Talk:Secular state/Archive 3

France
Feast days aren't christian, those are pagan and older than christian conversion by Roman empire. Easter refers indeed to pagan god Eostre, although the French naming Paques refers to a Hebrew feast. And even those like free Monday named Easter and Pentecost do not match any religious celebration that take place on Sunday. Moreover whereas lot of Christian tradition states celebrates Easter week with Holy Thursday and Friday, those are not holydays in France.

About private schools, there´s no rule or exception for religion, just catholic teaching is a strong historical movement that has outnumbered other private initiatives. A contractual relation upon specific rules has to be set, muslim school has started for instance but many simply fail to comply with official programs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gollan (talk • contribs) 05:17, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

East Timor is a secular state even if the word "secular" is not mentioned. East Timor should be added to the list and map of secular states.
According to the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of East Timor:

Section 12 (Relationship between the State and religious denominations)

1. There shall be no official religion of the State.

2. The State shall respect the different religious denominations, which are free in their organisation and in the exercise of their own activities, to take place in due observance of the Constitution and the law.

3. The State shall promote the cooperation with the different religious denominations that contribute to the well-being of the people of East Timor.

4. The religious denominations have the right to possess and to acquire assets for the achievement of their objectives.

The first paragraph of section 12 of the East Timorese Constitution which forbids the establishment of an official religion of the State, and the second, third and fourth paragraphs of section 12 which correspond with the arguement in the previous paragraph that "A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state or country purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion.", perfectly shows that the state of East Timor is secular. The lack of the word "secular" in a constitution does not always and automatically apply that a state is not secular. The content of section 12 of the East Timorese Constitution definately proves it otherwise. Therefore East Timor should be added to the list and map of secular states.
 * Agreed. Sounds secular to me. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 02:10, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

A criticism section is missing.
The title says it all. Because the secular state doesn't work as advertised and should be replaced with an anti-religion state.

177.102.3.183 (talk) 23:05, 2 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you should have stated clearly if you are for or against an anti-religion state, instead of letting people guess your stance. Anyway, see WP:NOTFORUM. Tgeorgescu (talk)

Nepal
There is a difference between a ban on proselytizing and a ban upon conversion. E.g., Islamic states have a ban upon Muslims converting to another religion, but have no ban upon the believers of other religions converting to Muslim. So, their ban upon conversions is one-way only. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:16, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

China
Why is China there? In China religion is a danger to society. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Tanzania
Tanzania doesn’t have any official religion thus a secular state thought practically it’s a pseudo Christian Muslim state unlike Norway, UK or Argentina which are nominal Christian states by name by in practice mostly secular and same sex marriage is all legal. Nlivataye (talk) 16:16, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Syria
Why isn't Syria counted as a secular state here? Tony Yammine 2004 (talk) 11:22, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Turkey
I'm copying here this message that was left on my talk page by who has been repeatedly moving Turkey from the Asia section to Europe: {{tq2|1=

Turkey is part of Europe
I am from Turkey and I know where is Turkey exactly. You didn't change Russia places? Why? Turkey always attend European competition and we feel European.We applied EU 60 years ago. You can't change the history.You didn't change Russia place but you always change Turkey's continent places.

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrkiye'nin_Avrupa_Birli%C4%9Fi_%C3%BCyelik_s%C3%BCreci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Europe https://travel.usnews.com/rankings/best-europe-vacations/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dogan2000 (talk • contribs) 07:07, 17 September 2020 (UTC) }} Turkey is a transcontinental country, with more than 85% of its population in Asia Minor, not East Thrace. In some cases in Wikipedia it is included both in lists of European countries and Asian countries. But if one or the other category must be chosen, it is sensible to follow the classification by the United Nations Population Division under the region of Western Asia, if possible with an explanatory footnote, as has been done in this article. The Russian Federation, which has almost 80% of its population in geographical Europe, is classified by the UN under Eastern Europe. --IamNotU (talk) 16:14, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Exactly plus Turkey is only 3% in Europe and 97% in Asia so if it’s in Europe entirely then will Egypt be in Asia because the Sinai which is 6% of its territory is in Asia classify when 94% in Africa? About Russia I think it’s the one true transcontinental country; 17 million sqkm which 23% is in Europe which straddles 40% of the continent with 80% of its population there and Siberia(13 million sqkm) entirely in Northern Asia and has 20% of its population plus yes Russians are SLAVIC European peoples Nlivataye (talk) 11:15, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

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Israel and Sudan
Israel isn’t a secular country because it’s a Jewish nation and Sudan is officially a secular country so place the colors; there is no ambiguity there Nlivataye (talk) 11:10, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * The difficulty in distinguishing Jewish ethnic/cultural practices from religious practices, as well as the lack of explicit government establishment of the Jewish religion as a state religion, are important for this article. Israel should remain in the Ambiguous section with explanation. GenericHumanoid (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Jewish state for Jewish people anywhere in the world as the Bible says even when Jews who have lived elsewhere; it’s very clear. It might not be as Jewish as Saudi Arabia is Muslim but still a Jewish state; look even England and Norway where Christianity is the state religion we know in practice they are more secular than Sudan or Tanzania Nlivataye (talk) 06:18, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Nigeria
How is Nigeria secular where the north Islamic law is applied and women can be stoned to death for adultery and homosexuals executed and not to mention many Christian laws as well in the South. Plz remove Nigeria 196.249.97.166 (talk) 07:48, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

