes you an atheist and thorough studies makes you a believer in GOD. What did you read about Science? Just a two piece of paper about God delusion or some arguments? If you do more research you will have answers to those arguments.

Such a pessimistic view... who could world will be good without religions? no charities no forgiveness more crimes aha world would be more dangerous. Oh let us say u dont need religion to do charity then only 2% of world population will be giving charity as according to The World Factbook atheists were an estimated 2.01% of the world population in 2010 other 90+% are doing good things cuz they believe in Karma and karma is religion.

What you all see is the negatives which the followers did cuz they are human like you and cause of those things were not religion it was absence of religion.

Today you say you dont have religion but you have hope and hope is religion and secularism backs hopelessness.

A voice of reason :O)

brit, sure, Religion is not the ONLY reason for abundant human stupidity :)

come on guys

That is not what the secularists on QL are saying.. Please make your minds up ...

If your logic is correct and if we are to believe most QLers here who say that the world in more secularist now, then surely the blame on violence cannot still be put on religion..

Can it ?

Brit, you may be right, but today is no different than any other day in past, distant past;

thanks to invent of modern bombs, we have killing more (on DAILY basis) now than,i guess, anytime in past......

we're no better; religion or no religion!!

Bashir Al Asad and the late Saddam Hussein of the secularist ideas!

The world is not more than 10 thousand years old whereas we have archeological evidence of human fossils dating back millions of years.. Use your brains.. Religion or Science..

Hinduism was formed around 1500-3000 B.C

Are secularists here any different from religious fanatics ?

On the one hand we are told that secularism allows one the freedom to practice one's religion. On the other hand the secularists label all those who practice religion as idiots and spout that they are the rightious ones.

Strange indeed..

Before 2000 years, there was Judaism.

Oh, world would definitely be a much better place if there are no religions.

Also religuous people always self-righteous which prevent them from seeing other people perspective.. which in turn prevents conflicting people to find compromises... in the end ... everyone suffers.

Somehow in their twisted interpretation even murder is justified... how many innocent people suffered... and the answer ... "oh... dont worry... they will go to heaven"... how easy for those people to calm their concious to make themselves feel better.... those people can justify anything... even taking drugs... or doing other things... so i am sorry... but a good judicial system is a must... where do you think you gonno get a fair trail of a simple thing like tenant-landlord dispute... in UK or say in Yemen (just an example) ? Look at the facts... they speak for themselves.

I saw Quest for Fire and believe me there was lots of violence, raping and pilaging in those days..

I can't even believe seeing people arguing whether secularism is the way to go. Just compare any GCC and a developed European country and it will become obvious. It will become even more obvious when you look at the global scale when hostilities errupt under the "religous" umbrella that is just another lever to manage people's sentiment for other people's personal gains. Tolerance, freedom of expression, democracy are must in our modern multicultural societies.

As for the CK billboard... it is really simple... if you dont like it... sue them... that's why we have common laws applicable to everyone... an equalizer for everyone...

Live and let live ... simple as that.

Religion has always been used or rather invented to suppress people.. Every new leader or ruler came up with a new religion to suit his or her needs. I really think that world would have been a much better place if there were no religions...

LLR, so the societies prior to organized faith system, say before 2000 yrs, were not as happy as we are today?

I'd argue that they lived much "peaceful" & joyous life then ours, full of violence life, majority of which has its roots in religions.

The current day welfare system employed in many western countries stemmed from Religious system.

Closing a gas/tools/vehicle industry cuz some population misused them by burning and killing others is totally irrational cuz the same industries still help a huge population for cooking and moving. (Secularism). Hopeless actions.

Motivation for eternal success and the fear of eternal failure brought the goodness & morals in the previous Kingdoms and governments which didnt last long cuz of selfishness and self empowerment. A secularist is away from all such motivation and fear hence he is more dangerous than a religious leader. Today or later they will also misuse their power and will try to retain it - so secularism ll turn to dictatorship and probably someone will claim that he is God. (Pharaoh) and the life cycle continues.

