Originally Posted by
aabbcc
That is, I believe, more in touch with an original intent of the thread, and raises some potentially interesting questions. See, I may have nothing against the belief of others and their right to conduct the matters of their private life in accordance with that belief, but I do oppose:
1) The fact that certain amount of money off the taxes we all pay in many officially secular countries is given to religious institutions (which does not mean only the religion of the majority).
If secularity is supposed to function on separation of Church and State, in which State shall not go against Church in sense of prohibiting its activities, but also not favour any religious institution, in sense of aiding it (esp. financially!), is this not violating it? Should not religious institutions be financially suppported strictly by their adherents?
Share your views on how this functions in your country.
2) The fact that, financially, religious institutions are again in some officially secular countries being given priviledges regarding taxes on property and being exempted from those. Again, financial favouring of religious institutions.
3) The fact that many officially secular countries teach Religious Education in public schools, in sense that RE is not a neutral teaching of world religions, but teaching the religion of the majority (or minority, if they organise it for themselves) for the religious majority, from the religious perspective, involving religious practice in those classes (prayers, for example), and religious symbols displayed in those classrooms (cross on the wall, for example).
Should not that kind of RE, even if it is often technically elective, be removed from public schools?
4) The fact that in some officially secular countries which teach RE as described in the point above the presence in those classes is nearly mandatory, or that those classes are intentionally put in the midst of the school day, which creates problem for young children who in some cases do not have guidance, supervision and organised activity instead of RE during that time? Speaking from my own personal example, whilst living in Croatia. The situation there is still the same. Which means that many parents who otherwise would not want their children to attend RE, still send their kids to RE because they fear that their children will be discriminated against by their colleagues on the grounds of religion (and/or nation, remember that I am speaking for Croatia, the territory of ex-Yu), because they worry something will happen to them (in case of young children) since they are not supervised during that time and may as well leave school, etc.
So yeah, officially, RE is not mandatory; but people are well 'blackmailed' to send their children to attend it (so you have 99% of kids who attend it, only half of whom are from religious families; in my class I was the only one who did not attend it). And I am pretty sure this happens in other countries as well, here in Italy it is not drastically different either.
5) The fact that teachers of that kind of RE in some secular countries are paid not by their religious institution, but by Ministry of Education, which is again financed by money from mine and everyone else's taxes.
Sorry, it is not alright that I finance them with my money.
6) The fact that religious symbols are still widely presented in some public schools in officially secular countries. You know, the picture of Pope, crucefices, that kind of things. (And it is not the case in which religious symbol is artistic heritage or part of the architecture of the building.) Seen with my own eyes, in three countries. Public schools, I repeat. Secular countries, I repeat. Cannot emphasise that enough.
7) The fact that in many secular countries there is open identification of nationality and religion (e.g. Italian=Catholic, in Croatia that is even worse, just two examples), in public speeches people make (I personally heard a speech as a child on some non-religious occassion, it went like this: "So I welcome you, as Italian and as Catholic..." :rolleyes:), public associations (press, etc), and so on.
8) The fact that many secular countries' laws are under the influence of religious viewpoint of a majority on certain issues (e.g. abortion, assisted suicide, you know, the usual set of controverse ethical dilemmas).
Take a look at this way. If somebody is religious and her religion forbids her to abort, fine, but why should her religion forbid me to abort, based on their teachings I do not even believe in? Just an example - I certainly do not want this to turn into thread on any of the ethical issues in specific. But that is the logic behind - the logic is "G-d is against that", ergo it must be forbidden by the law. If the logic were "It is a medical consensus that aborting at any point is a murder of a person", I would not have nearly as much problem about it as I would have if the logic were of religious nature. And many ethical dilemmas in our society, especially regarding bioethics, are exactly of religious nature, where religion has more to say than professionals in the field.
What do you think about it? What is the extent to which religious majority has the right to influence everyday life of religious minorities or atheists in officially secular countries?
(Jozanny, I hope this is more to a point, feel free to move it into different directions if you had principally something else in mind. ;))
