Let us question then...

After having my revealing moment at a young age, I decided to start asking questions.
Asking does not always come natural to us. Sometimes the explanations given to us seemed reasonable when they were not, sometimes we like the explanation enough not to ruin it with questions, and sometimes we just don't even feel like over thinking it.

Having grown heavily into a Roman Catholic environment (which is not the same as saying that I was heavily put into religious environments, just that everyone around me was the same as I was) it all settled naturally in my young mind. God was looking out for us, I had a guardian angel like my grandmother once told me, and I was happy.
Just like any other "truth" given by my older role models, I believed.

At this point, I had noticed that adults were ok with the idea of telling children something false, and later admitting it was all a lie: Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, the Boogeyman, etc...

So that is when I started questioning my religion as well. I wanted to be sure I understood perfectly well why I believed what I had been taught.
The day I started getting some "I don't know" for an answer, was the day I knew I could not stop asking, and the questions kept on coming. The day that I heard an "I don't know" for an answer, followed by "God's ways are higher than ours", I felt someone was telling me to stop asking, and just believe. I had then convinced myself that grown ups were trying to convince me not to demand answers, or explanations; worse: they did not know some of the answers as well!
I felt an excitement about having found an unknown to it all, and curiosity settled in. I was really on to something!

Secular

Secularity (adjective form secular) is the state of being separate from religion.

-wikipedia.

A lot of things can be considered secular, a lot can be considered non-secular, and some can be considered both.
For example, walking can be considered a secular human activity, but in religious cultures where one can walk to a temple in prayer, religious parade, or pilgrimage, that specific walk would be non-secular because it would be connected to religion in some way(s).

A Secular Government would be a Government in which law's are made to be disconnected from religion, and equal to all, not favoring or hurting any group of people based on their religious views or absence of religious beliefs, and giving no special authority to religious groups.
Iran, for example, is a non-secular government, because its supreme leader is also its supreme religious leader.

In the United States of America, Secularism is gaining ground in government, but the connections to religion are still plenty.
The U.S.A. is not the most secular society. The European Union, is more secular in the sense that no religious references are seen in the Euro (European Union's currency), nor are they usually seen in courts, and some of the least religious nations on Earth are in Europe.
However, some European nations are still behind in the Secular race. Portugal's government, for example, is still a nation that provides perks to the Roman Catholic Church while not providing them to other religions, when the fair thing to do would be to help none.


In the United States, it is still imposed on non-believers that they carry non-secular money (not that I mind much, but I would prefer that even Uncle Sam would keep his religion to himself). Because religious people (theists) would probably dislike carrying money that said "In gods we do not trust", the obvious conclusion is always the same: the way to please all, is to keep personal choices (such as religion) private by not forcing them on everyone.

Keeping Government religious free is needed and not the same as removing the right to religion. However, our money, courts, pledges of allegiance, schools, public places in general, and all other civil procedures that any citizen may take part in, should always be free from religion, fair to all, believers or not, or in other words: Secular.

[Quote] Albert Einstein on questioning:

In the previous post, I mentioned questioning. I wanted to question both sides of religion: the believer (which I was) and the non believer's side.
At some point in life I came across famous people's quotes.
One of the world's most intelligent human beings in history once said:

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

I have to admit that once I found out about this quote, I felt really proud to have started my questioning early on in life.
To keep the questioning habit going: Have you been questioning anything lately? ;)