File talk:Secularmap.PNG

Eh, this is bull crap. This is just about countries that doesn't have any state religion. --212.247.27.121 15:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Australia!

Most of Australia could be considered un-secular thanks to the Government offering schools $20k to allow local religious volunteers, under the Australian Government's School Chaplaincy Program, to come in once a week and "show the way of Jesus". My personal opinion: What a joke to claim Secularity! This should be given as a warning to potential immigrants but it is a secret to the outside world, now I'm bloody stuck with it. 115.70.168.139 (talk) 14:40, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Tunisia, secular?

Well according to the main topic of religion in the country Islam in Tunisia, it states: "The Constitution declares that Islam is the official state religion and stipulates that the President must be a muslim." It shows it is not a secular country according to your map. Moshin 17:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Where is Laos?

I wonder why this article wasn't included Laos. Remember Laos is a Communist state!

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 22:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Lebanon & Syria

According to both constitutions it does not mention secularism in any of the article's, a country is known secular if mentioned in the constitution itself, it allows people the freedom of practice of thier religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moshino31 (talk • contribs) 16:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It is well known that Syria, unlike Lebanon and many other Arab countries, is a secular state where all religiongs are respected by law and the religious background of people is not mentione in their national ID cards or personal documents (ulness requested by a Family Court). A citizen religion is not allowed to affect people chance to secure a job or study opportunity.. etc.

Article 35 of the Syrian Constitution says:

1. The freedom of faith is guaranteed. The state respects all religions.
2. The state guarantees the freedom to hold any religious rites, provided they do not disturb the public order.

Therefore, the colour denoting Syria should be changed accordingly. Ralhazzaa (talk) 03:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Argentina

Where in the "source" says that Argentina is a Religion State? Where does it even mention Argentina? Which religion do they have there? -- Loukinho (talk) 08:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

- Argentina does have a state religion. It's states in the Article 2 of the Argentine Constitution.

 "Section 2.- The Federal Government supports the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion."
 http://www.senado.gov.ar/web/interes/constitucion/english.php  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.15.173.125 (talk) 00:37, 10 May 2012 (UTC) 

United Kingdom

How can anyone seriously create a map like this and put that the UK is 'ambiguous or no data'! Of any Western State England is clearly one with a State Religion with the Head of State the Head of the Church of England. I suggest that the whole article be removed to allow someone with a bit of knowledge to write a new one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.188.25.39 (talk) 22:04, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

All of the united kingdom is officially protestant. not just England. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.52.89 (talk) 11:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That's wrong. There is no established church in Scotland, for instance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.229.76.221 (talk) 05:58, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Frankly I think they should at the very least, highlight England. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 21:53, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

The Church in Wales has been disestablished, but the churches of England and Scotland are prettymuch established churches. 31.205.19.231 (talk) 04:59, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Full of errors

It seems like this map is mostly WP:OR with not much fact to back up the claims. Many errors are listed above, I'll add the case of Finland that is blue here although it should be in red. I'll remove this map from articles untill the creator has fixed it or at least cared to adress all the concerns raised here. JdeJ (talk) 10:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Israel

Does this really need to be said? While Israel does guarantee freedom of religion for citizens, it is in its very conception a state whose established religion is Judaism. A Jewish and democratic state is still, undeniably, a Jewish state. A secular nation could not have such an office as the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, nor could it have a "Law of Return" delimited by religious identity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.49.43.222 (talk) 01:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

This issue was never addressed. I think it would be more appropriate for Israel to be grey, since there's some ambiguity on its position on state religion.Hihellowhatsup (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's been discussed quite extensively, including with multiple topic sections on this page as well as others... I don't know what your talking about with "never addressed". And to the post above, I would note that Israeli law considers an atheist whose mother was considered a Jew to be Jewish, meaning there's clearly a non-religious (and instead, ethnic) basis for inclusion here.--Yalens (talk) 03:26, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Bangladesh and Tadjikistan ? Tunisia ?

The religion state of Bangladesh and Tadjikistan is Islam. Tunisia is officialy a secular state.

