(January 6, 2015 at 12:23 am)Huggy74 Wrote: It is petty, in what way does that monument in affect you?

Other than overtly shitting on the constitution? You're right, what could possibly go wrong?

Tell me you're European this instant. Fucking lie to me if you have to.

(January 3, 2015 at 10:58 am)Tonus Wrote: Mind you, I can recall people lamenting the state of the world for as long as I've been alive, and I know that my parents and their parents heard the same. We tend to filter the past through a very different lens than we use to observe the present and guess at the future. So it may simply be natural to worry that things are getting worse and that there is no end in sight because no one cares enough to change it.

A little book that backs up your point. It's well worth reading, if for no other reason than because it is amusing: The Good Old Days They Were Terrible

Are you ill? I mean, as in mentally deficient in some way that you continually misconstrue what people are saying to you.

Secularism is not the antithesis to religion. How can I put this in a term you will understand? A diagram? Phonetics?

Atheism =/= secularism. A large proportion of theists/atheists in a population is Irrelevant to whether that state is secular.

IVE NEVER SAID that secularism is responsible for the happiness of a given state's happiness, only that in general state's with secular structures have a trend of being 'more happy' and more productive socially and economically.

It's called a correlation. Don't look it up in a dictionary incase your set yourself on fire.

Repeat after me - secularism has nothing to do with atheism. Try it. Secularism is the GUARANTEE of religious freedom by ensuring the state does not enforce one (non) religion over another.

Just say it out loud until you understand that simple concept and before posting on this thread again. I mean FUCK! What the fuck is wrong with you?

.....FUCK.

Right. You could have a country where there are 100 different religions, and everyone adheres to one of those religions, and no atheists. And you could still form a secular government from those people.

This should be fairly obvious anyway from the fact that the president of the USA has been christian as far back as anyone can remember, yet the government is secular.

Is Obama really christian? I would totally understand (but not advocate) saying you are even if you aren't, to become electable. I know that atheists can in theory be elected, and I feel that in say 60 years there could be an atheist pres in the nut house. It's sad to consider some people might be lying.

May I just note, that Huggys list of happiest countries doesn|t conform with the World happiness Report 2014. According to this, the happiest are the secular Scandinavians, followed by the most secular central European nations.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel...untry.html

(January 6, 2015 at 8:09 am)robvalue Wrote: Right. You could have a country where there are 100 different religions, and everyone adheres to one of those religions, and no atheists. And you could still form a secular government from those people.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Take Turkey, a demographically Muslim state, yet it's secular. Not many atheists in Turkey I would think.

I don't actually know if our (English) government is technically secular by law, or whether it has just evolved into being so. Anyone know that?

(January 6, 2015 at 8:15 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote: Take Turkey, a demographically Muslim state, yet it's secular. Not many atheists in Turkey I would think.

Still secular I would say. If Erdogan has his way, Atatürks reforms will be history at some stage in the not so far future.

The UK constitution is not entrenched and not codified - it's an evolutionary convention if you want the political spiel.

It is de Jure Anglican but de facto secular, though not as secular as I would like (hegemony of the Anglican church on state affairs, lords spiritual, faith schools etc).

In comparison to our more enlightened brothers and sisters on the continent we are failing in the secular front.