The Case for Religion

The Case for Religion
Author: Keith Ward
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1780746709

A brilliant and accessible rebuttal of The God Delusion from one of Christianity's most incisive thinkers In this, his first new book since the best-selling God: A Guide for the Perplexed (Oneworld, 2002), Keith Ward turns his attention to the role - and the validity of religion over the centuries and in the world today. His erudite yet informative and factual narrative outlines the various attempts that have been made throughout history to explain religion, including the anthropological, psychological, sociological and philosophical theories of key thinkers from Immanuel Kant to Sigmund Freud. Adopting a comparative approach, the book covers all the religious traditions from West and East alike, concluding in a compelling manner that not only are the world faiths much more than a series of theoretical perspectives, but that, in the face of discord and violence, religious understanding retains more resonance than ever before within our global community.

The God Argument

The God Argument
Author: A. C. Grayling
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1408837420

There has been a bad-tempered quarrel between defenders and critics of religion in recent years. Both sides have expressed themselves acerbically because there is a very great deal at stake in the debate. This book thoroughly and calmly examines all the arguments and associated considerations offered in support of religious belief, and does so in full consciousness of the reasons people have for subscribing to religion, and the needs they seek to satisfy by doing so. And because it takes account of all the issues, its solutions carry great weight. The God Argument is the definitive examination of the issue, and a statement of the humanist outlook that recommends itself as the ethics of the genuinely reflective person.

God Is Not Great

God Is Not Great
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2008-11-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1551991764

Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

The Religion Clauses

The Religion Clauses
Author: Erwin Chemerinsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0190699736

"The relationship between the government and religion is deeply divisive. With the recent changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, the First Amendment law concerning religion is likely to change dramatically in the years ahead. The Court can be expected to reject the idea of a wall separating church and state and permit much more religious involvement in government and government support for religion. The Court is also likely to expand the rights of religious people to ignore legal obligations that others have to follow, such laws that require the provision of health care benefits to employees and prohibit businesses from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation. This book argues for the opposite and the need for separating church and state. After carefully explaining all the major approaches to the meaning of the Constitution's religion clauses, the book argues that the best approaches are for the government to be strictly secular and for there to be no special exemptions for religious people from neutral and general laws that others must obey. The book argues that this separationist approach is most consistent with the concerns of the founders who drafted the Constitution and with the needs of a religiously pluralistic society in the 21st century"--

Divine Teaching and the Way of the World

Divine Teaching and the Way of the World
Author: Samuel Fleischacker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2011-04-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191617253

Samuel Fleischacker defends what the Enlightenment called 'revealed religion': religions that regard a certain text or oral teaching as sacred, as wholly authoritative over one's life. At the same time, he maintains that revealed religions stand in danger of corruption or fanaticism unless they are combined with secular scientific practices and a secular morality. The first two parts of Divine Teaching and the Way of the World argue that the cognitive and moral practices of a society should prescind from religious commitments — they constitute a secular 'way of the world', to adapt a phrase from the Jewish tradition, allowing human beings to work together regardless of their religious differences. But the way of the world breaks down when it comes to the question of what we live for, and it is this that revealed religions can illumine. Fleischacker first suggests that secular conceptions of why life is worth living are often poorly grounded, before going on to explore what revelation is, how it can answer the question of worth better than secular worldviews do, and how the revealed and way-of-the-world elements of a religious tradition can be brought together.

Why Tolerate Religion?

Why Tolerate Religion?
Author: Brian Leiter
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2014-08-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 140085234X

Why it's wrong to single out religious liberty for special legal protections This provocative book addresses one of the most enduring puzzles in political philosophy and constitutional theory—why is religion singled out for preferential treatment in both law and public discourse? Why are religious obligations that conflict with the law accorded special toleration while other obligations of conscience are not? In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter shows why our reasons for tolerating religion are not specific to religion but apply to all claims of conscience, and why a government committed to liberty of conscience is not required by the principle of toleration to grant exemptions to laws that promote the general welfare.

Women v. Religion

Women v. Religion
Author: Karen L. Garst
Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA)
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2018-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 163431171X

Throughout history, religion has been used as a tool of female subjugation. Women have been deemed less worthy than men, have been prevented from owning property, and worse—all in the name of a higher power. In recent decades, women have made progress in terms of equal rights with men, at least in Western democracies, but still, why has the United States never had a female president? Why aren't more women heads of Fortune 500 companies? Why do politicians in the West continue to attack women's reproductive rights? As this volume explores, it would be hard to find a bigger culprit than religion when identifying the last cultural barriers to full gender equality. With topics ranging from the subjugation of women in the Bible to the shame and guilt felt by women due to religious teaching, this volume makes clear that only by rejecting the very system that limits their autonomy will women be fully liberated from its malignant influences, not just in codified law but also in cultural practice.

Religion and Democratizations

Religion and Democratizations
Author: Jeffrey Haynes
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317986458

This book examines key debates on religion and democratization from three main perspectives: Religious traditions have core elements which are more or less conducive to democratization and democracy; Religious traditions may be multi-vocal – but at any moment there may be dominant voices more or less receptive to and encouraging of democratization; Religious actors rarely if ever determine democratization outcomes. However, they may in various ways and with a range of outcomes be of significance for democratization. The contributions are divided into two sections: (1) Religion, democratization and democracy, and (2) Secularization, democratization and democracy. Overall, they examine the three assertions in the bullet points above. The book’s starting point is that in general around the world, religions have left their assigned place in the private sphere. This means they have in many cases become recognisably politically active in various ways and with assorted outcomes. This re-emergence from political marginality dates back until at least the 1980s. At that time, the US sociologist, Jose Casanova noted that ‘what was new and became "news" ... was the widespread and simultaneous refusal of religions to be restricted to the private sphere’. This involved a remodelling and re-assumption of public roles by religion, which theories of secularisation had long condemned to social and political marginalisation. This book was published as a special issue of Democratization.

The Location of Religion

The Location of Religion
Author: Kim Knott
Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd.
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2005
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781904768753

The book begins by developing a spatial methodology to analyse secular and post-secular religious relations. The spatial approach is then applied to a particular case, that of the left hand. Our understanding of this sinister but intimate 'other' draws on a wide range of ideas, from different religious traditions to alternative paths to salvation and self-realisation ...