The US

Why is the US considered a secular country? They swear to god in court and on the money it clearly says "In God we trust". Is that really secular? Where did this info come from? Who rated it? Evalowyn (talk) 18:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it's labelled that because of the first amendment of the Bill of Rights "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Religious people are allowed to vote with core values influenced by God, but no denomination can ever be declared the mandatory national religion like King Henry VIII did in England. There probably should be different shades of red. ThePepel-Eterni (talk) 23:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Germany

German taxpayers pay 10billion € every year to church.--91.15.57.22 (talk) 15:31, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Germany is actually more under the category "ambiguous". --Datu Dong (talk) 13:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

remove Bangladesh

Bangladesh is not a secular state - Islam is the official religion of Bangladesh, as stated in the Constitution of Bangladesh. See: Article 2A (inserted by the Constitution Eighth Amendment Act, 1988). Here is a news article [1] from The Daily Star, the largest circulating English daily newspaper in Bangladesh. 117.204.91.81 (talk) 17:24, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Britain and the Church of England

Britain is not really secular. The political royalty are the head of their church. ThePepel-Eterni (talk) 23:47, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Only England has a state religion. Scotland, Wales, and N.Ireland are all officially secular. Burbridge92 (talk) 09:52, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Your use of the word 'officially' is really funny. It's funny because the House of Lords (their upper house of government) requires the attendance of Bishops from the Church of England. The only real distinction between a King (or Queen) and a dictator is that the King (or Queen) has been religiously appointed their position. If you are trying to make the claim that the UK is not secular, then go ahead and change their control into a dictatorship. You can't play both sides and try to slide through the middle. STEVENJ0HNS 1 (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Norway

Norway became a secular country recently, the map must be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eisenbahnmorser (talk • contribs) 12:30, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

The bias and propaganda in this image

Let's knock the out the most obvious one (which has been mentioned above): Israel. How on Earth can we consider Israel to be a secular state when they are clear in their intentions and actions? Actually, let's hold onto this for a moment.

• The US, UK, Australia, and various other countries enforce Christian holy days as federal public holidays. Australia, specifically, requires the employer to pay penalty rates if the employee is to work on one of these public holidays. The significance of this is that an employer is essentially obligated to pay the employee (and the state, as it is taxable income) a substantially higher rate if the employee is required to work on those days.
• The official motto of the United States is "In God we trust" was implemented specifically to show communists that the US is not a secular state. This motto was again reviewed by the senate in 2006 and accepted. It is also found in the country's national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.
• The UK constitution has various references to God, as well as being prominently mentioned in it's national anthem: God Save the Queen.

Returning to Israel, they do not have a constitution, and their de-facto "Basic Law" that serves as it's constitution specifically mentions Israel as a Jewish state.

The constitution of Iraq, in particular, makes several references to granting full religious rights and freedom to non-Muslims, specifically mentioning Christians, Yazidis, and Mandean Sabeans in Article 2. It continues on to mention in Article 14 "Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, origin, color, religion, sect, belief or opinion, or economic or social status."

It seems that Arab or Islamic states have been judged to a different standard than non-Arab or Islamic states in this graphic. As a result, I suggest that it is either heavily reviewed and corrected and this file is then flagged for deletion, or that the file is flagged for deletion with no revision in it's place. STEVENJ0HNS 1 (talk) 00:36, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Herzl's ideology of Zionism views Jews as both a religious community and as an ethnic group- i.e. one is still a Jew if they have a Jewish mother and consider themselves Jewish, even if they don't practice the religion. When Israel is called a "Jewish state" it means "state of the Jews", not "state for the Torah religion."

References to God, public holidays and so on don't change the fact of a state being secular if it defines itself so. Indeed, many people reference God in everyday speech with no religious connotation ("Oh my God!", "ach mein Gott", etc) and celebrate originally religious holidays without any religious meaning. If it declares no official religion, then it has none, period, no matter how many times the word God shows up.

As for Iraq, just because its constitution supports equal rights between religious communities doesn't change the nature of Islam being official. Although discrimination in favor of the official religion does often historically occur, statements against such discrimination don't erase Islam's declared status as Iraq's official religion. Article Two: "Islam is the official religion of the State and is a foundation source of legislation." There you have it, an official religion, explicitly described as such. And to say so is "propaganda", you say?

