‘Admitting you are a secularist can get you killed in Pakistan’

H/T Arun

Pakistan Trib:

Published: January 28, 2013

PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: Urdu linguists have distorted the meaning of the word “secular,” and falsely translated it as la-deen (non-religious). The use of the word is so dangerous now that even mainstream leftist political parties in the country are afraid of talking about it.

Civil society representatives highlighted these points as they participated in a seminar titled ‘Democracy and secularism in Pakistan: Its need and importance’, at the Arts Council on Saturday. The event was organised by the Forum for Secular Pakistan. The participants urged political leaders to push for a secular state, “as there can be no democracy in the country without secularism”.

Prof. Dr Jaffar Ahmed, the chairperson of the Pakistan Study Centre, criticised Urdu linguists for “distorting” the meaning of ‘secular’ in earlier dictionaries. The word was originally used to refer to the small pieces of land that common people used to hold in the days when the Catholic Church would own most of the land. The word came to symbolise scientific inventions and progressive thought in the 19th  century, he said.

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“If someone says that he is secular, people would kill him on the spot.”

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

9 Replies to “‘Admitting you are a secularist can get you killed in Pakistan’”

  1. I think it’s about time people really started to look at the best way to live,,Christianity beats all others by a country mile. Things are beginning to happen in our wonderful post Christian utopia that would have caused outrage just a few years ago, fr’instance ‘death pathways’ .Hospitals paid by government to murder their patients.You see to a secularist de humanised humans are ‘just another animal, to be ‘managed’. The ‘clever humans’ view the rest of society with disdain. Only they have the intelligence, the insight to do ‘what is best for humankind’. They have no compunction in ‘thinning out’, culling the useless. Oh they are all loving all caring until they get total power..but once they have a free rein ANYTHING is possible. People don’t understand that, -once a human being has been reduced to just another species the ‘clever apes’ will feel it their duty to do what’s best for the common good – think smoking beagles-skullcrownless monkeys. I do not exagerate, the NAZI’s and the soviets carried out the most wicked medical experiments on their citizens.
    The ‘lower orders’ don’t help themselves. Stripped of the values and restraint engendered by their observance of the Christian faith, they appear to all intents and purposes as wild animals.With their ‘free’ healthcare, their ‘free’ this and their ‘free’ that, and their welfare they have reduced themselves to the level of mere livestock, to be controlled, managed for the good of the herd
    You can’t have genuine democracy WITH secularism. That has been proved often enough. Christianity uniquely frees the human spirit, as it is meant to. It elevates man above ‘the beast of the field’,-as it is meant to.. It bestows rights and responsibilities on the govenors and the governed. It is the only path to human emancipation. Thats why THEY expending so much effort in trying to destroy it.
    In my opinion……………….’The truth shall set you free’

  2. Lol Philip I guess your from the US, do you not understand it is a secular state or are you another religous constitutional relavatist. Ps the inquisition, the persecution of the Jews, pedophile priests ,Christianity best by a country mile.

  3. No actually I’m English. The only things that I relate to are what IS and what WAS. I guess you’re fairly young,so your head’s been messed with at school, and possibly university. So, do YOURSELF a favour, seriously, just for ten minutes say to yourself that you are going to ask what the TRUTH is. NOT what you learned at school,, NOT what NBC and all pump out 24/7, not even what you believe, but the TRUTH. First open your mind up and ask yourself if what you believe is the truth, and then ask yourself if you can listen to someone elses version of the truth and critically evaluate it with an honest, open mind. If you can accept a fact for what it is, even if it is completely at odds with your philosophy. Ask yourself, if someone comes up with a truth a provable fact that you can’t refute do you get angry. Do you feel you have to shout shout down, name call or storm off and blank forever anyone who tells you an inconvenient truth ?
    If your answer to the first set of questions is no, and the second set yes, ask yourself why, Why is a conservatives opinion so dangerous ? Why does the truth make you angry, why can’t you accept
    a fact.
    If you’re philosophy relies on suppressing the truth, and is sustained by lies, it isn’t much of a philosophy is it?, In fact, if it can’t be rationally argued out with self evident facts, if the truth causes it to crumble then it is not a philosophy, it is a DOGMA. Now look in the dictionary and look up the word BIGOT. Now a bigot is someone who holds an opinion on a subject from a position of prejudice, in other words a person who holds an opinion because they do, and no rational argument or pertinent fact – or truth will sway them from that viewpoint. Now ask yourself which one of us is the bigot, and I am not trying to insult you or catch you out, I am asking you who the dictionary definition fits best.
    So, I will answer your comments honestly below in a calm, rational manner.

