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The Forum > Article Comments > Minority religions and secular states > Comments

Minority religions and secular states : Comments

By Syed Atiq ul Hassan, published 1/2/2006

Syed Atiq ul Hassan argues even if a society claims to be secular the majority will dominate: religiously, culturally and socially.

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Further to:

Quote:

"Also why Christinity (and not multiculturalism) is the bedrock of a liberal democratic form of government."

Interesting. Anyone care to ellaborate?

Posted by YngNLuvnIt, Wednesday, 1 February 2006 4:18:47 PM

Unquote

Multiculturalism is all about the superiority of the cultural group over the individual. That is why so many people from non Anglo-Celtic-Australian culture say that there is no Australian culture.

For these people 'culture' is about a system of belonging to a group with certain prescribed practices: not being an individual in a liberal democratic society. Therefore they cannot see that indivuals can form a culture.

Democracy did not evolve into its present well recognised form in any country that was not predominently protestant Christian.

Even many Catholic countries in the early 20th century went towards Fascism, where the state was more important than the individual, think of Italy, Franco's Spain, Argentina and some other South American countries. The Catholic Church, of pre-Vatican 2 days, provided a great model for non democratic sytems of government where the individual was not allowed to question authority or doctrine.

Other countries are as bad or worse. Whilst India is on the surface a democracy it still has an entrenched caste system, which values a person according to their caste and sex. China still follows a much modified Confucianism, where the elders of the (Capitalist) Communist party have taken over as society's elders.

It is only in Protestant countries where democracy has bloomed, due to the valuing of the individual rather than the survival of a 'culture' being important.

I will repeat, multiculturalism is the encouragement of cultural systems, disregarding the value of the individual within those systems. The classic example being the mention of 'community leaders' This is the antithesis to democracy. In a democracy there are no leaders, only representatives.
Posted by Hamlet, Thursday, 2 February 2006 10:41:52 PM
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"But the beginning point cannot be seen as anything other than Christianity's expectance that humans have the worth to create thier own laws."

Umm Fide, perhaps you should put down the religious books and pick up some primatology books, to really understand humans. Ethics and morality have a grounding in biology after all. Social species like us primates of various species, evolved to kind of get along amicably. Frans de Waal's "Good Natured" is not a bad start.
Posted by Yabby, Thursday, 2 February 2006 11:06:10 PM
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Syed,

you are right on one thing: secular states work best with secular people - probably atheists. We can see the impact everywhere of religion on Government decisions.

All religions are based in mediaeval belief systems, irrationalities and claptrap - so, ideally, none of them should be influencial on political matters in a modern state.

It seems at me that other public institutions eg the ABC are unduly influenced by this religiosity - eg how often do we get hear committed atheists or agnostics on the various ABC religious programs - almost never.

I don't think you should read too much religiosity into the christmas holiday. For the great majority its just a holiday; an important tradition, but nothing more.

I would like to see christians and muslims demanding less funding support for religious schools and less religion in political decisions. eg catholic ministers demanding contraception teaching in all schools - buckleys!

I am especially fearfull of Muslim influence on political decisions and frredom of expression -you need only to look at the Denmark cartoon experience to understand why - sharia by degrees!

By the way, I do not think christianity dominates in western states - generally they are in a minority - its just that they are organised; whereas non believers are not. Which accounts for their power, and is why we are in such a mess.
Posted by last word, Thursday, 2 February 2006 11:26:39 PM
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Keith,
a kind of democracy evolved with the greek religious culture long before christ, it is true. But let me ask you what percentage of even the male population of the city was able to vote. Slaves were not, and I believe they made up about 90 percent of the male population. And was this really comparable with the representative form of democracy (with stability enough to make progress)?

It is hte equality of Christ which enabled a true democracy to evolve. And speaking of equality, you realise the greeks of the period had invented steam power, water power and many other inventions thought to only exist in the middle ages and onwards. Now why didn't they take off? the same reason democracy didn't, slave power was too cheap. Much cheaper than steam power etc.

With Christianity in the picture, this changed. "Christians were the worst slavers in history" I hear you say. Well they were also the only ones to argue against it with any seriousness.
Posted by fide mae, Friday, 3 February 2006 11:22:03 AM
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Fide Mae
It may be true that democracy only applied to freeborn Athenians but the idea, which in fact is the most important point, was invented there in Athens.
Your remark that Christianity was the first religion to proscribe slavery is also correct; but it took them a very long time, didn’t it?
In fact, but for the Reformation, I doubt whether it would have happened given the resistance of the Catholic Church to change.
The Reformation, coupled with the rise of the commerce minded Middle Class in Europe, after a while put an end to meddling in political matters by Clerics.
Now we are at a much more advanced stage of human development, where religion has little place in political life, and indeed not much place in the day-to-day existence of the people.
Unfortunately, it appears that not all our Islamic friends have quite reached this stage yet, however the trend towards democracy and rational thinking in the Muslim lands, while not yet very strong, is at least, encouraging.
If the human race is to progress, and take its first faltering steps off this planet into the vastness of the Universe, it must be willing to rid itself of this superstitious nonsense.
Fortunately, it appears that progress in this direction is being made. That is why I am quite optimistic about the future of humanity.
However, if certain people want to keep their "comforter" they are quite welcome to it as far as I'm concerned. Just don't try to push it down my throat, thanks.
Posted by Froggie, Friday, 3 February 2006 6:57:08 PM
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Last Word wrote:

It seems at me that other public institutions eg the ABC are unduly influenced by this religiosity - eg how often do we get hear committed atheists or agnostics on the various ABC religious programs - almost never.

Well, Phillip Adams - a well and truly committed atheist - has his own ABC Radio show - its called Late Night Live - and he never ceases to inform 'the Glady' what his (lack of) beliefs are. Why would you expect the religious programs to promote atheism? That would be like the AFL version of the Footy Show promoting Rugby League.

The democracy of the polis of Athens also excluded women, but it did have some positives, in that all citizens who were physically able were expected to put their lives on the line as hoplites, that is the heavy infantry, defending the polis. If you were not willing to serve the city-state then you were not prepared to be a citizen Perhaps we should have a similar system, that only those who are willing to provide some form of sacrificial service to the state, not necessarily military in nature, should be entitled to the vote, or to government employment (yes, I am sounding like Robert Heinlein in ‘Starship Troopers’ – the book, not the travesty of a movie).

Another positive in the Athenian polis that we could learn from is that jury trials (read anything about the trial of Socrates) involved the whole of the citizenry. In today’s society people can get out of jury service at the drop of a hat. Jury duty is part of the obligation of a citizen, but so many people bludge their way out of it.

Yes we can learn from the Greek city states, we can also learn to avoid becoming like Sparta, which was successful in its time, but at the cost of the subjects of the Spartan kings’ individualism.

There is no connection between Athenian democracy and the modern form, except in name.
Posted by Hamlet, Friday, 3 February 2006 7:24:54 PM
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