Yuyutsu asks: “Personally, unless in a political context, I understand 'secular' to mean "worldly", or "one who has regard for things of the world" (and to the extant of their secularity, for nothing else). How about the others here?”

No, I agree with Banjo Paterson. If Sells was using an archaic and obsolete definition of the word ‘secular’, then he needed to state that from the outset. Otherwise he is committing the Equivocation fallacy and the Etymological fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

So, no matter which way you frame it, there was something terribly wrong with his article.

I think we are rather pagan but your point of view is interesting.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« … I understand 'secular' to mean "worldly" … »

That is what you indicated in your previous post : « the word 'secular' is derived from the Latin 'saecularis', or 'worldly' ».

An English newspaper editor by the name of George Jacob Holyoake coined the term “secularism” in the mid-19th century to denote : “a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions, the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life” (cf. page 60 of his book “English Secularism”). He felt that the Latin term “saecularis” resonated reasonably well with his idea and invented the English term “secularism” borrowing on that Latin term.

Here is the book :

http://archive.org/details/englishsecularis00holyiala

There was a lot of confusion at first as to what “secularism” actually meant. Religious fundamentalists and conservatives declared that it was simply another term for “atheism”. Holyoake explained it more explicitly in “The Principles of Secularism”, published in 1870 :

« Secularism is [that which seeks] the development of the physical, moral, and intellectual nature of man to the highest possible point, as the immediate duty of society : inculcating the practical sufficiency of natural morality apart from Atheism, Theism or Christianity » (cf. page 11).

Here is the book :

http://archive.org/details/principlesofsecu00holy

Holyoake was a “free thinker”. His basic idea was to free the individual and society from the shackles of religion. He placed the focus on the material and upon this world rather than the immaterial, the spiritual, or any other world — but he never claimed that secularism involved the absence of religion. The concept of secularism was developed as a non-religious philosophy focused on the needs and concerns of humanity in this life, not the possible needs and concerns associated with any possible afterlife.

The concept evolved over time - despite continuous opposition from religious fundamentalists and conservatives – to its present meaning as defined by the OED, which I already indicated in a previous post :

« the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions »

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You ask :

« How could they [the Commonwealth] possibly tell what's religious and what's not? »

It’s not easy, Yuyutsu. It’s up to the courts to decide. There have been a number of court decisions and precisions on this subject.

Here are a couple of links that may be of interest to you :

http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/common-law-1

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/1266.0main+features102011

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Dear Banjo,

I think that we can agree that "secularism" and "atheism" are quite different.

I was also unaware of the origins of the word and that "secularism" has, this way or the other, become an exclusively political term, hence I should henceforth use "secular" or "secularity" instead. Either way, a word is still needed to describe, outside of a political context, that which is only concerned with material results.

Both atheists and believing-church-goers can be either secular or religious. Certain coatings of beliefs tend to support and protect their respective secular or religious attitude and behaviours, but this is neither strictly necessary, nor necessarily effective.

As for the political realm, thank you for the links:

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I can see them stumbling in the dark, to the extent that the best judges in the land approved Scientology as "religion". Members of that terrible cult are tortured, locked up, robbed clean, enslaved, made scared to death and beyond, denied sleep and contact with their families, but technically they have some supernatural believes, a code of conduct and group-affiliation - and that behaviour, in the learned judges' view, is supposed to bring them closer to God ?!?

No, I cannot blame the judges - they only had secular university education, how could they possibly know what leads to God and what doesn't?

The same can be said about those who wrote the Australian constitution:

"The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance"

This statement is empty, thus unnecessary, because religion cannot be established or imposed on others anyway. There is simply no way whatsoever that one person can cause another to come closer to God (I wish there was!).

What the authors probably meant is that the state should not impose church-like structures on people: I would heartily approve that, but that's not what's currently written.

"or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion,"

Then simply state: "No law shall ever stand in people's path towards God".

"and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth"

Including high-court judges? Then who would interpret the constitution and even vaguely begin to estimate which behaviours lead to God and which do not?

Appointing as guides people who have not traded this path themselves, at least to a significant extent, is a sad joke.

OK, I understand this revised constitution to be of lofty standards, so if the state either cannot or would not distinguish and uphold religious freedom, then alternately it should not prohibit any behaviours whatsoever, lest they accidentally tread over someone's religious path!