Yes, on BBC4, they did a great series a while ago, “The Atheism Tapes“.

Here’s the BBC religion page with links to all recent religious programmes on the BBC. Never even noticed that many.

Got some old history there. Homosexual acts were decriminialized in Britain with the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967. So, approximately, 35 years before the US finally got rid of all sodomy laws. Not sure that is a good illustration of a ’secular’ nation vs. non-secular nation… since Britain wins hands down there, striking down a ‘religiously’ based (which I don’t think it was, no more or less than slavery and Jim Crow laws were) law a generation before the US.

Secular systems evolved in history, but they did not evolve by *renouncing* their secular foundations or *compromising* them; they developed into *modern* secular systems precisely by doing the opposite.

Jeez, I’m in a strange position today: first coming off like I was defending the aristos (eurgh), and now going to bat for the BBC!

I just want to point out that Songs of Praise is only *one* programme the Beeb puts out that could be contstrued as “religious” in tone. Just off the top of my head, there’s also Heaven & Earth, and another one whose name I forget where celebs talk about music that’s affected them spiritually. Neither of these is centred on the Church of England or even Christianity….or for that matter “religion” as such: atheist viewpoints are also welcome.

Whether my licence money should go towards “religious” programming at all may be an issue, but to be fair, I’ve seen a lot on the BBC about all sorts of creeds, or lack thereof. In fact, am I remembering wrong or didn’t they just do a whole series on atheism?

As to what religious schools get funding, I have to confess I don’t know. I’m sure there are lines drawn as to which religions are “appropriate”, which okay does blow (I doubt if the Wiccans wanted to set up a school, they’d get any cash), but AFAIK money isn’t restricted to only Christians. And hell, I actually would prefer it if NO religious schools got public funding.

OK, let’s stipulate the distinction you’re drawing here.

For many (and recent) years, the UK had strong laws against homosexual sodomy. (Not sure if they still do; I think they’ve taken them off the books.) Oscar Wilde, famously, was imprisoned for it.

What was the secular basis for those laws?

First mention of Britain and its official church was above in this passage:

No one is challenging the right to bring religious views into public debate; but the establishment of religious views as foundation for the law was expressly what the founders wanted to avoid, and that principle is inscribed into your founding documents. That is fact. The difference between the US and Iran is not just the overall political structure, it’s that difference between secular democracy and theocracy.

By the way, Britain is a lot more secular in culture and political debate than the US, even though it has an official church and government funding of faith schools. Even France funds faith schools, but it doesn’t have an official church. But all these countries - US, France, Britain - do share a secular system because they do not allow laws and the legal system itself to be based on any religion.

In other words (….), in the US religion dominates the public discourse and culture to a much bigger extent than any other country *with a secular system* as defined above (religion not the basis for legislation; system developed post-enlightenment, in opposition to tyranny of one church power dictating laws, ie. theocratic system). The US Christian right and their exclusively religious-based arguments for a legal ban on abortion being one example of that influence in public debate, and the relevant one here. The Republicans taking massive funds from the same Christian right and assorted fundamentalists such as the Rev. Moon and in turn massively funding a plethora of think-tanks with ultra-conservative and religious right views, is another example of that.

Still a secular system, less secular public debate and culture.

If that’s a controversial and contentious statement, then I don’t know what kind of reality we are talking about.

What piffle. Robert, the point in bringing up Britain as well as France was to give an example of what counts in terms of having a *secular legal system* and *secular form of government* as opposed to based on religious principles ie. * theocratic*.

Funding faith schools, of all religion, because so far it’s been largely accepted they do a public service, and they are subjected to public requirements and scrutiny, is a matter of contention and public debate, but is a minor one compared to *secular* vs. *religious* basis for *legislation*, because if a majority of people disagrees with having faith schools, then they can withdraw their support from them and vote to stop funding them; if a majority of people were ever to want religion at the basis of the legal system, then they would have to turn Britain into Iran, which I suppose you too know would be a fairly more complicated process.

But feel free to derail the discussion even further on how unfair it is to fund faith schools and how very non-secular France or Britain are - sorry, weren’t you the one bothered by the US being referred to as secular? now you just want a contest in who’s more secular, America or Europe? Well, have this discussion with a French person, let’s see how far you get…

Now where did you extract that kind of nonsense statement or implication from? Not my posts, for sure.

