The Forum > Article Comments > Secularism and religious tolerance > Comments
Secularism and religious tolerance : Comments
By David Fisher, published 26/7/2010Secularism holds that a person’s religious belief or lack of same is no business of the government.
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Posted by George, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 11:06:27 PM
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Dear Squeers, . Thank you for your reading suggestions. I'll look them up with intertest. . Dear David, . I too would like to see full emancipation of Australia from the British Crown, as well as from the Church it heads, our State church, as well as from all other religions. Perhaps you may be interested in reading the article I published in "Rethink Australia" entitled "An Australian & New Zealand Republic": http://www.rethinkaustralia.org/submissions.htm Your socio-political, or should I say, cultural, heritage seems quite interesting, David. You certainly have some rich ressources to draw from. My gut feeling is that we shall arrive at the end of the road of human social evolution if and when the emergence of the individual will finally have been completed 100%. If, indeed, that were to occur, it seems to me that the ultimate organisation of human society would probably take on some form of what we call anarchy today. Though this appears to me to be the most logical outcome, I have not the slightest desire nor intention of doing anything whatsoever in order to anticipate or speed up the process. I am quite happy to allow the evolutionary process take its natural course, in its own good time, slowly but surely. . . Posted by Banjo Paterson, Thursday, 29 July 2010 12:01:12 AM
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We might ask.. "where will secularism take us?" and for this, we can find ample evidence of it being "The Highway to Hell"... as with most things, it's not in the written policy so much, though there's plenty to look at, it's how people handle non them once they have power.
For some insights on this, and how secularism is just code for 'Theocracy with man as the Deity' have a peek at this little beaudy. http://www.telladf.org/userdocs/KeetonComplaint.pdf Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Sunday, 1 August 2010 7:13:25 PM
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Interesting case, Boaz. Thanks for the link.
>>For some insights on this, and how secularism is just code for 'Theocracy with man as the Deity' have a peek at this little beaudy.<< Of course, to an outsider, the whole exercise reeks of special pleading, but no doubt you would readily accept that. But do tell - has the case come to court yet? If so, is there a reference to the actual evidence presented? It would be fascinating, for example, to actually hear the actual words in the... "...statements that she had made in class regarding matters of sexual orientation, and from the fact that Miss Keeton had conversations with people in which she sought to convince them of her point of view." Out here in the real world, we accept homosexuality for what it is. I can well understand, from this distance, that the lady's approach... "She has stated that she believes sexual behavior is the result of accountable personal choice rather than an inevitability deriving from deterministic forces. She also has affirmed binary male-female gender, with one or the other being fixed in each person at their creation, and not a social construct or individual choice subject to alteration by the person so created. Further, she has expressed her view that homosexuality is a 'lifestyle,' not a 'state of being.'” ...might not be considered entirely appropriate in one taking part in a graduate Counselor Education program. But then, I'm an atheist, and cannot understand the fuss you Christians make about homosexuality. It's almost an obsession with you folk, isn't it? Posted by Pericles, Monday, 2 August 2010 8:47:53 AM
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Dear AGIR,
I looked up the reference you gave. It showed to me the need for secularism. Apparently you feel you should have the right to promote your fundamentalist Christian homophobe bigotry in the schools. If you have the right to push that garbage, fanatical Muslims should have the right to promote violent jihad. Secularism keeps all of that kind of thing out of public schools. It confines it to mosques, synagogues, temples and churches where fundies of different kinds are free to spread their nonsense. Posted by david f, Monday, 2 August 2010 1:11:52 PM
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Dear davidf,
while I agree whole-heartedly with the serve you give to AGIR above, does it not transgress against civility in precisely the same manner that you resented coming from me? Good to see you can be piqued too! If you don't mind I'll cut and paste from the other thread while I'm here. davidf: <We generally have to decide things on the basis of limited knowledge and prejudice. If we wait to make the decision until we have better knowledge the optimum time for making the decision will usually have passed. I assume in such a case most of us would not marry. In OLO we can scatter our opinions and prejudices without having to make any decisions.> This is very true. We live in an age of relativity, of intellectual laissez faire, and one is conscious of a desperate need to take a direction in the world's affairs. Yet history cautions us about being rash, and meanwhile the various exigencies heap up. Perhaps Foucault is right in theorising us as helpless within a now global politico-economic leviathan. Orwell advocated getting "outside the whale", but there is no outside any more. The way things are going, I'm afraid secularism is failing us as comprehensively as religion has. It's just shifting the deck-chairs. I s'pose, at least it isn't offering a fatuous escape route like religion does. Posted by Squeers, Monday, 2 August 2010 5:14:53 PM
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“Always and everywhere there will crop up independents who sturdily resist any such restrictions of human liberty, “conscientious objectors” of one sort and another; nor has any age been so barbaric or any tyranny so systematic, but that individuals have been found willing and able to evade the coercion which subjugates the majority, and to defend their right to set up their personal convictions, their own truth, against the alleged “one and only truth” of the monomaniacs of power”.