Prime Minister Erdogan: ''A secular state is equidistant from all religious groups.''

Turkmeneli TV, 22 April 2008

Adnan Oktar: Let’s relieve the public opinion on the topic. Along with religious people, there are people in Turkey living far removed from religion. Ensuring the life guarantee and peace of these people is very important, just like providing peace for the religious people. These people are to be reassured. Assurance with regard to secularism must be granted to these people.

Press conference on March 8^th, 2008

Adnan Oktar:Secularism is a comfort for Islam, Christianity, and Judaism and for the atheists. Atheists are also human beings and their rights must be protected. This condition can only be preserved in secularism. So secularism is a luxury for humanity. It is a requirement.

Iran Itimat newspaper, 26 October 2008

Adnan Oktar: Secularism is a comfort.It is a great comfort for the Muslims. There is no hypocrisy where there is secularism, and that is a great blessing.  In other words, people honestly express their views, people with no religion say they have no religion, and that is real honesty, they say it completely in the open. In the absence of secularism, hypocrisy spreads. In such climate, a person with no religion claims that he is devout and deceives people around him like an actor.  Who wants that? That is something very ugly. Those who do not embrace the religion are still human beings; they are our citizens and first-class people. That is perfectly normal. Someone may have no religion, but should say it out in the open. Secularism gives a person the freedom to openly state that he has no religion. In addition, it also allows Christians and Jews to live comfortably and in peace. This is very important. Freemasons are also our citizens, and Marxists are also our citizens, and they are all first-class human beings. Of course they must live freely and independently in this country, at genuine ease, and that becomes only possible with secularism.Secularism, democracy and all other concepts of the republic are already inherent in Islam. I am just describing the subject to make it clearer so that it can be understood. The democratic way of thinking, the republic and secularism are the structures dominant in the Qur’an. In other words, people of other religious sects are provided with freedom, compensation and mercy. There is a freedom of ideas; an notion of republic, comfort and safety of the public is essential. We find all of these in the religion. We haven’t collected these ideas from ancient Greece or else. Actually the Ancient Greece or any other thought had copied all these notions from the True religions; either from the sources of the Christianity or the Judaism. The True religions have taught all these to the people.

“Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state of law. As for secularism, a secular state has an equal distance to all religious groups, including Muslim, Christian, Jewish and atheist people,”Mr. Erdogan said during a visit to Tunis, the place where the wave of pro-democracy revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa began late last year.

“Turkey defines secularism as the principle that the state is equidistant from all religions. Secularism is definitely not atheism. I recommend that Egypt too adopt a secular constitution.”These are the words of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a high-profile Egyptian television interview during his first visit to Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

After landing to an enthusiastic welcome in Cairo, Erdogan spoke to Mona el Sali, Egypt’s most famous talk show host. His emphasis was on the issue of secularism and his comment in the taped interview that“secularism doesn’t mean being opposed to religion” caused a stir in the Islamic world, particularly in Egypt which is debating whether a new constitution should be secular or religious in nature.

“Secularism is definitely not atheism. I, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, am Muslim, not secular. ButI am the prime minister of a secular country. In a secular regime people have the freedom to be religious or not,” he continued. “Don’t be afraid of secularism. I hope the new regime in Egypt will be secular.”