Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- transitive v. To transfer from ecclesiastical or religious to civil or lay use or ownership.
- transitive v. To draw away from religious orientation; make worldly.
- transitive v. To lift the monastic restrictions from (a member of the clergy).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- v. To make secular.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- transitive v. To convert from regular or monastic into secular.
- transitive v. To convert from spiritual to secular or common use.
- transitive v. To make worldly or unspiritual.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make secular.
- To make worldly or unspiritual; divest of religious observances or influences: as, to secularize the Sabbath; to secularize the press; to secularize education.
- To convert to or imbue with secularism: as, to secularize the masses.
- Also spelled secularise.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. make secular and draw away from a religious orientation
- v. transfer from ecclesiastical to civil possession, use, or control
Etymologies
Examples
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Perhaps, ultimately, the question boils down to whether, when the explanatory function of the "religious sense" ceases to be plausible, the appropriate response is to "secularize" our understanding of the phenomenon in question, or to simply reinterpret the religious understanding thereof.
Keith Ward, Big Questions in Science and Religion 9: Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete?
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Subsequent to that, Falwell placed some of the blame for 9/11 squarely on a range of Americans -- civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals, abortion rights supporters -- who have tried to "secularize" America.
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This includes all those who wish to make the Church of Jesus Christ into a purely humanitarian society, to rob her of her supernatural character, to secularize and desacralize her.
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Meanwhile, I have found that, contrary to increasingly popular opinion, there is no lurking agenda within public education to secularize our students; there is no tacit understanding between teachers and the state to discourage students from their faith whatever that faith may be.
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Now the fight appears headed to the courts as residents of Giles County, along Virginia's rugged, pious southwestern spine, fight what they call mounting pressure from Washington and Richmond to secularize their public institutions.
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Ataturk used the military to secularize the remnants of the former Ottoman Empire.
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Some movements seek to secularize Buddhism, removing all that inconvenient karmic stuff and focusing on scientific benefits.
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The separation of church and state was not an attempt to secularize America, Kidd argues -- on the contrary, it was a move that achieved the goal of making American soil uniquely fertile for the efflorescence of religion.
Anil Mundra: 'God Of Liberty': The Role Of Religion In American Independence
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Forcing religious organizations to secularize as a condition of participating in publicly funded social services programs would increase government influence on the choices of religious institutions.
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Pressure them to "secularize" to obtain resources that are available to other entities; and
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