Secular society? Where?

[Alpha]

The definition of a secular society to put it simply, A secular society is a society that runs on a non-religious basis.

I disagree with this definition. Secularism is the separation of Church and State; those in spiritual authority should not hold secular authority, and vice versa. 'The Church' (this is a very Christian-centric way to phrase 'religions'; I could just have easily said 'imams' or something -- but I'll keep using this throughout) in a secular society does not have worldly authority. The Church does not have authority over those who do not wish to submit themselves to that authority.

Similarly, a secular state must not permit public officials to have authority over matters of the Church.

Simple analogy: the state cannot decide who is to be the Catholic Archbishop for a given country. The Archbishop has no authority over elected officials at any level.

Note that this does not mean that this cannot happen -- say if the elected official wants the Archbishop to tell them what to do (for instance, the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand is a Catholic, so it is possible and indeed likely that he will act in ways that the Archbishop might approve of). Note also that this doesn't mean that the state cannot do anything that the Church also advocates -- that is, it is not that the state must do the diametric opposite of what the Church would do if it had the authority; just that the Church must not have authority in public decision-making, and vice-versa.

Australia is a secular society. America is a secular society. I find these statements to be blatantly false. Why?

In principle, they are patently true. Religious institutions do not have official authority in either of these states. Contrast this with Iran (and many other Arab states (I don't say 'Muslim' because that's silly: Indonesia, the state with the most Muslims in the world, is also one of, if not the most secular country in the world)), where the Ayatollah is both a religious and a public authority (and thus laws are passed, or indeed exist as part of a constitution, regarding the religion of citizens) -- the exact opposite of secularism. Julia Gillard and Barrack Obama are not Church authorities; indeed, the former is an atheist.

If you're trying to say that secularism does not operate in practice, then you may have a point, but only if you mean that in the sense that individuals' religious beliefs have forebearance over their public authority. That is not an issue of secularism, however, as secularism concerns religious institutions and their role; not the religion of individuals.

While no 'laws' may have any religious influence (please correct me if im wrong, would love to hear what you think about that), theres countless traditions that are engrained into society that are religious of nature masked as holidays for anyone. Christmas for example.

So your point is about the use of Christian holidays as secular holidays? That is not a violation of secularism per se, although I'd argue what is of more relevance here is the Christian heritage of (for example) Australia. You cannot deny that the vast majority of the European settlers of Australia were Christians. I'd wager it's few (two at most) generations in your family since it was almost completely comprised of Christians (it's an assumption, of course, but my own family Bible testifies for it (my dad's side being Scottish Presbyterians; my mum's Irish Catholics). At a time when our nations were distinctly non-secular (again not so long ago), these holidays embodied the spirituality of those in power (i.e. Christians were in power), and they decided that Easter and Christmas should be about the celebration of their faith, and were extraordinary occasions in any given year -- justifing a state-mandated holiday. These persist today.

And so what? We need holidays. Would you rather we just pick, idk, the 7th of August as the 'secular' holiday season (celebrate Alpha's birthday errbody)? Who cares what day it is? If it has spiritual significance to you, then cool! I'll be going (as I do most years) to midnight Mass, because that's the important aspect of Christmas to me. If that doesn't float your boat, enjoy your time off work!

Holidays like this only work if EVERYONE is off work at the same time. This crucial pattern is already established in Christmas and the new year. What's wrong with that?

In one of the classrooms in the public school I work in, they play songs about jesus christ, of whom is portrayed as a real person when in fact he is a fictional character. Sorry if that pisses you off, but I have just as much reason to believe santa is real. Easter (obviously) the easter bunny is coming to give you chocolate. And jesus was reborn.

I striked the bits that were irrelephant.

