What is secularism and why is it important?

[Seth]

Free exercise of religion is bullshit, the sooner it's abandoned, the better.

Your opinion is noted, and I have no problem with people ABANDONING religion if they choose to do so freely, but what we're experiencing right now is not the free abandoning of religion, it's attempts to SUPPRESS religion in society.

[HomerJay]

Free exercise of religion is bullshit, the sooner it's abandoned, the better.

Your opinion is noted, and I have no problem with people ABANDONING religion if they choose to do so freely, but what we're experiencing right now is not the free abandoning of religion, it's attempts to SUPPRESS religion in society.

No, you misunderstand, it is the notion of Freedom of Religion that is bullshit and it is this notion that should be abandoned.

No-one is trying to supress religion, merely to kick it out of the public sphere, back into men's heads, when it belongs.

[Seth]

Free exercise of religion is bullshit, the sooner it's abandoned, the better.

Your opinion is noted, and I have no problem with people ABANDONING religion if they choose to do so freely, but what we're experiencing right now is not the free abandoning of religion, it's attempts to SUPPRESS religion in society.

No, you misunderstand, it is the notion of Freedom of Religion that is bullshit and it is this notion that should be abandoned.

Your (gross minority) opinion is noted. Eighty percent of the population of the planet disagrees with you however.

No-one is trying to supress religion, merely to kick it out of the public sphere, back into men's heads, when it belongs.

Er, that IS suppression of religion, most explicitly. People have every right to express their religion publicly, and the worst and most heinous abuses of human rights have occurred during attempts to suppress the public expression of religion and impose secularism. Between Stalin and Mao, nearly 100 million people were murdered most brutally by secularists and atheists in an attempt to suppress religion in the public sphere. Interestingly, one of the first things to reemerge after the fall of secular communist tyranny was religion.

So, again, your opinion is noted, and disregarded as not reflective of human nature, history, or societal agreement.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yeah, fuck minorities! Especially that big minority, Christianity.

[HomerJay]

Free exercise of religion is bullshit, the sooner it's abandoned, the better.

Your opinion is noted, and I have no problem with people ABANDONING religion if they choose to do so freely, but what we're experiencing right now is not the free abandoning of religion, it's attempts to SUPPRESS religion in society.

No, you misunderstand, it is the notion of Freedom of Religion that is bullshit and it is this notion that should be abandoned.

Your (gross minority) opinion is noted. Eighty percent of the population of the planet disagrees with you however.

Made up stats, huh? Wrong here as you were earlier in your response to the OP, there are many secular movements within the religious community, this is perhaps easier to see in Europe where the arguments about Established religion are more explicit.

No-one is trying to supress religion, merely to kick it out of the public sphere, back into men's heads, when it belongs.

Er, that IS suppression of religion, most explicitly. People have every right to express their religion publicly, and the worst and most heinous abuses of human rights have occurred during attempts to suppress the public expression of religion and impose secularism. Between Stalin and Mao, nearly 100 million people were murdered most brutally by secularists and atheists in an attempt to suppress religion in the public sphere. Interestingly, one of the first things to reemerge after the fall of secular communist tyranny was religion.

More BS Seth, people have no right to express their religion publically.

Freedom of Religious Expression only makes sense in the context of one religion trying to supress another (as has historically been the case), once we have established that no religion will be able to harass another we don't need Freedom of Religious Expression. If you think we do, you need to what is different about Religious Expression compared to any other form of Expression. And then you need to show why this difference is sufficiently important to warranty a Freedom of Expression specifically related to Religion.

Good luck with that.

Otherwise, we all enjoy Freedom of Expression, with attendent time and place restrictions and subject to an equal assessment of legality.

[Exi5tentialist]

Everyone has the right to worship and to express their religion. This was established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I see no evidence that such freedom only makes sense when one religion suppresses another.

