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qamar1990 thanks for inviting me to this thread but I seriously have no time to go through 14 pages....
Lets start with its definition:
sec·u·lar
- 1.
denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
"secular buildings"
synonyms:nonreligious, areligious, lay, temporal, worldly, earthly, profane; More
- 2.
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
(of clergy) not subject to or bound by religious rule; not belonging to or living in a monastic or other order.
A
secular state is a concept of
secularism, whereby a
state or
country purports to be officially neutral in matters of
religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion
A secular state also claims
to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid preferential treatment for a citizen from a particular religion/nonreligion over other religions/nonreligion. Secular states do not have a
state religion (established religion) or equivalent, although the
absence of a state religion does not necessarily mean that a state is fully secular; however, a true secular state should steadfastly
maintain national governance without influence from religious factions;
Treating all the citizens equally is basically democracy or at least should be the pillar of democracy...which mind you exists in no state on the planet...there are minorities and some form of injustice in every damn country on the planet...the scale varies...
Not all legally secular states are completely secular in practice.
- In France for example, many Christian holy days are official holidays for the public administration, and teachers in Catholic schools are salaried by the state. In some European states where secularism confronts monoculturalist philanthropy some of the main Christian sects and sects of other religions depend on the state for some of the financial resources for their religious charities. It is common in Corporate law and Charity law to prohibit them from using those funds to organize religious worship in a separate place of worship or for conversion; the religious body itself must provide the religious content, educated clergy and lay-persons to exercise its own functions and may choose to afford part of their time to the separate charities. To that effect some of those charities establish secular organizations that manage part of or all of the donations from the main religion(s).
Many states that nowadays are secular in practice
may have legal vestiges of an earlier established religion. Secularism also has various guises which may coincide with some degree of official religiosity. In the United Kingdom,
the head of state is still required to take the 1688-enacted Coronation Oath swearing to maintain the Protestant Reformed religion in the United Kingdom and preserve the established Church of England. The United Kingdom also
maintains positions in the House of Lords for 26 senior clergymen of the Church of England known as the Lords Spiritual.
The reverse progression can also occur, a state can go from being secular to a religious state as in the case of Iran where the secularized state of the Pahlavi dynasty was replaced by the Islamic Republic . Over the last 250 years, there has been a trend towards secularism.
Now Secular state...Is it even a possibility or a myth...As wiki clearly points out htat the secular states also have practices or even legal vestiges from earlier established religion....mostly Christianity...Hence the separation of the state from the religion never actually happened especially when you have remnants of previous religion still mixing state matters...from donations to certain laws ...
In the United Kingdom there are officially two state recognised Christian denominations – the Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Queen is both head of state and Supreme Governor of the Church of England. There is no established church in Northern Ireland or Wales but the 26
unelected bishops of the Church of England who sit in the House of Lords influence laws that affect the whole of the UK.
And a simple google would show you various results about USA also...
My personal opinion:
Many dont understand the meaning of secular...many actually think its a ticket to transgress (I swear that is what most think)
Others think it is a ticket to become Westernized
And another group just goes outright Haram
So lets see...A secular Pakistan will bring clashes in all the above stated groups...we will have lawyers and court cases over and over coz no one can question the people what they are doing coz everyone is running on what they consider ethically right (since religion no longer governs what is right and wrong...state, law everything)
Well, the second part of secularism is equal rights for everyone (every religion) this is already instructed by in Islam...
What should be done is keep politics away from Religiously fiddling with people's mind....how? By purchasing a Mullah and giving weird to nonesense fatwahs....
However I do believe that state should intervene how? it should monitor the Mullahs...if that means we dont get the secular title! So be it!
IF it is going to cause chaos in our region then sorry I dont want secularism but I do want rights for every group and that doesnt require one to be secualr!
