Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Religious skepticism or indifference.
- noun The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Exclusive attention to the present life and its duties, and the relegation of all considerations regarding a future life to a secondary place; the system of the secularists; the ignoring or exclusion of religious duties, in struction, or considerations. See
secularist .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The state or quality of being secular; a secular spirit; secularity.
- noun The tenets or principles of the secularists.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A position that
religious belief should not influence public and governmental decisions - noun The related political belief in the separation of church and state
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Holy Church, is our philosophy of life and we hold that any attempt to educate a youth in what we call secularism is a retrogression to a lower level than that of pre-Christian culture.
Catholic Problems in Western Canada George Thomas Daly 1914
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When the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, invited him to speak, he told him that New York had "particular challenges of what he called secularism," Archbishop Dolan said.
NYT > Home Page By SHARON OTTERMAN 2012
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He would have prophetically foreseen the emergence of a strong current of materialism and secularism from the core orientations of the preceding era which had been marked by the spirit of the enlightenment and in which the traditional values of the old world view had already begun to be shaken.
Archbishop Ranjith's Foreword to "True Development of the Liturgy" 2009
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He objects: "What sort of secularism is it that regards reading of Sanscrit texts as a political act?"
Katherine Marshall: How Hinduism's Mahabharata Can Help Restore Ethics in India Katherine Marshall 2010
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While I know many don't believe secularism is a good thing (and perhaps it isn't), it does serve to foster economic opportunity.
Grant Brooke, M.Div.: The Case for the Prosperity Gospel M.Div. Grant Brooke 2010
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The result of equating dharma with religion in India has been disastrous: in the name of secularism, dharma has been subjected to the same limits as Christianity in Europe.
Rajiv Malhotra: Dharma Is Not The Same As Religion Rajiv Malhotra 2011
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He objects: "What sort of secularism is it that regards reading of Sanscrit texts as a political act?"
Katherine Marshall: How Hinduism's Mahabharata Can Help Restore Ethics in India Katherine Marshall 2010
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The exact term "secularism" has a negative connotation in the Arab world, so we prefer use the term "civil."
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He objects: "What sort of secularism is it that regards reading of Sanscrit texts as a political act?"
Katherine Marshall: How Hinduism's Mahabharata Can Help Restore Ethics in India Katherine Marshall 2010
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The result of equating dharma with religion in India has been disastrous: in the name of secularism, dharma has been subjected to the same limits as Christianity in Europe.
Rajiv Malhotra: Dharma Is Not The Same As Religion Rajiv Malhotra 2011
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