I believe in a secular government, meaning the mechanisms of government ie legislature, judiciary, executive should be non-religious even if the individuals who hold office aren't. So no more prayers at representative sessions. But the state in a democracy is there to represent the people. If a sufficient proportion of the people demand faith schools then the state should respond to that demand. The only debate is then what is meant by sufficient.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Everyone has the right to worship and to express their religion. This was established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I see no evidence that such freedom only makes sense when one religion suppresses another.

I believe in a secular government, meaning the mechanisms of government ie legislature, judiciary, executive should be non-religious even if the individuals who hold office aren't. So no more prayers at representative sessions. But the state in a democracy is there to represent the people. If a sufficient proportion of the people demand faith schools then the state should respond to that demand. The only debate is then what is meant by sufficient.

Why should the state support religion?

[Exi5tentialist]

Why should the state support religion?

Because a democratic state should represent the people. If the people feel the state should support religion, then it should. If you think it shouldn't, then you don't believe in democracy.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why should the state support religion?

Because a democratic state should represent the people. If the people feel the state should support religion, then it should. If you think it shouldn't, then you don't believe in democracy.

How many of the people? What religion? How much money? What services will not be offered so the religion can have a free ride?

It can be democratic when no religion get an advantage over any other by the simple expedient of not giving support to any of them.

[Exi5tentialist]

How many of the people? What religion? How much money? What services will not be offered so the religion can have a free ride

Those are all questions about what constitutes a sufficient number of the people, which is the question I referred to in my previous reply. They don't address the principle - if sufficient people in a democracy want the state to support a religion, then we are not being true to the democratic principle if we do not say the state should support it.

As an example, imagine the kind of democracy where some things are decided by referendum. Imagine there is popular support for a referendum on whether the state should fund and build a national cathedral. The referendum is held and the proposal wins the vote. Say I’m an atheist – I voted no in the referendum. What should I do? Should I favour my atheism and seek to undemocratically undermine the referendum, or should I favour my belief in democracy and insist that the cathedral be built? For me the choice is clear. I don’t stand in the way of democracy. I may continue to oppose the cathedral, within the bounds of the democratic process, but to try to undemocratically undermine the referendum would be a betrayal of my democratic principles. Therefore I would say as an atheist and a democrat, that despite my personal opposition, at the end of the democratic process, that the cathedral should be built, since that is the will of the people. What would you do?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Religions should exist at all, so you're point is moot.

[Exi5tentialist]

Religions should exist at all, so you're point is moot.

I have to say, your sentences aren't really making grammatical sense. If you're saying religions shouldn't exist at all, I'm inclined to agree, but the fact is they do exist, and there is a problem in that we live in a democracy. The scenario I posed (the referendum) is just an exaggerated version of the dilemma that already exists in our democracy. The people, democratically, vote for parties that support faith schools. You and I both agree that the state shouldn't support faith schools - but the majority insist on voting for parties that do support them. So it's not a moot point. If you and I try to introduce some law that says that local government can't support faith schools even if a sufficient proportion of a local area (say, 60%) vote for parties that would fund faith schools, then we are acting undemocratically, are we not?

So it is not a moot point, and I'm facing up to it, not avoiding it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Sorry, I have a mental glitch about putting negatives in my posts. It should read:

Religions should NOT exist at all, so YOUR point is moot.

As far as I'm concern every fucking religion on the planet can die a slow painful death.

Your opinion may vary but I wouldn't care one way or the other.

[Exi5tentialist]

Sorry, I have a mental glitch about putting negatives in my posts. It should read:

Religions should NOT exist at all, so YOUR point is moot.

As far as I'm concern every fucking religion on the planet can die a slow painful death.

Your opinion may vary but I wouldn't care one way or the other.

Yeah but you're missing the point. I think religion should disappear too, the sooner the better. But that's not the question. The question is whether a democratic state where people have voted to support religion should honour the vote and support the religion. We're not arguing about the pre-vote debate, we'd both support an anti-religious policy while that is going on. But post-vote, when a democracy has decided to support a religion, should the democratic state support it? All your answers so far have circumvented that question, and I anticipate you'll do so again, I just want you to have an opportunity to say that you appreciate the distinction.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So you agree it's moot. Used a lot of words to say so, didn't ya.