Totally disagree with religions suppression. May be you have seen it with different eyes. I have seen religions have done so much to make a harmonic society. Suppression was not cuz of religion the actual cause was absence of religion which you will understand only if you know the religion. Religions supported human being with good moral, social, economical, technical and physical aspects of life. You may claim that u dont need religion to differentiate wt is gud or bador true or false but you inherited it from someone who had religion. What I see is , it is not only we humans have religion even animals have religion even other creatures have religion. Ever seen a goat or sheep eating flesh or meat? Cuz it has a natural boundary and limitation. Ever seen a lion eating grass nope..ever seen earth going away from its orbit..everything in the world has set of rules prescribed by nature and all of them the same base. Of course there will be some behavioural change depends on the surrounding they grow but predominantly they are bound to some set of natural rules.

P.S

Sry for any typo as I typed it from mobile.

But surely, "Secularism ensures that the right of individuals to freedom of religion is always balanced by the right to be free from religion."

Thats because our forefathers had a different worldview and they didn't believe in equality of races. rather they believed in a closed society based on professional perfection. They believed that professional perfection can be achieved if basic life skills are passed on in the family through generations. Hence they created a heirichal caste system.

BB sorry for my ignorance.. can u please temme why India has different classes like SC, ST, BC, OBC, MBC ?

Yes I second BB.

Countries pose to be secular and internally they try to appease the majority.

brite - India is still one of the most sexually advanced nations.

I would argue that most nations that's passed pro-gay marriage laws have done so for political expediency than seculirism ..

Yeah they dont know what their religion is but they know how to make cartoons to offend others.

I would argue that any nation that's passed pro-gay marriage laws is more secular than religious.

Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, are all strongly secular.

"The US definitely stills tows a strongly Christian line, the UK slightly less so, but many other European nations and Commonwealth nations are strongly secular."

All you have to do is to look at the USA in the last few days. The services for the victims in Boston, the speech by president Obama etc to know that secularism is still an idea in its infancy.

Miss Mimi.. Poland, the Balkans, Greece, Spain, portugal are all more religious than secularist.

ROFL on 'phudkia' & so lovely translation of 'dhobi ka kutta'.....

And btw - There's another saying - The washerman's dog neither belongs to the house nor to the pond steps.

Painther - India is a bird which can neither fly nor run! Such birds are also known as ' phudakia'.

BB, just a twist: in the State Emblem of India, The motto('Satyameva Jayate') is taken from Mundaka-Upnishad (a religious hindu text);

Its not. People are confused. Hindus think it's a Hindu country and Muslims think it's a Muslim country. Thinkers and Politicians think it's United Kingdom!

India is a unique case.

BlueBull I thought India was majority Hindu so religiously Hindu?

Pakistan and Bangladesh is Muslim. India is Cluelessly Secular.

In the so far secularism we have seen in that world many people assume that everyone who is against abortion is also religious, so that automatically means their opinion on abortion doesn't count.

Many atheists who are pro-life are forced to get side-tracked from the issue to correct the assumption so everyone will know their pro-life opinion counts because they aren't religious.

The same thing occurs with the issue of homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, decency and alike. If an atheist agrees with the religious on anything, but agrees for non-religious reasons (even though religious people also provide non-religious reasons), his opinion counts, but a religious persons does not.

So the definition of being secular fail on every law or bill they pass.

What is my point here is secularism would be successful only when we have secular society and secular minds. They called themselves as secular states still they have problem men keeping beard women wearing veil and the reason is the the security of the whole country..What the pak..

If you see the history when we have states based on religion people were in peace and the same way if we have secular state people will be in peace but not for long time. Like people started manipulating religions to their own benefits likewise secularist will also do the same and at the end of the day of course it will have more bloodshed.

One good news for you all is that as per my believe one day will come that we will not have a single person believing in religion and that era is going to be the last era of this plant earth. :)

However now at this time it doesnt exists. GW

Bush spoke to god and Americans re-elected him after all what he did, Tony Blair became Catholic hahaha Saddam Hussain was Barbaric by nationalising the Oil trade (all the secular states supported the cause against him, Modi in India Gujarat a so called secularist is still innocent, Osama was killed with no trial Bush is still relaxing having fun with his Daughter in Law.