The standard actually isn't so horrendously lopsided: it's merely how the states declare (or don't declare) themselves officially. There are fuzzy cases, sure, but it's definitely not "propaganda."--Yalens (talk) 18:08, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I strongly agree that US, UK, Australia and Israel are not secular states. Turkey is also NOT a secular state. The "laicite" act in Turkish constitution is just a window dressing. It has no function. see: Presidency of Religious Affairs. For Israel -as a jewish state; it is not possible to call it "secular." It would be a zionist move to call Israel a secular state. "Israel" as a word is a religious name. All the flag, rituals, laws, symbols, etc. are religious. "Jew" itself is a religious category. Jew is an Ethnoreligious group. An ethnoreligious group is a religious group by definition. You become a Jew by converting to Judaism. And children of Judaists (Jews) are Jew -of course. Just like children of Muslims are Muslim and children of Christians are Christian. If there is a way of "converting" into a group then it is a religious group. Nonreligious designation is "hebrew". see: One-state solution--144.122.104.211 (talk) 18:56, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not denying Jewish is a religious group- it just happens to also be an ethnic group, of which one can be part without practicing the religion (conversely, if a Christian or Muslim becomes an atheist, they are no longer considered Christian/Muslim). And seriously, hardly anyone converts to Judaism except (mainly in very modern times) because they marry a Jew, though perhaps you forget this because your IP address is from Turkey, where Jews no longer live in large numbers. Nobody denies that Jews are a religious community, but one also shouldn't deny that there is also an ethnic group that includes everyone in the religious group as well as nonpracticing members, which is based on culture and ethnicity.

It seems to me that you are mainly motivated by political views, seeing as how you condemn calling Israel secular as a "zionist move" (by the way, you actually made my argument for me: of course it's Zionist- the whole state of Israel is!).

The picture is determined by how the countries define themselves, not by propaganda. If you have another system, then we can discuss it, but it seems you guys are just carping because you don't like it. --Yalens (talk) 19:16, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Thailand

Thailand does NOT have a state religion as indicated in the map. The only article in the Constitution which comes close is: "Article 9: The King is a Buddhist and Upholder of Religions", and "Section 79. The State shall patronise and protect Buddhism as the religion observed by most Thais for a long period of time and other religions, promote good understanding and harmony among followers of all religions as well as encourage the application of religious principles to create virtue and develop the quality of life."

The debate was had on whether to specify Buddhism as the state religion, but that notion was rejected. 198.103.104.11 (talk) 23:09, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Apparently, there is no reference for any state religion, though some monks tried to change this in 2007 and were thwarted ([[2]] [3] [4]). It should be changed to either gray or blue. --Yalens (talk) 23:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

The only source I could find that describes it as having an official religion (Buddhism) is a tourism site, which isn't exactly an authoritative source. --Yalens (talk) 23:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Map is Problematic, at the Very Least

I just logged in, and I am doubting that the map is accurate. I appreciate the user who put this together, but I worry that it was haphazardly researched. I was particularly surprised by Europe, as I know that there *were* established Churches in Scandinavia. After a bit of research, I found that Sweden and Norway only RECENTLY got rid of their Separation of Church and State. Norway did this only in May 2012. So those are accurate, at least.

Another problem: the idea that there is "no data" for the United Kingdom. England has an established Church that is the state Church; citizens of the UK are not obliged to join, however. If the other non-English parts of the UK (Scotland, Wales, etc.) are not part of this arrangement), then we should color them differently as we do in, i.e., states of the United States and Mexico in the Same Sex Marriage article.

I disagree with the person who thinks that the US is not a secular state; I'm not doubting that most of the countries are accurate, but, in particular, there are many shades of grey. I am going to take the picture down until we decide a better way to color the map. Perhaps the year that the state decided to separate itself from the Church? Would that be better? --cpsteiner 19:25 UTC 5 Mar 2013 —Preceding undated comment added 19:26, 5 March 2013 (UTC)