1843: secular Jan 1, 2020

The word 'secular' has been around for a long time, but has only been antonymous with 'religious' since the Enlightenment. Before this, it meant 'of generations' and related to the passage of time in a fairly areligious sense. Even after the shift in meaning however, it is often difficult to transfer this term to other, non-western cultures, because many other religions do not hold the natural and supernatural world as dichotomous. This has led to Japan being legislatively both a secular and Shintoist nation.
Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

1511: "I'll be home in 3 days; don't wash" Might be False Jan 31, 2019

852: delilah Apr 8, 2017

Important Announcement: Blogspot Access Will Close