Word: secularism
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Consider the debate over abortion. The majority of those who are pro-life come from a religious background, and often simply cite God and the sacred nature of all creatures in their arguments against abortion. For the secular contingent, these arguments are meaningless, and thus unpersuasive. Instead of just opposing the pro-life rhetoric, those who are pro-choice often displace their frustration and resentment onto religion itself, and its interference in political matters. In this way, animosity towards opposing views in the political realm is transferred onto God and religion...
...doctrine to political affairs creates this hostile, polar environment and even gradually alienates the religious. Religions are based on complex ideologies, far more intricate than simplistic moral absolutes that tend to rear their heads in the political sphere. Ironically, this means that, even in a climate of opposition, the secular and religious camps really ought to be able to agree on one thing: to preserve their separation...
Other members of the audience responded positively to Diggs’s secular approach to the issue of abstinence...
...operatives; they were closer to those freelance fruitcakes of pulp fantasy fiction, Fu Manchu and Ming the Merciless. Issuing dreadful warnings, plotting mass destruction from remote redoubts and sending their thugs to do the dirty work, the Scaramangas and Ernst Stavro Blofelds of Bond fiction could have been the secular antecedents of Osama bin Laden...
...Whether the charges against the accused will stand in a court of law remains to be seen. What is clear is that India now faces a dangerous epidemic of violent communalization, which threatens to polarize the polity and destroy the secular character of the state...