Effect of 9/11.
- Challenged the idea of endism in the west.
- Revitalised the belief in irrationality of religion.
- Challenged western idea of religion as a private matter.
- Emphasised entanglement of religion and politics.
Procedural secularism.
The state should take into account all perspectives, but with no preference and complete equality between religion and non-religious people.
Programmatic secularism.
Religion should be removed from the public sphere and authorities should take a purely secular role.
Barack Obama quote on secularism.
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated must translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific values.”
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, book and analysis.
‘Faith in the Public Sphere’, promotes procedural secularism as a Christian idea and something that should be embraced by Christians as an opprunity to share the gospel and prevent the ‘privitisation of faith’.
La laïcité.
French principle separating Church and state, with a programmatic approach to religion.
Secularisation.
Process of actively secularising society through removing religion from the public sphere.
Why secularisation is hard to measure.
- Opinion on what makes someone religious differs.
- People may not attend church as it is no longer a social standard.
- Older insitutions may just have less authority.
August Comte’s secular positivism.
A humanist Church which puts human ability and achivement as the direction of praise rather than the transcendent.
Freud’s wish fulfillment.
People’s unfulfilled needs from their infantile staged being fulfilled through the subconsious.
What did Freud call religion.
A mind projection.
Keith Ward’s criticism of Freud.
That he had a reductionist attitude that did not account for millions of religious experiences which had positive outcome.
What did Romain Rolland write to Freud about.
The oceanic experience.
Other critcisms of Freud.
- Neuroses doesnt disprove religion.
- Many forms of religion do not include a God figure.
- Some find religion to be an escape from mental disorder.
Richard Dawkins argument.
- Religion causes violence.
- Religion causes child abuse.
- The God Hypothesis is weak.
Steven Jay Gould’s NOMA.
Non-Overlapping Magisteria, claiming faith and science are completely different so cannot contradict one another.
Dawkins argument to NOMA.
Everything must be subject to scientific reasoning or else everything would be too believeable.
Alistar McGrath’s argument to Dawkins.
- People take leaps of faith without science daily.
- Dawkins offers no atheist alternative to the ‘God of the gaps’ issue.
- Religion and violence are not mutually exclusive.
Charles Taylor’s subtraction stories.
Theories made to demonstrate the truth of secularism by removing religion.
Charles Taylor’s argument against secularisation.
- Breaks down community.
- Western society is in a phase of non-belief.
- For most of history, society has believed in divinity.
- Secularisation leads to a loss in the fullness and magic of life.
What does Terry Eagleton call secularism.
“Largely doomed because religion is an exceedingly hard act to follow.”
Terry Eagleton’s argument against secularisation.
- Religion allows for high praised art and media.
- Capitalism causes privitisation and ethical systems, causing alienation of the workers.
- Fundementalist religion is as bad as secularisation and the lack of cooperation causes tension and violence.
Amsterdam Declaration.
2002 declaration of the 7 key concepts of humanism.
Pro-religious school arguments.
- Allows more diversity.
- Support unique culture and belief.
- Have a better understanding of faithful children.
