Word: seculare
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...sounds of conch shells and clashing cymbals, a mob of Hindu fanatics wielding pickaxes, crowbars and bare hands descended upon the Babri mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya and razed it. Never mind that the Supreme Court of India, eager to preserve the nation as a secular state in which all religions are respected, had ordered that the mosque be left alone. The existence of the mosque, built by a nobleman of a Mughal Emperor in 1528 on the spot where the Hindu god Rama is said to have been born thousands of years earlier, was deemed an insult...
...India's political fabric. What was challenged at the mosque was not merely a Muslim presence on a piece of ground held sacred by two religions, but the notion that India, a Third World superpower, can remain what its 20th century founders intended it to be: a tolerant, secular state of many ethnic identities, religions and languages...
...time to wake up and smell the eggnog. We're celebrating Christmas. And for all practical purposes, it's a secular occasion, even though it does commemorate the birth of Jesus. In case anyone didn't notice, it's a national holiday. And the fat white guy with the hardened arteries in the red suit looks too much like Karl Marx to have any connection with the kid in the manger...
...then there's the tree thing. Every year a few people bitch and moan about the presence of this religious artifact in house dining halls and JCRs. I say, bullfeathers. These erstwhile evergreens are about as secular as it gets, unless they're bedecked with a cross or an angel or Donny and Marie Osmond paraphernalia...
Russians are constantly looking for a leader who will be a secular version of the beloved St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Centuries of setbacks have not shaken their confidence that someday a Good Czar will finally appear with a quick fix for all their problems. Since no one ever measures up to these great expectations, Russians soon tire of the incumbent. They sink into apathy or pin their hopes on samozvantsy -- the numerous pretender czars of Russian history who rose out of nowhere to challenge the powers that be. Yeltsin donned this historic mantle when he led his populist crusade against...