Secularism, secular state and religious freedom

Abstract

The historic separation of the Church and the State, as an immediate product of secularism, informs the reality of secular state, a state without official religion. This paper attempts to understudy the extent to which secularism enhances religious freedom within the frame of secular state. With the tools of phenomenological hermeneutics and critical analysis, the paper finds that, although more feasible within secular states, religious freedom and human rights are possibilities relative to existential circumstances of states, irrespective of their secular or non secular leanings.