Having secularism internally and narrowed foreign policies really does not make sense.

It is easy to talk with our ar5e in comfortable seats and it really breaks ur head if u become leader of a a culturally diversified country. Just imagine you cant bring few of us here together how could you bring the whole community outside.

Out for my workouts. catch up later. :)

ME is all Muslim. China is Taoist. Europe is Christian. Australia is Christian.

The US definitely stills tows a strongly Christian line, the UK slightly less so, but many other European nations and Commonwealth nations are strongly secular.

US and UK are Christian nations.

Where are you basing all this on? There isn't a secular country in the world where that happens LOR.

Secularism is a direct threat to the powers of Religious as well as political extremists.

The world with few exceptions is ruled by either of the two. So obvious they have shunted the growth of secularism.

A secular state is a failed concept. It doesn't exist.

It should be pointed out that should a Religious group decide to rent out the billboard directly next to this one and post up a huge advertisement condemning the ad, they would also be protected by the secular state. It goes both ways.

All that sun26872 said...100% spot on!

SOME Church groups would have issue with the ad, some secular groups would have issue with the ad. Some church groups would be perfectly ok with the ad, as would some secular groups. "New Yorkers" come in many shapes and sizes.

The job of the secular state is to weigh out those who take issue with those who don't and decide who makes the best case.

Of course it has something to do with Church. Church has reservations about sexually explicit advertising but Secular state has no objection with Calvin for its Artistic Freedom.

Now consider if Calvin Klein had instead, as a form of artistic or religious expression, blown up a picture of Jesus Christ. Do you think secularists would defend his "artistic" or "religious expression" in response to New Yorkers (and even the Christians) outrage for blowing up the image of a specific religious figure to market jeans? They wouldn't, they'd be foaming at the mouth to get it taken down and spout off that Calvin Klein is trying to "indoctrinate" New Yorkers into being Christians by associating Christianity with his popular brand of jeans.

Secularism would only be successful by compromising the believes and rituals of a huge/certain population.

Link please. I'm sure you mean advocates of Freedom of Expression, not Secularists, as it has nothing to do with Church and State.

In New York a huge billboard ad by Calvin Klein is on display showing a half naked woman lying sandwiched between 2 half-naked men lying on a couch simulating an erotic orgy with a third half naked man on the floor who we can only assume is waiting his turn.

This ad has enraged New Yorkers but is being defended by secularists saying that Calvin Klein is expressing Artistic Freedom which is Protected. Never mind the fact that if it weren't a blown up picture, and instead was 4 people doing this in public on a park bench they would would be ticketed, fined or arrested for breaking public decency laws.

"Secularists have an attitude that if a person has a moral objection to what their society is doing, and if that objection is also found in a religious book, then the objection doesn't count."

No, secularists have the belief that if the only objection to a persons freedom comes from a religious book and for no other reason than it being written in a religious book, than it doesn't count as a reason to curb a persons freedom. Quite rightly.

Practising ones religion freely and imposing it onto others thereby curtailing their freedom are two diff. things and hence not acceptable in a Secular society.

Political Secularism is always welcome but not more than that. Anything more than that will have more bloodshed and more protests and more distractions.

"Don't you want a nation where everyone can practice their religion freely?"

All here we will say yes but that is not the goal of secularism. The goal of secularism is to snuff out the free practice of religion and the voices of those who are religious.

Secularists have an attitude that if a person has a moral objection to what their society is doing, and if that objection is also found in a religious book, then the objection doesn't count.

Sharia, as per mandate by the Quran, allows for multiple religions to be protected under an Islamic governed nation. So it is forbidden by sharia to attack churches, synagoges, or other places of worship that are within an Islamically run state. Sharia is also about fairness and justice as we Muslims are commanded in the Quran by Allah to stand up for justice even if its against our own selves and families. Unfortunately many Muslims are ignorant of these commands. Additionally, extremists today get all the press coverage and this portrayal leads the naive ones to believe that Islam is inherently an intolerant religion. It is not.

There is no need for secularism if Sharia in Islam is practiced correctly. I say this as a former secularist christian myself.

