Ahh yes Francis. The ole' Nazi chestnut. Forgive me, but I tend to find this more than a little specious.

Effectively you're saying - this guy treated secularism as a bad religion, therefore, secularism is a bad religion.

And yet, Christians refuse the same logic when applied to say, the Crusades. Christianity is really a shining beacon of light is it not?

I put it to you that neither is the case, and that any system can be abused, comments from one particular academic in a sea of philosophical debate not withstanding.

The problem here is Francis, your stance indicates a complete rejection of any attempt at neutrality of religion in government - if you concede secularism isn't neutrality, you therefore must conclude that there can be no void of religion, therefore government cannot operate independently of any religious persuasion.

Fine logic. I'm sure extremists pushing for a caliphate would concur.

Lev,

However you try to explain it the fact is SECULARISM, having a variety of meanings, CAN be, and IS, classified as a religion (another word that has a wide variety of meanings)....refer Keith Ward's "Is Religion Dangerous". And this is part of the problem: the terms can be elastic. Hobsbawm is surely correct.

Re "theologiocal dictates"....your definition is self-serving and, I would suggest, your own invention to self-satisfy.

Your final two lines are just plain stupid. Obviously, you're out of your depth.

Turn Right Turn Left......who mentioned the Nazi's specifically?....I would have thought there were a few other monstrous secularist regimes as well that littered the 20th century with suffering or does that not bother you?....are you aware of any? or are you upset that the Nazis get such bad press? Are you defending them?

Secularism is not neutrality and history proves it isn't. Why should Christians, Jews, Hindus etc not try and influence governemnt whereas so-called neutral secularists (whatever that means) may? If secularists are neutral then they won't try to influence governemnts either especially since they are an irrelevant minority.

Francis,

Secularism is cannot be classified as a religion, for it makes no statement about supertemporal matters. The "variety" of meanings of which refer to is consistent. Try looking up a dictionary. Here's several to help you.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secular

Your continuing assertion that secularism is not neutrality is merely just that. The matter at hand is the ontological source of epistemological claims. Secular knowledge takes no regard to divine revelation. Or, to put it in terms you might understand: "Just because it says 'x' in the [insert "holy book"] doesn't mean it is true. Show us worldy proof'.

The definition of theological dictates is quite accepted in history and sociology (and even, less so, in anthropology). For many hundreds
of years the ruling class were the religious class.

I suspect that it may be you who is out of their depth here, but your expressions seem to suggest you lack the cognitive maturity to admit it.

Regards,

Lev

Ah Francis. I see you're in favour of the 'straw man' style of argument, and shifting the goalpasts by distorting arguments to suit your tone.

Where did I defend Nazism?

Is your only mode of argument to take things out of context, then rephrase them to suit?

Now - when you tied the debate to extremist policy and the German government, I assumed you were referring to nazism - not being familiar with the Ministry of Family Affairs of which you speak.

I don't know how accurate your comment is, but if it is indeed the case, then are you criticisng them for withdrawing it?
The fact that they have shows they feel it inappropriate, now its clearly gone under their noses for some time, but whose to say they supported it?
I can't speak definitively on the subject, though its likely they were unaware of the book, just as I'm sure there are plenty of books in Australia that government departments are unaware of.

Single example or multiple, the efficacy of the argument put forward in my previous post remains intact. That is - you have taken an example of one aspect of secularism, and conflated that to mean secularism is a flawed concept, akin to religion.

My point that religion has as many examples of flawed history can't be denied.

None of your points as yet have made a logical reasoning as to why flaws with secularism equate it to being a religion.

Put simply - because bad things happen in an absence of religion, why does than mean an absence of religion is in fact a religion?

Bad things happen in religion too. And you have yet to address my final commentary - if, indeed, secularism is merely a religion, then logically, you can't keep religion out of government, as an absence of religion doesn't exist.

Therefore, you can't even attempt to have a non-religious government, which is something all successful western governments have believed in for centuries. Do you honestly believe this is coincidence?

You can argue for ever about whether secularism is a religion or not. You have to first define religion, and then agree on the grounds for deciding on that particular definition. The original point about secularism in schools was the actual behaviour of some secularists who insist that everything in the school must be able to be proved by reason. That elevates reason to be the arbiter of everything, i.e. to the level of ideology. This is hardly secular neutrality. This is a claim that public schools should be neutral on everything except reason... and you just have to take elevating reason above every other criterion on faith!!

For the life of me I cannot understand the relevance of some of the carry on from some posters. Secularism is about the separation of Church and state. The separation of religion and religious beliefs from Government. It is an ideology. An ideology does NOT only cover religious philosophies. It also covers life style philosophies or political philosophies, like democracy, communism etc. It is NOT a religion.

A rose is a flower, but not all flowers are roses. Get it?

Is there anybody out there at all who thinks it is A OK for adults in a teaching role to be promoting any particular religious belief to your children without your express permission?

Any of you Christians who sneer and tut tut at secularists and whether this is a religion or not would be apoplectic if the government decided to fund teaching your children to wear condoms when having sex outside of wedlock without your prior knowledge and permission. Or that there is no God it is all misguided belief. Or if a fundamentalist muslim started teaching your children about their view of God without your knowledge, without your permission, paid for with your tax dollars.

This debate is not about Christianity bad, atheism good. It is about our government promoting ONE particular brand of Christianity without consent, paid for with tax dollars. I'm positive if some Catholics or Anglicans for instance, saw some of the 'work' the children do in some schools they be appalled.

Make the chaplains Catholic and RE in schools Catholic and you won't hear a peep from me. At least they'd learn that the book of Genesis is not to be taken literally, that the world was NOT created 4000 years ago, creationism is a childish belief and that all sins will be forgiven after reconciliation. But there might be some other Christians out there who would be very unhappy with that. Your child might just join the One True Church and recognize the error of other so-called Christian beliefs and come back into the fold.