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If freedom of religion is the question, secularism is the answer : Comments
By Chrys Stevenson, published 1/4/2011The HREOC report Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st Century subliminally accepts Christianity as the default position.
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Additionally "atheism" is not a movement, it is "not believing in deities" so it is incapable of having "implacable opposition" to deities. I am an atheist and I find my religious friends quite uplifting and we share a good deal of ethical consideration. My only "implacable opposition" is to the idea that one of us should be able to impose their world view on the rest of us with the weight of law, without the weight of proper secular argument.
Yes, the UN Charter on human rights is quite specific about religious freedom. I fail to see the relevance to the issue at hand. Are you asserting that secularism is anti-religion?
My understanding of secularism is merely that law and governance does does not accept purely religious argument in its deliberations. So if the proponents of one religion claim that all women should have their feet bound compulsorily then the government would ignore those claims. Only non-religious claims regarding foot binding and its necessity would be considered. That does not mean that those putting forward such non-religious claims have no religious intent or passions, merely that the arguments must be considered on secular grounds.
The fact that the AHRC "chose to back off on one very big bun fight" is, in fact, dereliction of duty. That fight and identifying its constituents and boundaries was an important part of their charter. They were supposed to properly lay out the landscape.