Search results

Various contemporary phenomena of social regression and authoritarianism are related to religious actors, movements, and beliefs. This text, however, seeks to follow this up with the political–theoretical argumentation that New Atheism has to be understood as a way of thinking which carries illiberal and authoritarian tendencies with it as well. In defence of this position, this article will first reconstruct, with reference to Habermas's and Rawls's theory of democracy, elements that must include personal beliefs in order to be considered congruent with democratic values. Subsequently, New Atheism's conception of rational politics will be presented in order to show in which aspects it contradicts the demands of reasonable convictions. This concerns, in particular, the rejection of reasonable pluralism on the one hand and a non-positivistic view of human beings on the other. As a conclusion, this text supports the proposition that, when speaking of the connection between certain worldviews and today's illiberalism, New Atheism must also be considered as an unreasonable comprehensive doctrine.

"Liberalism and Religion" published on by Oxford University Press.

"Church, State, and Political Culture in Orthodox Christianity" published on by Oxford University Press.

The article deals with the implementation of the foundations of a secular state in such Russian mono-religious regions as the Republic of Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic. Since the formation of the Russian Federation, the legal framework of the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia has evolved in the light of national and religious characteristics. The most significant was the influence of Islam. The federal secular legislation has been developed in various forms and ways of expression, taking into account Islamic characteristics.Each of the republics is analyzed for violation of the criteria of secularity, specified in Article 14 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and Article 4 of Federal Law No. 125 "On Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Associations". ; В статье рассматривается реализация основ светского государства в таких российских монорелигиозных регионах, как Республика Ингушетия и Чеченская Республика. С момента образования Российской Федерации правовое поле Чеченской Республики и Республики Ингушетия развивалось с учетом национальных и религиозных особенностей. Наиболее существенным оказалось влияние ислама. Федеральное светское законодательство получило развитие в разных формах и способах выражения, учитывающих исламские особенности.Каждая из республик проанализирована на факт нарушения критериев светскости, указанных в ст. 14 Конституции РФ и ст. 4, Федерального закона №125 «О свободе совести и о религиозных объединениях».

In precolonial Morocco, dominated by a sultanate of religious origin (the Alawite dynasty), political fault lines referred to clans and guilds, in a social and cultural context firmly based on Islam. To defend its borders against both Ottomans and Europeans, Morocco chose a more closed policy than that current in the Middle East, staying at the edge of the progressive and secularizing reforms which were affecting nineteenth century culture and institutions of other Muslim countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia (Burke 1972). The treaty of Fes of March 30, 1912, which placed the country under a protectorate (Rivet 1996), profoundly changed this situation, plunging Morocco into modern dynamics. Though the process was doubtless gradual, it's possible to establish the moment when pre-colonial political dialectics gave way to new forms which would lead the country towards new expressions and contents, in the events which followed the publication of the Berber dahir on May 16, 1930.

The aim of this article is to examine the way in which knowledge-power is exercised in contemporary controversies in healthcare, and what this flexing of discursive muscles shows about the nature of secularity and its relationship to religion. The discussion is focused on two controversial issues at the heart of general medical practice in the UK: the doctor–­patient relationship and complementary and alternative medicine. As will become clear, participation in these debates is not restricted to doctors alone, but increasingly to government departments, professional medical and scientific bodies, therapists beyond the medical mainstream, and patients themselves. What is interesting for scholars of religion is the way in which the debates (which are not confined only to discourse, but are also reflected in physical and social spaces) reveal deep-seated but dynamic values. The debates themselves, and many of the values and opinions expressed in association with them, are ostensibly 'secular', but, as we shall see, 'religion' has an interesting place within them. It variously enters the scene as a crit­ical tool, the butt of jokes, the enemy or a potentially fruitful partner (particularly in its nascent guise as 'spirituality'). The author suggests that there are two important outcomes of this examination: first, the opening up of a secular organisation and exposure of the heterogeneity of value and knowledge positions within it, and, secondly, the recognition that methodological tools from within the study of religions (in this case a spatial analysis for locating religion) can be put to use in such an examination, in pursuit of a fuller understanding of secularity.

Metadata only record ; Research on community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has paid little attention to key assumptions it uses in the analysis of conflict and conflict management. The concepts of pacifism, egalitarianism, communalism, secularism, and rationalism are built into the community-based approach to natural resource management and are often treated as universal principles. In this paper, we examine differences in cultural perspectives on these assumptions. We also invite researchers to ground their practice of conflict management in the different social and cultural settings they encounter. Through the use of a conversational style of presentation and reference to cases presented in this volume, we attempt to bring the reader closer to oral forms of community-based politics, learning, and teaching, as an alternative approach to resolving differences in perspectives on the meaning of conflict and conflict management.

Religious freedom in a secular state : an introduction / Ann Black and Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan -- Civil religion and the rationality of persecution / Darryn Jensen -- In the time of the Covid-19 : law, religious freedom, and the secular state / Ann Black -- Bans on the wearing of burqas, niqabs, and hijabs, religious freedom and the secular nature of the state / Erica Howard -- The 'non-religious' in religion and worldviews education and in the light of the human rights law / Paul Weller -- Religious footprints in secular sand-the imprint of religious culture in civil law / Javier García Oliva and Helen Hall -- The constitutional principle of secularism in the member states of the Council of Europe / Rossella Bottoni -- The religion clauses in the U.S. Constitution / Russell L. Weaver -- Constitutional culture, religion, and England-beyond establishment / Javier García Oliva -- Religious freedom in South Africa / Helena van Collar -- Religious freedom in Australia / Peter Black -- Religious freedom in India and the impact of Hindutva on religious minorities / Md. Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan.

"Many of the successful campaigns for national liberation in the years following World War II were initially based on democratic and secular ideals. Once established, however, the newly independent nations had to deal with entirely unexpected religious fierceness. Michael Walzer, one of America's foremost political thinkers, examines this perplexing trend by studying India, Israel, and Algeria, three nations whose founding principles and institutions have been sharply attacked by three completely different groups of religious revivalists: Hindu militants, ultra-Orthodox Jews and messianic Zionists, and Islamic radicals. In his provocative, well-reasoned discussion, Walzer asks why these secular democratic movements have failed to sustain their hegemony: Why have they been unable to reproduce their political culture beyond one or two generations? In a postscript, he compares the difficulties of contemporary secularism to the successful establishment of secular politics in the early American republic--thereby making an argument for American exceptionalism but gravely noting that we may be less exceptional today"--