This article concerns secularity, that is, being secular, in various senses.

The word "secular" is derived from the Latin word saeculum (age), and originally means "happening once in an age". This offers the opportunity for a confusing variety of meanings. A dog is "big" compared to an ant but not compared to an elephant, and "secular" is similarly subject to "relative to what?" ambiguity. But secular also means, in different contexts, long (relative to something else) because an "age" is a long time, and (relatively) short because an age is "not very long compared to eternity". Its usage often stands in contrast to the word sacred. Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... A saeculum is a length of time roughly equal to the lifetime of a person, or about 90 years. ... In various religions, sacred (from Latin, sacrum, sacrifice; or simply in English, holy) objects, places or concepts are believed by followers to be intimately connected with the supernatural, or divinity, and are thus greatly revered. ...

Secular sucks

Secularity as relative worldliness

The Christian doctrine that God exists outside of time led medieval Western culture to fix the meaning of "secular", in contexts related to religion, as indicating the direction away from religious affairs and toward "worldly" (or "temporal", time-related) ones, and this has been extended to apply relative to all religious or spritual beliefs, whether or not they include a similar doctrine. While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existing for an infinite, i. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, for many a symbol of the changes of the Western culture during the Renaissance Western culture refers to the culture that has developed in the Western world. ...

One example is "clerical authority" (referring to matters the church controls) as opposed to "secular authority" (referring to feudal power).

Nevertheless, "secular clergy", for instance, is no contradiction, but rather describes a parish priest, who is secular in comparison to a "religious", a noun referring to a person subject to monastic vows. Roman Catholic priest LCDR Allen R. Kuss (USN) aboard USS Enterprise A priest or priestess is a holy man or woman who takes an officiating role in worship of any religion, with the distinguishing characteristic of offering sacrifices. ... Monasticism (from Greek: monachos—a solitary person) is the religious practice of renouncing all worldly pursuits in order to fully devote ones life to spiritual work. ...

A separate article discusses the various senses of "secularism" in the personal, social, and political spheres, based on this same contrast between religious or spiritual matters on one hand, and secular or worldly matters on the other. // Definition Secularism means: in philosophy, the belief that life can be best lived by applying ethics, and the universe best understood, by processes of reasoning, without reference to a god or gods or other supernatural concepts. ...

The next section contrasts secular in the sense of long term versus short term:

Secular trend

In numerical descriptions, such as of a time series of numbers, a secular trend is the long-term trend in the numbers (up or down), as opposed to a smaller cyclical variation in the time series, with a periodic short-term duration. In statistics and signal processing, a time series is a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive times, spaced apart at uniform time intervals. ...

For example, in the business operating cycle, revenue might fluctuate during the fiscal year; an experienced management can then ignore the cyclical fluctuation in revenue, and concentrate on the 'year over year' trend, hopefully a secular trend upward.

Secular in its most common meaning, means "outside of religion". It can be used in a neutral sense, e.g. when at the end of the 17th century most sonatas were used in church services, a "secular" sonata meant nothing more than a sonata not used in a church service (without any connotation of the composer being religious or not). See secularity as relative worldliness. (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... Sonata (From Latin and Italian sonare, to sound), in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to cantata (Latin cantare, to sing), a piece sung. ...

In current political and philosophical discourse, it refers to a government obeying civil laws (as opposed to religious instructions like the Islamic shariah, the Catholic canon law or rabbinacal law), independently from any religion, and not favoring any particular religion; in addition, secularism also includes the priority of the civil laws over any religious legislation. Nowadays, all major religions accept this, except for significant schools in Islam (which proclaim just the opposite). Look up Civil in Wiktionary, the free dictionary The word Civil is derived from the Latin word civilis, from civis (citizen). Used as an adjective, it may describe several fields, concepts, and people: Civil death Civil defense Civil disobedience Civil engineering Civil law Civil liberties Civil libertarianism Civil marriage Civil...   Islam? (Arabic: الإسلام al-islām) the submission to God is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions, and the worlds second largest religion. ... Sharia (Arabic شريعة also Sharia, Shariah or Syariah) is traditional Islamic law. ...

On the other hand, secular can have the connotation of a dismissive conviction regarding religious matters: see secularism. // Definition Secularism means: in philosophy, the belief that life can be best lived by applying ethics, and the universe best understood, by processes of reasoning, without reference to a god or gods or other supernatural concepts. ...

Secular means pertaining to the world, or worldly; not sacred, but profane; non-religious; from Latin sæculris, f. sæculum generation, age, in Christian language "the World" (especially in opposition to the Church). In various religions, sacred (from Latin, sacrum, sacrifice; or simply in English, holy) objects, places or concepts are believed by followers to be intimately connected with the supernatural, or divinity, and are thus greatly revered. ...

Secular basis

Look up Secularity on Wiktionary, the free dictionary

In the finance industry, something done on a secular basis is on a long-term basis, not a temporary or cyclical one. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary full URL is a sister project to Wikipedia intended to be a free wiki dictionary (including thesaurus and lexicon) in every language. ... Finance studies and addresses the ways in which individuals, businesses and organizations raise, allocate and use monetary resources over time, taking into account the risks entailed in their projects. ...

Secular equilibrium

In radioactive decay, "secular equilibrium" occurs when the daughter of a parent radionuclide has the same level of radioactivity as the parent. To reach secular equilibrium the parent must have a half-life much longer than the daughter. For example, Strontium-90 decays with a half-life of 28.6 years into Yttrium-90. Yttrium-90 has a half-life of 64.1 hours. The quantity of Yttrium will increase due to the decay of Strontium and decrease at a rate proportional to the quantity of Yttrium. After several half-lives of the daughter product the loss of Yttrium by self-decay will match the production of Yttrium by Strontium decay. At this point the two elements are in "secular equilbrium."