Religious forces held sway over human beings for far too long.

As Christopher Hitchens wrote,
I find something repulsive in the idea of vicarious redemption.
I would not throw my numberless sins on to a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There is no value in the vicarious gesture anyway.
As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a debt, or even offer to take the debtor’s place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not a assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you didn't commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility.
The whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the whole concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out ethical principles for ourselves.
Christopher Hitchens - Letters to a Young Contrarian –Ch. 9 P58

Socratic (discussion) educational methods help students learn how to think, not what to think (as they did when dogma held sway).
The most socially just and happiest countries in the world are in Scandinavia and they are secular. In an OECD study they and The Netherlands filled the top six places. Australia was 21st, well behind Canada , NZ and the UK, and the USA rated only ahead of Greece Chile, Mexico and Turkey.

it is more accurate to speak of the rise of selfishness than secularism. The two go hand in hand. The results are clear. MOre suicide, more drug use, more fatherless, more pornography, more child molestation, more welfare, more me, me, me and me, What a dead head unscientific ideology. Much in common with Islam hence the defence of it by the ignorant.

From: Mellhiush & Rizzo.
At the turn of the XXI century the ‘Secular’ as the dominant discourse in Western Civilization has been displaced by the revival of devotional forms of religiousness and orthodoxy and the resurgence of new forms of spirituality. The return of the ‘religious’ in the public sphere has had the effect of not only revealing the inherent tautologies of the secular paradigm, but also of prompting a legitimation crisis without precedent. The Post-Secular paradigm, inaugurated by the displacement of the secular, represents an attempt to overcome the existing aporia. The Post-Secular however should neither be read as an attempt at historical periodisation nor as a synonym of the Post-Modern, but as a new and authentic epistemological-hermeneutical paradigm, which envisages an integrated co-existence between secular and religious instances, a sort of indwelling or, as some have argued, immanent dualism. Such a paradigm involves, in fact, the redefinition of existing notions of time, place, agency and purpose and the identification of a new pattern of significance in which to cast the past and make sense of the present and eventually the future. It follows that traditional monistic models of historical development and their holistic assumptions and approaches, informed by secular discourses concerning time and space/place, along with the teleologies they incorporated or purported, have become meaningless and need to be discarded.

From: Ethnologist Fredrik Barth…
“One is led to identify and distinguish ethnic groups by the morphological characteristics of the cultures of which they are the bearer.” Barth conceived of ethnic groups as a form of social organisation, culture is then a means through which such groups construct themselves:
“The boundaries to which we must give our attention are of course social boundaries, though they may have territorial counterparts. If a group maintains its identity when members interact with others, this entails criteria for determining membership and ways of signalling membership and exclusion.”

So segregation cannot be envisaged independently from its political significance and manifestation. Multiculturalist discourse, which considers communities purely as cultural communities, is then highly questionable.

Foyle,

Are you living in a fog? I suggest you check out SwedishSurvey who arrived recently on OLO.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16854&page=0#296807

Sweden is entrenched in Socialism and now has the highest rape count in Europe and 2nd in the world. Thanks to the influx of assimilation-averse Muslim immigrants, Sweden, which once had one of the lowest crime rates on the planet, now has the second highest incidence of rape in the world.

“Socratic (discussion) educational methods help students learn how to think, not what to think (as they did when dogma held sway).” But Lefitists academics have taken over the universities and are teaching the youth to despise their own Western culture. And as a consequence, we have zombie think who actually can’t think for themselves. I see them all the time in the workplace - silly uni graduates who can't think outside the square.

Haven't you noticed that we are forbidden to say what we actually think thesedays?

Suseonline,

Having read your numerous 'drive-by' attacks on your favourite hates, the main ones being 'old white men'(?!) and Christianity, particularly the Roman Catholic Church (always priests, no mention of nuns and ties in with the 'old white male' fixation), I cannot do your OP and you personally any justice without observing the rather obvious, that you would do yourself a favour to deal with your personal baggage through confronting the ghosts of your Catholic upbringing, rather than casting about to rationalise and build upon your hates.

You are closer to authoritarian left, where your unreasoning hatreds bloom and not a liberal secularist at all. Islam has your blessing, for instance, but probably because its enemies is yours enemy.

I am a strong supporter of a secular State and believe that John Howard expressed the concept rather well. He was for tolerance in its proper (Oxford) dictionary sense and so am I.

If there is one point I would like to make it is that I find your aggressive 'secularism' quite unnecessary, presumptuous, intolerant and offensive. It is totalitarianism and narcissism too.

The fellow made some interesting comments. What do you think?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-15/secularliberalismmisunderstood/40148

Dear Suse,

I'll repeat what I've stated in the past -
Few citizens of modern societies would utterly
deny the possibility of some higher power in the
universe, some supernatural, transcendental realm that
lies beyond the boundaries of ordinary experience,
and in this fundamental sense religion is probably
here to stay.

Of course - no one can deny that sexual abuse of
children and young adults is horrendous and intolerable
and that the failure of the church to deal with it
effectively has done immeasurable damage both to the
church and to victims. The cover-ups, the protection
of abusive clergy and the refusal to admit egregious
mistakes are unjustifiable.

However, personally I am optimistic that Catholicism in
Australia will survive, probably with lesser numbers,
but with more commitment and ministerial energy.
Paul Collins points out in his book,
"Believers: Does Australian Catholicism have a future?"

"...Catholics will require genuine local leadership and
a willingness to confront both the difficulties and
opportunities that the church faces. My feeling is that
we are uniquely placed in Australia to be able to do
precisely that."