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) would christians, churches etc be preyed upon, discriminated against etc. Please don't now say well atheists have been persecuted so yes to make it even (hopefully you won't!) because remember, christians are still persecuted across the world in various countries.
I'm not an expert on politics but this is my opinion. The idea of separation of church and state benefits all parties involved, theist and non-theist. I don't think that any religious organization should be preyed upon or discriminated against, as long as what they preached wasn't harmful to others.
Technically, having a secular government would have nothing to do with any religious institutions. They would be left alone.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
I would have to say it would depend on the society and it's history with the religious side. In canada, for the most part our goverment has been secular, yet neither side really attacks the other side (at least not right out) But the US that's a tricky question, i don't think it would but then again you never know.
Thats kinda what I wanted to know, that a secular government would not try to eradicate faith, rather get rid of it from politics (which I do agree with, I support the notion that religious people should have their say, but the government itself should be as unbiased as possible). However, would there perhaps be a difference between a secular and an atheist government?
Is there a political expert on here who could maybe help me out here? lol. Though pariahjane, your answer has certainly clarified something for me.
To live is for Christ, to die is gain.
I'm not a political expert either.
However I do feel there is a difference between an atheist/secular country. A secular countries will allow all beliefs, these can be led by either Theists or atheists. While, an atheist nation can persecute those that are Theists. Of course, persecution can be led by both Theists and atheists.
There is nothing in the definition of secular that implies it must be from atheists.
So I would prefer the secular government.
Connotations and subtleties!
An interesting aspect of politics involves creating influence and change through definition. I suppose social thought has always changed this way, but it is spooky to think how much language itself is involved in how we look at things.
I'd say that "secular" speaks more to action or organization, whereas "atheism" simply refers to nonbelief. You could have a secular government comprised of highly disciplined theists who value the separation of church and state. I don't see how the converse could be true, however.
The real question, as you stated, is about whether a secular government would seek to destroy religion. I'm guessing you mean this in a violent rather than an educational sense. Neither secularism nor atheism speaks to persecution. Although it usually happens the other way around, secular nations have persecuted religion as a social reform. An atheist or secular government could be either benign or hostile to religion. I think that most American atheists here do not have violent intentions in working towards a secular society.
The words in each of the following word pairs are not interchangeable:
"Their" and "there."
"Its" and "it's."
"Your" and "you're."
"Then" and "than."
Ever consulted a dictionary?
You do realize that the American government, just like every true democracy, is secular. The term "secular" means it does not officially endorse any religion. This is in contrast, say, to Tudor England, where the Church of England was an arm of the government, or Saudi Arabia, where the penalty for apostasy is death. Technically, a country cannot even claim to be a democracy in any sense of the word unless it is secular. The founding fathers were a diverse bunch, some were atheist, some were agnostic, some were Christian, some of them positively hated Christianity, but all of them agreed on the principle of secularism, as shown by the Treaty of Tripoli. The US government does not technically endorse any church, mosque, temple or any religious organization (this is why they all have tax-exempt status but cannot recieve government funding.
I laugh when Christians say that America is a "Christian nation". It is true that Christians make up a majority of Americans, but that is precisely akin to saying that America is a "white nation" because whites are a majority. The American government does not (or at least, should not, to claim to be a true democracy, have any religious affiliation. If every member of senate was a Bible-thumper (oh...wait, they are!) it would still be irrelevant, so long as the First Amendmant (guaranteeing freedom to and from religion) remains in place (lets hope so) America is a secular country, so what point are you trying to make?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
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Your question makes no sense because America has always been a secular government, at least officially. The current gov't is already officially secular and Christianity is doing just fine in America. In fact, maybe a little too fine, as it is infiltrating the gov't, violating America's secularity.
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Your question is a bit incoherent and I think this is due to confusion in terminology. As others have already stated, the US is a secular government so there would be nothing to replace. Since atheism is a lack of belief in god, I am not sure what you mean by 'atheist government' other than you have confused the terms secular and atheist (I did it too a while back so it is no big deal - lol).
So, let me see if I can re-phrase the question for you:
If US citizens read and adhered to the constitution and the government enforced secularism, would christians, churches, etc. be preyed upon and/or discriminated against?
Probably not. After all, the intent of the constitution was to protect religious beliefs. It was not, however, designed to cater to them.
I'll take the case of America - even though it is technically secular, most in politics are influenced by religion. If the government went secular, not much would change because the general population would still follow Christianity. Now, perhaps the presence of a secular would affect the number of followers over time, but there would never be anything drastic.
I hope that when the world comes to an end I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.
America is a Secular nation. There is a seperation of church and state which is exactly what secular means. A non religion ran government. You'll also note that America does not have an official religion, again, secular.
However, the sad truth is that we have allowed people with swayed religious opinions to run this secular country, in turn making it a country ran on the morals and standings of religion. I mean, when you have ONE key person giving the president religious advice on everything, you can most certainly know something is absolutely awry with the political state of the country.
So, assuming that this country was in fact a non-secular country turned secular, you would see an increase in the number of TYPES of churches and MAYBE a decrease in the previous religions churches. This, however, does not stop the spread of religion nor does it stamp out a previous one.
The question that you may be asking is why European countries are less-religious than the United States. The answer is simple. Those countries have allready gone through their 'uber' religious period about 200-500 years ago. This is sort of like the the trends of music through the ages (I forget the names) where you'd have an era of simplistic music and an era of complex music. This musical process has sped up so much that we now go through rough 10 year year periods of complex and simplistic music (with spattering of the opposite thrown in there).
As an example to this musical analogy, the 70's had (mostly) simplistic music. Don't think of the rock, think of the TRUELY popular music and most iconic symbol of the time: Disco. Follow this trend to the 80's and you have more complex music, or atleast the guitar solos were. Then, following up into the 90's you have Grunge and Rap, both being overly simple kinds of music.
Now we are FINALLY going into a complex time again.
I think the same thing can be applied to the overall religious experience of the times. The same ebb and flow of secular and non-secular dominance in politics.
So, what was this topic about again?
There are plenty of secular democracies all over the world with highly religious populations. Take a look at Turkey for example - 99% Muslim and extremely secular. It's not a trend to see a secular DEMOCRATIC government preying on it's religious citizens, whether they are a minority or not, as the idea is to keep government OUT of religion. I imagine many Christians in the U.S. would *say* they were being discriminated against if faith-based public schools were banned, and churches and many religious organisations lost their special privileges, but really that would just be leveling the field, not discrimination.
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