I would tend to agree with the title of the OP keeping India in view and based of the opening statement "Secularism is a principle that involves two basic propositions. The first is the strict separation of the state from religious institutions. The second is that people of different religions and beliefs are equal before the law". India has failed on both propositions.

Religion is something very personal and I hate it when people ask me that question.. I generally give a very rude and curt reply that my relgious beliefs are personal and I don't wish to answer that.. In fact when I went to apply QDC permit, there was a religion column in the application form which I just left blank..

Secularism is the way to go.. I wish all countries in the world would adapt it and seperate the Church or any religious organization from the state.. There should be freedom of religion or non religion and everyone should be treated equally.

I agree with painther, goodness & love in human heart is inherent. It's evil which is unnatural & artificial in an attempt to get a winning advantage in the rat race.

Hey Guys

This is not a religious discussion. This is about secularism being the only way for people to peacefully and happilly co-exist. You can be driven by whatever religious or non-religious principles you have.. this is your prerogative... however people with alternative views should have equal rights... that's what this is about.... and that you are no better than others... and others are no better than you.. and that we should all accept the diversity and be happy without having to impose our views on others.

Secular nations are not oppressed militarily, economically or financially plus they're far more prosperous than so called religious nation.

Because govt’s based on Religion use God’s name in vain to brainwash their people for the Religious institution and their mercenaries to live happily ever after

I never read manuals before I do things. And I do not believe we were created.

It will be like you are driving a car or using a tool without the guidance given in the Manufacturer's Manual. Which would not be 100% efficient all the time. Forget about religion, scientifically it is more likely we all accept that we are created. :)

Lonius.. What did you read? You cant claim you read all of them.

How totally wrong you are BB when you say "Religion is inherent to one's existence",

Idea of religion, especially organized faith systems, is newer phenomenon than human existence;

basic human virtues are inherent to human existence not religion.

but that's the perception wrongly but sadly many share;

I think the title is misleading. The article actually proves that the only way society can be sustainable and thriving is through secularism, democracy and respect of human rights for all citizens regardless of their religious beliefs, race or ethnical background. Another good point is that atheism is just another belif in a tolerant secular society and nothing more than that and therefore it is a society where all people can thrive and the benefits are merit or need based as opposed to favouritism in any form or shape. The humanity moved on from the dark ages and gradually the societies across the glob start realizing that we should be focussing on common goods as opposed to getting benefits at the expense of others... which in turn in line with core of any religion.

As for the vigilante justice... that's absurd... the society has a law... and the presumption of innocence... when crowd is heated they can kill an innocent man... therefore there is a need for proper investigation and subsequent decision based on the code of law. Nobody is above the law... including vigilante.. otherwise we would be living in chaos... my understanding of truth or justice may be different from yours... therefore we need to agree on common principles of justice.. and that's what law is... it should be universal and unbias treating everyone equally... and the main focus should be on execution of the law... or re-design if necessary... but not taking any vigilante actions since we are not animals.. and if we execute law in an animal fashion then what separates us from criminals.

I don't think of religion at all when I make decisions.

Religion iss inherent to one's existence. Trying to seperate it from the way you think and make decisions is an impossible proposition.

The Palestine vote has nothing to do with religion.

for their statehoods.

However I like Canada and western countries for equal minimum wages and benefits for everyone regardless of their cultural background.

Secularism is still the best Idea, system of governance,

If some vested interest group(s) misuse it, to their political benefits, this idea itself can not be blamed being failed.

Who Canada?

I think they have some strange foreign policies joining hand with US.

Are the countries covertly religious, or do the majority of the population follow the same religion, therefore, it would seem that laws & regulations (being tailored to apply to the majority) seem to be inline with the majority religion?

Coming from Canada I never felt the Christians had any more rights than people of other religions or non-believers.

The only thing I will say is bullshit........secularism is basic foundation of humanity...only those with political agenda & greed use religion as weapon to target competitors. Fanaticism is sign of weakness & dishonesty rather than anything else.

Most of the countries are covertly religious and follow one religion. They dont seem to accept it in public.