I never said anything of the sort. I was explaining how even public funding for religious schools, of all religions, does not detract from the secular basis of the *law*, thus, of the entire system.

I was not analysing the fairness of unfairness of funding religious groups in the first place, that is beside the point because it does not negate the *secular* as opposed to *theocratic* nature of a legal system and a system of government. Theocratic dictatorship vs. secular democracy. Ok?

My “I doubt anyone is clamouring for that” was actually said jokingly because I’m familiar with what kind of programme “Songs of praise” is… nevermind.
Nothing like what you read into it was implied.

Seriously.

And by the way, I have lived in Britain, but I was certainly not in any “majority” there, what with not being Anglican, not being British, and not being white. So you might as well stop assuming so much and reading so many biases and defenses of whatever inequalities into simple statements of fact about the difference between giving money to schools of various faiths, and having a non-secular basis for the law.

I find myself in agreement with Mythago. It is absurd to describe Britain (or most any European country, as far as I know) as a purely secular state. They all give their churches huge sums (again, as far as I know).

That the person holding up a secular state as the exemplar waves established-church Britain at defunding-divinity-students-America seems…odd.

I know, in theory, it breaks any illusion of Britain being a secular state, but it’s a weird conjunction of many centuries of religious atrocities and outrages (the “irish trouble”, as they’re called, were exacerbated hugely by anti-catholic prejudices within the british run irish government during the 20th century) which mean that, in practice, Songs of Praise, as it currently exists, doesn’t imply or condone a state sponsored religion of any kind, and keeps the state secular (scotland and Northern Ireland are both “catholic” in principle at least, with strong aglican undertones, which also figures into it). Britain is also much more of a multicultural melting pot than america is and the fact that britain is a gestalt entity of several different other national identities (not to mention the english non-identity) means that any state sponsored religion would piss off a major portion of the electorate and, without any major BNP type upsurge in several major cities, wouldn’t gain anyone enough political capital to compensate atm.

Sorry for keeping the thread off topic, just thought I would try to clear some things up, please resume normal broadcasting when y’all feel like it.

Oh, well, that’s all right then. As long as nobody actually *complains*, it’s perfectly OK for the state to fund and favor a particular religion and then pretend to be secular.

Are you quite sure that *all* faith schools receive funding? If the Falun Gong started an elementary school, or the Order of the Golden Dawn wanted a ladies’ academy, they’d get just as much funding as the nice Anglican school down the road?

It’s much easier to convince onself that government favoritism is no big deal and is, well, mostly just secular when you’re in the majority.

Anyway, my defining the acknowledgement of an official church and the funding of faith schools a “minor point of contention” was not in the absolute, and not a personal judgement, but relative to the far bigger and fundamental “contention” betwen secular vs. religious-based law.

Funding faith schools does not in itself detract from the fact the legal system is secular. As in France.

By the way, in principle I do in fact disagree with any faith schools being funded with public money, but I can accept the compromise as long as there are precise requirements for those schools to comply with national curricula so that they indeed provide some public service. In any case, this does in no way change the fact that laws are established on secular, not religious, grounds. That is what defines a secular system per se.

I wonder if those who do not follow the enshrined State religion feel likewise, or think it a ‘minor point of contention’ if you can get the government to pay for your kid’s Anglican schooling, but if you’re a Muslim fuhgeddaboutdit.

It is *not* secular when your government bankrolls a church. Period.

Safe, legal, and rare, that’s what I say.

Also, Robert, the entire point of the Bill of Rights is to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Every individual has certain rights regardless of how many others agree with her, or whether any do at all.

If you put the emphasis on her rights, you see that enforced pregnancy is enslaving a woman who should have free will; in cases where, for example, a woman is murdered and a fetus dies as a result, that is a double murder not because the fetus had rights, but because the mother’s INTENT was to carry the child to term.

