Word: secularize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...down a corned beef sandwich the size of her head. And she wasn’t planning to convert anytime soon. The summer ended and I returned to “G-d-less Harvard.” With class selection and academia, my first week back was quite secular, aside from forays to Hillel for the best food on campus. But my interest in the Bible was rekindled when I decided to take a course on the literature of the medieval world. Reading about Paul’s journey to the Third Heaven and the Apocalypse, I came...
Especially in Sydney, we still tend to embrace the disreputable. Organized religion doesn't play one-tenth the part in Australian life that it does in American. The churches have power, but compared with the U.S. our civilization is almost entirely secular. Our state-sponsored education is excellent, and we do not give a cent in subsidies to church schools. And we have fierce democratic commitments that hardly exist in America. It is, for example, a (lightly) punishable offense not to vote in a national election. As for campaign contributions, and all the corruption and perversion of democracy that...
...cease-fire with a powerful militant leader who had taken 213 soldiers hostage in the lawless northwestern region. The irony was not lost on Asma Jahangir, Pakistan's best-known human-rights activist, who wrote in an e-mail from house arrest, "Those [Musharraf] has arrested are progressive, secular-minded people, while the terrorists are offered negotiations and cease-fires...
...Islamist militia is waging a bloody campaign to establish Shari'a law, will become even harder. "Pakistan is very religious, but it is not extremist," says Ahsan Iqbal, information secretary for the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, the party led by Nawaz Sharif. By making this a battle between secular values and extremism, Iqbal says, Musharraf is seeking to justify his actions and appeal to moderate Pakistanis. But Iqbal doubts it will work, as even moderate Muslims have had enough of military rule. "Musharraf is pushing a large chunk of moderate but religious Pakistanis to side with the extremists, even...
...there's little real danger of extremists coming to power, no matter what happens to Musharraf. The Pakistani army is still largely secular. The main political parties--Bhutto's PPP and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League--are moderate. But continued U.S. support for an unpopular Musharraf may complicate Washington's relations with any future civilian government. Pakistanis see Musharraf as America's man and regard U.S. calls for democracy as insincere. "Musharraf is an enemy of Pakistan," says Akhtar Qazi, a 71-year-old retired schoolteacher with anger to match her brightly hennaed hair. "We sacrificed our lives for Pakistan...