I refer to Karen Leong's ('Violent and intolerant secularists', Aug 4) and Lee Pusan's ('Secularists, too, should be more open-minded', July 31) letters. There seems to be a common misunderstanding that 'secularism' is a belief system that directly competes with religions; i.e., a religion in itself.

'Secular means "of things not pertaining to religion. For example, Mathematics, Geography, Economics, Shopping, Weather forecasting, Accountancy or even driving a car. One might even add, at the risk of being contentious, "governing a country", which comprises many of those things and more.

I'll say it another way. The absence of something (in this case, religion) does not automatically equate to 'anti-religion' or to "another religion which happens to be called secularism".

You can have a secular government which does not promote one religion to the detriment of followers of other religions, or to the detriment of people who don't, for whatever unknowable reason, believe in any of the hundreds of religions that exist.

You can have a secular government which happily encourages religious practices and ceremonies, without itself applying the doctrines of a specific religion to the general populace. One might even regard that as a desirable state of affairs...but hey, why have an even-handed democracy when you can have a biased theocracy?

For all of the horrible, nasty 'secular' governments Leong cites in her letter, I can quite easily point to them being communist, fascist, or simply as being run by cruel people. Contrary to what Leong says, I was under the impression that the Shah of Iran was a Muslim, who happened to be deposed by other Muslims.

I'd also like to quote her 'secular' Hitler from his Mein Kampf :

"Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's Work."

Hitler was, by the way, Catholic.

So before we're inundated with more lame defenses of fundamentalist orthodoxy in the guise of utterly irrelevant attacks on secular government, let me paraphrase Clint Eastwood from the movie Unforgiven : "Secular's got nothing to do with it."