Hi my name is Abdullah Sameer and I am out here in the wintery cold Canada to tell you
a bit about secularism.
What is secularism?
Secularism is actually separating the church and state, meaning the mosque, the temple,
the church does not get involved in politics or ruling or laws of the government.
By having such laws, we have freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and we're able to live
our lives without worry about being persecuted for what we believe.
I was a practising Muslim for 15 years here in Canada and I never had to feel scared to
show that I was a Muslim.
I used to have a big beard, and I used to pray at the office, I used to tell them openly
that I was Muslim and I don't drink or eat pork or certain activities I could not be
involved in - didn't want to work for any bank jobs, and this is for religious reasons.
Canada protected my rights as a Muslim not to be discriminated against.
I was able to go for friday prayers, to say my prayers 5 times a day.
I wasn't scared that because of my religious beliefs I would be discriminated.
Secularism allows societies to grow.
If it's not for secularism, we would be stuck in the dark ages.
If you look at Galileo, he challenged the idea that the sun went around the Earth and
because of that he was persecuted by the church, they put him in jail and threatened him with
torture.
Why were they able to do that?
Because the church and the state were closely linked.
It should never be that way.
If you allow such things, you will end up with sunnis persecuting shias like in Saudi
Arabia, or in Iran there's shias persecuting Sunnis, or you'll end up with state sanctioned
terror against minorities, a situation in Saudi Arabia, or even in Israel where the
Orthodox Jews didn't want to allow Christmas trees in the hotels because it went against
their religion.
Secularism protects and allows minorities including believers and non believers both
to express themselves and say what they want and to live their lives without fear of being
harmed for what they believe.
On top of it, I was free to promote Islam, I had an islamic website and I was promoting
it, and I wasn't scared I was going to go to jail for that because I was allowed to
talk about stuff like that without fear of being persecuted, whereas in some countries
you can actually be tortured, like in Saudi Arabia some atheists are being sent to jail
and lashed and whipped for doubting Islam or for criticizing any Islamic theology.
Who is to say which version of Islam is the correct one?
What if your particular sect doesn't agree with some of the practices of the other sects?
Does that mean you are allowed to persecute them?
Of course not.
Here I am, I wanted to make this message hoping for a better world, a world where people are
free to live their lives the way they want without persecution, how we can criticize
scientific ideas and not worry about religious dogma getting in the way.
Stem Cell research is another thing that is being blocked in the states because of religious
values and secularism and a strong division between church and state helps us to avoid
such things.
Anyways thanks for watching, take care, bye.