Exactly, that’s also why the debate on the soul/person status of the undeveloped foetus is a derailment, it’s like, looky here, we have something that may develop into a person if we use the person inside whom it’s going to develop as a mere container without choices - so don’t look at that person fully developed and entitled to personhood and choices, no, let’s just argue endlessly about the potential personhood of a non-yet person.
Let’s also ignore other religions and religious denominations that say differently, as well as people who don’t let religion inform their beliefs, let’s just impose our own arbitary religious views on everyone, and demand them inscribed in law, and pretend that’s not a theocratic approach.

My uterus, my choice; No uterus = No opinion.
Brutally honestly put, yes, absolutely. That’s what it comes down to. That’s exactly what legal anti-abortionists don’t want to deal with. It’s the kind of thing they recoil in horror from, like vampires from garlic,aaah, that’s insensitive - all the while ignoring their disregard for women. Or even actual victims of genocide and murder. Or, children themselves. No one who wants to force women to go through unwanted pregnancies can have that much concern for the actual future person anyway. No, they just like that undeveloped unconscious potentiality, the closest to absolute sin-free innocence you can get this side of total non-existence. Very creepy if you think about it.

You’re absolutely right, but, again, you’re confusing “secular” with “removing religion altogether from any public sphere”. It’s not what it means at all. Check the actual definition of secular, not its misuse and demonisation.

The BBC each Sunday broadcasts religious programmes like a church service and “Songs of praise”, with public money, but the UK still has a secular system because that separation of church/state in the legal system means that laws are not established on the basis of one religion. You can even have an official church, you can even have a part of public money devoted to supporting religious schools if the wider community thinks they do provide a useful service; these are relatively minor points of contention, not everyone agrees public money should be used that way, even though most accept it.

But demanding to inscribe religious views right into the law, like, wanting to ban abortion and the morning-after pill exclusively because your religion (not others!) believes the foetus has a soul even when it still doesn’t have a brain and is not developed and not viable and not recognised as a legal person, that’s not a minor point of contention, that’s slipping into an entirely different legal system. That’s the point. Not how much presence religion - and which religion - itself has in the cultural or political sphere. But having it as the basis for the law.

You can very well maintain that America had religious origins, in cultural and philosophical and historical terms, religion sure played a big part; it still does not have religious foundations in terms of legal and political system. It has secular foundations. Like France, like Britain, and unlike Iran or Saudi Arabia. Simple as that. AS such, its legal decisions are and must remain motivated on secular principles, not exclusively religious ones. Else, you need to change the entire system.

trey, thanks, exactly my point.

Robert, the quotes, and actual documents, only “prove” what trey above says, that the US is as secular a system as any. Secular does not mean anti-religion. Being against the tyranny of a church and the interference of religion into government doesn’t mean being anti-religion either. The founders could be simultaneously religions, Christian or deists or whatever, and against the interference of religion into government, that’s why they specifically devised a secular system.

Secular foundations and Christian majority culture are not in contradiction. In the US there is also the largest number of Jews outside Israel. A large number of Muslims. Buddhists. Hindus.

The foundations remain secular, no matter how much of a dominant the Christian majority can have in political and cultural matters. The foundations will change only when the legal system is changed.

This is not a controversial point at all, it’s pretty self-evident for both right and left wing and all things in between, it’s just refuted, dishonestly and/or ignorantly and/or by ignoring the actual principle of separation between church/state which is what makes a system secular, by people who do want the law to reflect their religion and theirs only.

No one is challenging the right to bring religious views into public debate; but the establishment of religious views as foundation for the law was expressly what the founders wanted to avoid, and that principle is inscribed into your founding documents. That is fact. The difference between the US and Iran is not just the overall political structure, it’s that difference between secular democracy and theocracy.

By the way, Britain is a lot more secular in culture and political debate than the US, even though it has an official church and government funding of faith schools. Even France funds faith schools, but it doesn’t have an official church. But all these countries - US, France, Britain - do share a secular system because they do not allow laws and the legal system itself to be based on any religion.

This is very basic stuff, it really shouldn’t even need pointing out.

I hadn’t heard it was in dispute, but it does seem to be. The searches I did seem to indicate that there is considerable contention over it, with one camp saying it’s unfounded and inconsistent with Madison’s other writings, and the other camp admitting it’s unfounded but saying that it is consistent with his other writings. I’ll take it out of circulation in my own quote index.