HOW CAN A SECULARIST RESPECT RELIGION AS RELIGION? 

A good definition of religion is that it is interaction between humanity and the world of the supernatural be that God or something else.  A sceptic will see all religion as false for such interaction is in the heads of the devotees.  We have to remember that each religion is secularist with every other religion.  The secularist only looks at all religions in a secular way while the Catholic for example looks at all religion's as manmade entities to be treated on secular terms barring his own religion.

Secularism means that if the state gives religion a day off to pray then it should equally make a day for secularists that bans prayer!

Can secularism when thinking about religion and what it is define religion by the founder? Can the secularists accept that Jesus is Christianity or that Muhammad is Islam? If so then on what level? Do we mean spiritual or social level? Both?

If it is spiritual then a secularist is making a mistake for there is no grace or spiritual power. And if the secularist denies there is anything to the spiritual a divide is caused: the secularist fails to accept what religion is or understand it. Religion certainly demands that it be seen as spiritual otherwise it is just another organisation and nothing special. For where the religious person sees matters of the spirit, the secularist sees only psychology and self-deceit.

If it is social then the secularist should be checking if Christianity was really founded by Christ. Or that Muhammad would approve of Islam. Only history can answer that question about defining. One thing is sure is that there is no evidence that Christ founded Christianity. And as Uthman had the job of picking over the alleged Quranic data left by Muhammad, Uthman is the real founder of Islam. And founding a religion is not everything – Joseph Smith founded his religion but led it into becoming another one. The founder can lead his own religion into apostasy.

A religion is called good for doing the good the state does not want to do or sometimes cannot do such as running hospitals or schools. The praise it gets is strategic. The state does not care if religion is really that good. Liberals and those who praise a religion and its good side are praising it in so far as it disobeys its faith or is thought to. For example, a chaplain who says he helps children in the hospital solely for he loves God will be sacked. One that puts God more into the background will be hailed.  The only reason the chaplain gets paid by the state is because he is not bringing religion as religion to the fore but keeping to the more social stuff.