So the relevant part first: That is wrong. State schools are state schools, and have absolutely no place giving religious instruction. I will add, however, that I think it is worthwhile having children/teenagers learn about the different religions that people do practice -- how else will they understand these people when we leave them completely uninformed? Any and all education of this type should be strictly voluntary and subject to parental permission, however. It is not the state's role to determine the appropriate religion of anyone. State schools, therefore, shouldn't offer religious instruction (distinct from religious education). I will add that this includes the idea that a state school must not tell children that God/s do not exist -- its role in a secular society is completely neutral.

The irrelevant part: Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person. If he wasn't, exactly how do you explain the existence of the Christian faith? Did it just appear out of nowhere? I didn't realise a non-existent person could start a religious movement. Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, King David -- all real people, whose influence on history and the lives of countless individual lives is still felt today for better or worse. Pray tell, how they accomplished this without existing? Also, are you familiar with the epistles of Pliny the Younger? I'd recommend checking out the Wikipedia entry before commenting on this issue again.

If we are a secular society, should that make churches exempt from paying taxes on the income gained from donations? Even charities have to pay tax, why shouldn't churches?

I'm not sure about Australia, but I thought that the whole point (OK, a major part) of being a charity is that they are tax-exempt? The real issue is whether Churches qualify as charities; but given there are actually a large number of charities motivated by religion, should we revoke their tax exempt status too? It's a grey area, but not a major violation of secularism.

Something that bothers me most about how 'secular' we're supposed to be, is marriage. Marriage is something that is lawfully recognized and can only be performed by a priest to that of whom has been baptized. That is the biggest mistake the government has made by allowing a religious ceremony become recognized as a legally binding contract in law and state.

The state can marry people. That is actually non-secular though, so you have something here. In my perfect secular world, only churches would be able to marry, but marriage would hold no legal status. Only the state could bind people together in a legal sense. I think we've had this discussion elsewhere. But yes, this is a good example of a situation that contravenes secularism. However, excluding homosexual and polygamous relationships, unions as defined by the Church and by the state do not differ; thus in practice, even if we adopted my ideal scenario, little would change. It is non-secular, but also non-significant. I wouldn't get too worked up by it.

Christians are losing their grasp on their traditions by having it become universally renowned as something its not, and non-religious people are basking in it without realizing that they're celebrating something that is traditionally religious in nature.

People can celebrate the holiday that coincides with Christmas in any way they want. That is secular.

Furthermore, why is it christians christmas blurted out all over tv and in public. It seems that holiday is the most disgraced of all. There are so many other holidays, but why is christmas focused on in both here and america as something that its not.

I don't even know what you're saying at this point.

A better world will result when we apply reason and rationality and recognise the importance of universal secular values of freedom, justice, honesty and compassion.

I don't appreciate the sense in which you use 'reason' and rationality' here, as though anyone with faith is irrational and stupid. They're not; it's a personal choice, and one which you should fundamentally uphold and support if you are indeed secular. What you seem to be advocating (at least as a sub-text) is the suppression of any and all references to religion. That's not so much secular as it is anti-religious -- radical secularism perhaps.

EDIT: I'll also add to the off-topic-discussion-becoming-major-part-of-this-discussion. Christianity is undeniably similar to pre-existing 'pagan' (indigenous is a more correct term) religions. There's a reason for that. If you were a newly-Christian Roman official, trying to convert people to the state religion (oh look, non-secularism), are you going to make them completely drop their seasonal, generationally-ingrained and habitual traditions? Or are you going to adapt the practice of Christianity to suit them? The latter is far easier. Thus, Christ's 'rebirth' is in (the northern hemisphere's) spring, and we see Easter bunnies and eggs (Both pagan symbols of fertility (new life... rebirth... resurrection), and Christmas during (NH's) winter, where Jesus represents the birth of a new year in the darkest time of the year (literally). You could criticise the adaptation of both tradition and of *** along these grounds -- but they make sense in the early history of the church and are not suspicious links to be used as evidence for the assertion that Christianity is a fiction.


***Forogt the word I'm looking for. Religious form? Dogma? Scripture?