French laicite is probably aggressive and antagonistic to the religion, but there are other models of secularism in the world where there could be reconciliation between religion and secularism.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I want the French people to respect values that allow each individual to practice his or her faith, but in the frame of our common rules of secularism.
At the end of the 30 Years War then, Europe broadly decided to separate the sacred from the secular in its political culture. I know that is an oversimplification, but it is instructive, and it led to a growth in religious tolerance that has characterized the best of Western life since.
In Britain, we are not a secular state as France is, or some other countries.
One of the challenges of secularism is that it's not something outside us. In too many instances, secularism has so permeated the church that sometimes it's the frame of reference even for very good people, people who have a strong allegiance to the church.
Secularism does not accept many things as absolutes. Its principal objectives are pleasure and self-interest. Often, those who embrace secularism have a different look about them.
I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument was that secularization and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernization comes more secularization.
There is an absolutely fundamental hostility on the part of totalitarian regimes toward religion.
Many militants of the secular cause look astonishingly like clergy. Worse: like caricatures of clergy.
Politics in America is the binding secular religion.
The secular world is more spiritual than it thinks, just as the ecclesiastical world is more materialist than it cares to acknowledge.
No opposing quotes found.