What is secularism?
Secularism is an increasingly hot topic in public, political, and religious debate across the globe. With discussions on secular schools, secular hospitals, and the move away from religion in modern society in the news, it’s important to know about secularism’s history and how it affects our lives.
Here are five facts about secularism:
1) The term was coined by George Holyoake in 1851. It originally denoted a system which sought to order and interpret life on principles taken solely from this world.
2) Some religious practices have been secularized and made so popular that the associations with religion are not always discussed. Yoga, meditation, and mindfulness are all promoted as secular programs despite their religious roots.
3) Usually secularism focuses on religion however it also demarcates the secular from other phenomena including superstition, the sacred, and the metaphysical.
4) Some perceive the religious decline of our modern world as religion’s role in society changing shape. More individualistic capitalist societies could just be changing the way we engage with belief systems, making them less recognizably religious.
5) Secularism is very different to atheism. A secular society is not necessarily a society in which there is little or no public manifestation of religious belief, it could in fact be the opposite. A secular society is simply one in which the state itself takes a neutral view with respect to religion, and protects the freedom of individuals to believe, or not to believe, to worship, or not to worship.
http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191816819.001.0001/acref-9780191816819-e-137
#secularism #history #thisthat
Nice, topical summary!
ReplyDeleteAs politics becomes more important to the masses / the mob, than religion , I would agree the world is becoming more secular overall.
ReplyDeleteI do think such a society can be healthier, where personal beliefs aren't used to control others. A healthy sense of ethics and morals do not necessarily mean a person is religious, but they can have a spiritual outlook.
ReplyDeleteSam Collett: the thing I found most interesting about the synopsis was the observation that a secular society can assimilate religious practice, so there is the possibility that personal beliefs are being used to control others, without even having a religious reason for doing so anymore. (Not saying that's a direct result, just that it's a possibility I hadn't thought of. Mark Twain once said the less reason there is to keep a tradition, the more people fight to keep it.)
ReplyDeletereligion from religiare; to control.
ReplyDeleteY´all motherfunkers need the Scandinavian Social Democratic model - with the modernistic seperation of church and state, making public scrutiny of religious purpose and methodoligy a more intrinsic part of state funding, removing the funding of church from the deep halls of government and a direct part of the church election (numbers of votes equals funding in kroner - that´s a currency , look it up), and making advertising for church societies a public matter, which in turn is regulated by the laws of public behaviour.
ReplyDeleteWhere we find that proclamating religious messages is to be concidered unlawful, if in public, but if the public makes a choice to seek out the place of advertising, it is accepted.
see?
Freedom!
espen forsmo You are trying to swop out the chronic illness?
ReplyDeleteHyggelig å se andre fra regionen på denne sida Gjermund Gusland Thorsen !
ReplyDeleteAnd the for the world:
Nice to see others from the region (his name)!
Yes - and no..?
I think I´d let people choose every time, but I also think I´d be standing by the choice booth rambling non-stop.
I´d love for religion to be a matter of choice, but the reality we see today tells somany other truths.
We are bombarded by the effects of people of less concideration, but too much money and {or) power.
I like the way we have com to practice freedom of religion in Norway:
Religious freedom means that I am free to be free from your religion.
lovely )