I have often wondered exactly what it was that drives the current secularism surge in countries like Australia and America.
Having read the following article today, I feel I understand the reasons now.

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/20/were_putting_an_end_to_religion_richard_dawkins_bill_maher_and_the_exploding_new_american_secularism/

In America at least, one of the number one reasons is political, following the rise of the religious right groups such as the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority etc.
What with their policies against abortion rights, anti-gay rights, supporting prayers in public schools, advocating abstinence before marriage and opposing gun control, to name just a few.
This has only served to alienate politically moderate left-leaning Americans who found themselves at odds with such a conservative agenda.
I feel that Australians are increasingly feeling the same way.

Other reasons include the way the Catholic Church (and other church run institutions) have dealt with paedophiles amongst their ranks. The church dealt badly with this issue by sending bad Priests to other parishes instead of de-frocking them and calling the police, as they should have done.
Many people, especially Catholics, gave up on religion because of this terrible scandal.

A more surprising reason for the rise of secularism is the fact that more women are in the workforce now, and are no longer encouraging their husbands or children to attend church or follow religious traditions. They just don't have time for this anymore, and have found their truth out in the real world now.

The last two reasons are that both Americans and Australians in general are much more accepting of homosexuality, and can't understand what many religions have against what they see as a legitimate sexual attraction and love amongst same sex people.

The Internet has opened up a whole new world for many in the Western society and has resulted in many previously religious people now having access to both pros and cons of religion and belief in deities or spiritual beings.

Maybe now, more and more people are beginning to think for themselves rather than have religious people tell us how we should think and act.

Suse as one who had witnessed the first flash of breasts on Australian TV through to the sexualisation of everything you can think of, I have become slowly jaded to the moral slip of the media since the 1960’s. Breasts....so what...penis or vagina, so what, that is the general consensus today. With this openness comes a re-positioning of the moral compass.

Given religions are moral compasses, the relevance of those morals have diminished in our society...as have the parishioners generationally in the first world. But religions are stable or growing in second and third world nations primarily because of the low education standards and economic conditions because any hope for better, even ethereal, is better than none.

But what group is behind the “Babylonization” of the first world societies we now have, and to what end. Is it the media or is it the government censors. At some stage Christian morals were abandoned and a new morality enlisted.

I don’t recall protest in the streets marching for more tits and ass, nor do I recall letters to the editor requesting more tits and ass. But I do recall the years of lobbying by Christian groups for a return to the former moral standard in broadcasting. I believe that the media has been manipulating the moral fabric of first world societies to disenfranchise them from Christianity. One of the commonalities that bound us.........couple this with a first world immigration policy that strips the homogeneous face of the population away and what you are left with is a divided prey item..........merry Xmas Suse......Paul.

Merry Christmas to you too Paul :)
I look at Christmas as a more cultural holiday season than a religious one.

I don't know that we need religions as a moral compass anymore.
Many people in our society now realise that the people in the forefront of these religions were/are no better or no worse than anyone else in society.

The recent child sex abuse scandals that infest several religion based organizations are certainly testament to how some of these supposedly 'moral' people treated children in their care.
They, and those that hid them, are no better than any common paedophile out there in the wider community.
So what gives them the right to say what is or isn't moral?

I honestly think that we can raise our kids to be good citizens, without telling them to believe in a religion or a god

Exactly, Sonofgloin.

So, why did you send your kid to a Catholic School, again, Suse?

But hang on, who said the Secularists are any better? Including the BBC:
John Lydon 'I'd like to kill Jimmy Savile' [1978]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjy8oLVOvi4

Evil has arrived in all sectors of society.

No real sense of community - all is fake appearances. Nobody happy. People lose identity so get tattoos.

Is Ugly the New Beautiful?

To be “cool” is now more desired than to be comely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dalrymple

"The rise of relativism has rendered the common Christian code of conduct obsolete". Is meaningless meaningful, Suse?

"As people lose their conscience, they also become less conscious, for ethics—the principles of accepted human behaviour - are an orienting influence. Granted that a rebellious subculture is certainly often involved in such exhibitions, there is hardly anything left to rebel against, leaving the populace expressing itself in its confusion between right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and ugliness."

Mad World - Gary Jules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4

Enigma - Return To Innocence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_sAHh9s08

Enigma - Age Of Loneliness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APW_QwzGg2o

Old narrative: Diversity is our strength and immigration enriches a nation.
New reality: Too much diversity can destroy a society.

Melting pot. Culture does literally melt.

Orwell’s 1984: Are We There Yet?

Constance said;
Old narrative: Diversity is our strength and immigration enriches a nation.
New reality: Too much diversity can destroy a society.

I think this is true.
I believe that the reason it is a new reality is that in this era
travel is so much faster, easier, cheaper than it was in earlier times,
that people can carry their old hatreds and biases with them and
better communications enables their contact with the source of their
culture that they have no need to integrate into the host nation.

Example the Norse that settled in Normandy, they became French even
though they kept a little of their Norwegian characteristics.
A better example might be the Angles, they lost all contact, except
some remote trading, with their origins and likewise the Saxons.

Interesting discussion topic. Thank you Suse.

Secularism is a concept I assumed I understood but I never actually read the definition until this morning.

secularism

1. a view that religion and religious considerations should be ignored or excluded from social and political matters.
2. an ethical system asserting that moral judgments should be made without reference to religious doctrine, as reward or punishment in an afterlife.

I don't subscribe to any religion and was not raised particularly Christian, though I did attend Sunday School briefly as a child. I've been attracted to Eastern philosophy since my early teens primarily because the philosophy advocates one's personal responsibility for discovering answers to the big questions about life, death and purpose.

I feel the benefit religion offers the masses is basic morals and values for society/culture to live by. The teachings of most religions promote similar values and if people would actually live by them, the world could be a better place. Buddha offered an alternative yet compatible moral compass for those who do not believe in God.

It seems to me there is a design flaw in the human psyche (called ego) that causes a gravitation toward bad habits. It takes will power to not succumb to selfishness. Buddha (not that I am a Buddhist) advises the basic problem is desire and that everything that causes pain stems from unfulfilled desire; let go of desire and contentment will flood in. Very few people actively seek a life of contentment.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is humans are flawed as individuals and need guidance in order to live together in harmony. Secularism in itself doesn't offer an extended set of values for people to live by.

Our 'secular society' is currently still rooted in Christian principals that encourage goodness. If all religious principals are removed from western culture over the next 500-1000 years, what is the likelihood of successfully also eliminating the influence of Islam during the same period?

Secularism may replace Christianity but Islam will continue to grow throughout the West and the two cannot peacefully coexist forever.