  4. RIGHT, secular democracy ? that term has only been around for about ten years, and the media et al keep pushing it because they think that if they keep repeating it then people will come to accept it as a fact. It works on some people , not on others, I don’t know about your country,but in my country it is often used alongside the term ‘post Christian society’. Ever heard that ? Doesn’t it kinda suggest that it WAS a Christian society in the recent past? Both our countries still have a majority of citizens who describe themselves as Christians, so in that sense we are certainly still Christian countries.
    Separation of church and state ? Religion a private matter Doesn’t the President swear his oath on a Christian bible ‘So help me God (not sure, so tell me if I’m wrong. Isn’t (until this year, anyway) a Christian prayer an integral part of the ceremony? ‘God Bless America’, the anthem doesn’t say Gods bless America, or whichever God you worship bless America. Kinda gives you a clue doesn’t it ? Until very recently everyone knew who they were asking to bless America. Ihink most, if they’re honest still do.
    ‘ ;In God We Trust’, ‘One nation under God’ ‘All men born equal under God’. Where did these phrases come from, and probably lots more that I can’t think of. Do your courts still require witnesses to swear on the bible They certainly did until recently, and your laws themselves STILL the laws of the Christian bible, though they are gradually trying to chip away at them.
    SO you live in a country who’s population is majority Christian, who’s laws are Christian laws, who’s officials are enrolled with Christian rituals, who’s anthem(s) and constitution are littered with references to God, but you live in a ‘secular democracy’
    So, who has a problem with the truth ?
    Oh, they’re working very hard to bring it about, and to convince people that that was always the case. Fortunately some of us aren’t so easily fooled. Some of us aren’t so easily tricked out of our birthright. I have been around a long time now and I can tell you that forty years ago our respective countries were FAR more Christian than they are now, and forty years ago they were FAR better to live in than they are now, in just about every way, safer, happier, more friendly, more prosperous, more decent.
    Oh they’ll lie about that too,but it is absolutely true, the further we abandon Christianity the worse things are becoming.Hopefully people like yourself will one day see the truth that is being told to you, because if you don’t the future is very grim .
    I’ll try and answer your other points below when I have time

  5. Right, your other points: The Spanish inquisition, Firstly how much do you actually know about it, or Spanish history? How bad was the Spanish inquisition actually ? How much did it have to do with religious zealotry, and how much did it have to do with the fact that the Spanish had only just reconquered their country after 700 years of muslim occupation? 700 years of being second class citizens in their own country. 700 years of being subject to summary justice paying extra taxes (jizya) 700 years of cruel and barbaric punishments.Is there any wonder that they were reluctant to tolerate the enemy within ?
    Persecution of Jews ? It’s unpopular to say, but some sections of the Jewish community do bring resentment on themselves, with their avaricious financial dealings We are supposed to lie about racial characteristics now, but most of the resentment towards the Jewish community throughout history has been caused by usury. I’m not condoning it or professing it, just saying you can see, through history why these things happened.So, occasionally there has been a backlash in Christian countries, usually ending in the expulsion of Jew. Accompanied, it must be said by no small amount of violence, and here I will invoke relativism. We Christians refer to beams and specks.. There has been NOTHING in Christian history remotely comparable to the industrialised murder of the NAZI’s,or the pogroms of the Soviets, or the promise of the muslims to wipe the Jews from the face of the earth. Further to that, when the people did turn on the Jews, their one place of safety was usually a CHURCH.
    Paedophile priests ? Is paedophilia Catholic church policy.? You’d certainly think so the way the media run and run with any transgressions by Catholic priests.
    In europe we are plagued with muslim paedophile gangs.They operate the length and breadth of Britain, and there IS a racial element to it – almost all the kids raped and prostituted by these men are white English girls – in large numbers. So What is the reaction to this child abuse in far greater numbers than Catholic priests AND CURRENT rather than historical?. THEY COVERED IT UP. The entire media, who’d made such a huge fuss about, what amounted a handful of Catholic priest, keeping them in the public conciousness for months. THEY COVERED IT UP, and only two factors forced them to start reporting it. Very much number one : nationalist sites started reporting it and so made it public. Number two: There were so many cases coming to court that they HAD to report it .
    But by FAR the worst aspect of this scandal is that the British authorities KNEW THIS WAS GOING ON FOR OVER A DECADE and they did NOTHING. The Police, the political establishment the social services KNEW. for over a DECADE that these girls, aged as young as ELEVEN were RAPED, TORTURED, PROSTITUTED, made drug addicts and at least one MURDERED.Yet the media hardly report it, and when they do they are always at pains to point that it is only a minority of muslims .See the difference in the treatment ?Paedophilia is a problem in all walks of life, it is regrettable, but it is no more prevalent in the Catholic church than any other area of society where adults have access to children. Some definitely gravitate to places where they can get the opportunity to molest children.

  6. Not sure how an article over Muslims killing secularists in a land that was once all Hindu got turned into a conversation on Western countries and how Christianity is better than secularism as a way to live. Though the conversation generally relates to the article as it is over religion vs secularism, it feels like the point of this particular article is lost.

    As for who they hate more, it depends on who is left or who sticks their head out at that time. Though in Islamic scripture Jews and Christians were offered a third choice to conversation or death, dhimmitude status, that was not initially offered to any other religion or to atheism. And only one of the four schools later offered dhimmitude to other religions but not the other 3 schools. I am not sure atheism was ever offered dhimmitude.