[Serious] How many reasonable solutions are there to any particular social issue?

[Belacqua]

However the Ancient Chinese were well acquainted with Hinduism, the Greek Pantheon, Steppe Shamanism, Zoroastrianism, etc. via the Silk Road. So the claim still carries no water.

Thank you, this is a good example of the kind of thing I was talking about. 

It is anachronistic to say that the ancient Chinese were acquainted with Hinduism. No one at that time thought of himself as a Hindu. 

The term was introduced by colonialists in the 18th century, who needed to categorize traditional thought in India along lines that they were comfortable with. Prior to that, those practices in India were a loose collection of texts, themes, practices, etc. 

It's misleading to call their Dharma a religion, which has different boundaries and nuances. But the colonizers weren't big on nuance. 

If we could approach the whole thing with an open mind, and not need to win battles, it would be very interesting to see how the set of practices which were much later called Taoism responded to the various practices which British people later called Hinduism. 

All of this is going far away from my original point, though, which is that for something to be secular there has to be something which is perceived as religious in a way which can be set aside for the purposes of education, health care, etc.