This must be something related to the political value and situation of the country. Ofc the laws in the Northern parts of Nigeria are against the constitution for example, but the Northeners would not be willing to remove that. In this case, a secular country is defined by the laws enshrined in its National law and Constitution, the country has to also allow its adherents for freedom of religion. Irrespective of what religion they convert to. For instance, Syria does not have a state religion but in its laws the president must be a Muslim and the law also prohibits Muslims to convert to Non-Muslims (Apostasy laws). Hence it could not be regarded as a secular state either. That also undermines its status as being a Non-secular state, apart from establishing favoured religions as the state religion in the constitution. Eustatius Strijder (talk) 00:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

India Secularity
Recently an editor (24.33.125.148) has removed an entry on India within the Ambiguous section; reliable sources generally argue that India is de jure secular on its constitution though de facto religious in some of its laws. I think it remains allowable in this section; see, and , as there are fair arguments in favor of keeping India as ambiguous. InvadingInvader (talk) 15:22, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Uzbekistan secular?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Uzbekistan Based on the article, Uzbekistan does not have freedom of religion. Hence, can it really be called a secular state?

I add the following with reference with respect to Sri Lanka-Request to update the map
"Sri Lanka" with the reference from: Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student & Home Electronic Edition, and http://www.priu.gov.lk/Cons/1978Constitution/Chapter_03_Amd.htm

Sri Lanka is considered as a secular sate under its constitution. Therefore legally Sri Lanka IS a secular state regardless of what the political party in power support. For example, Mr. Bush supports Christianity like Sri Lanka's current PM and President supports Buddhism. But it is NOT in the Constitution of Sri Lanka. Britannica 2009 Student & Home Electronic Edition also noted that. Please update the map. Also check the SL government site on its constitution at: http://www.priu.gov.lk/Cons/1978Constitution/Chapter_03_Amd.htm

The Criteria for a secular state, Indonesia+Sudan as a Secular state.
The Criteria for a secular state are: 1. The State have no official state religion 2. The State is officially neutral in terms of religion, the state supports neither religion nor irreligion. 3. The State establish freedom of religion 4. The head of state (i.e Kings, Presidents, Vice Presidents and Prime ministers) are not required to be from a certain religious group).

In the U.S Department of state reports on international religious freedom, Syria and Thailand are counted as "not having a state religion", but the latter two countries require their head of state to be of a certain religion, this means that they do not treat everyone equally and are not considered to be a secular state on the final count of this wikimedia commons section for instance. Thailand have been characterised as having Buddhism as the country's de facto state religion.

Again, although secular states have no state religion, the absence of an established state religion does not mean that the state is completely secular or egalitarian. For instance, in the 2019 Constitution, Sudan have removed Islam as the state religion, it removed the requirement of the head of state to be a Muslim and repealed apostasy laws but they still have an Islamic penal code. This still means that they are a secular state. Indonesia does not acknowledge atheism as a religion and recommend each citizen to state their religion on their identity cards, though this is optional. But the laws of Indonesia does not explicitly prohibits atheism. There have been reports of Islamists and Religious conservatives that wants to replace the secular Indonesian penal code with an Islamic one (RUU KUHP 2019) that prohibits atheism and agnosticism, criminalizes sex outside of marriage and witchcraft. But this has not been done yet, at the mean time, Indonesia still uses a secular penal code. A 2019 meeting on the Kongres Pancasila in the University of Gadjah Mada have admitted that in practice the country is a secular state, although this is rarely allowed to be the political philosophy within the country. The U.S Department of State report on the 2020 International Religious Freedom report was: "In January the Alvara Research Center, a sociopolitical survey and marketing of the research company, released Indonesian Moslem Report: The Challenges of Indonesia Moderate Moslems. The study consisted of face-to-face interviews with 1,567 Muslims across 34 provinces. The study's findings included the following: 81.6 percent believed the secular national ideology of Pancasila was an appropriate foundation for the country, while 18.3 percent believed a religious-based ideology would be more appropriate."

Some countries define themselves as secular or as regarded as secular, the criteria are as above. Secular states are not only defined by Constitutional declaration or Constitutional Court ruling, as it has been noted by World Population Review. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/secular-countries. For example Sudan, Laos, Niger, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Indonesia are still regarded as secular states because they fit to the criteria of what a secular state is regardless of whether their political leaders statements on affirming whether the country is a secular state or not. Because the decisions could sometimes be made by certain political interests. Eustatius Strijder (talk) 11:06, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Israel
Israel is a Jewish state even though it can be referred as a nation state for Jewish people ethnically regardless of their religion or lack of there is but there is some religious background to it and the promise land saga so Israel should be Red just like England, Denmark and Zambia even though in practice all are mostly secular Nlivataye (talk) 15:32, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I was talking about Israel why did you send me a report about Indonesia Nlivataye (talk) 09:10, 5 October 2022 (UTC)


 * No, Israel would not be counted as a red or a confessional state here because it does not have a state religion in the Constitution. Israel seems to provide no state religion but provide favoritism to Jewish people in their basic laws, so its an ambiguous state. The red ones are only if the country designates an official religion on the basis of their Constitutional Law. So its not regarded fully as a Non-secular state, a country who does not have a state religion and doesn't require the head of state to be of a certain religion will still be regarded as secular in the List of Secular States by Continent, it cannot be count in the basis of the red block. Indonesia's system is secular and the founding father's of the country have decided to keep the Criminal Code unchanged due to providing a law which applies to all regardless of religion. In the 2017-2019 year, the politics of the country became partly unstable due to not deciding that whether he is a secular state or not in this page! In 2020, a popular Mass Religious Organization was banned due to violating the state's secularity, that is why Indonesia is decided a secular state here through the U.S Department of State International Religious Freedom report. So it is easier to tell who is who.... Eustatius Strijder (talk) 08:55, 20 October 2022 (UTC)