Faith, Freedom, And Value

Faith, Freedom, And Value
Author: Randolph M. Feezell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0429710186

This book contains a series of philosophical conversations between two old college friends and provides a readable and clear examination of certain fundamental philosophical questions. It shows introductory students some of the standard arguments in the history of philosophy.

This Life

This Life
Author: Martin Hägglund
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1101873736

Winner of the René Wellek Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Millions, and The Sydney Morning Herald This Life offers a profoundly inspiring basis for transforming our lives, demonstrating that our commitment to freedom and democracy should lead us beyond both religion and capitalism. Philosopher Martin Hägglund argues that we need to cultivate not a religious faith in eternity but a secular faith devoted to our finite life together. He shows that all spiritual questions of freedom are inseparable from economic and material conditions: what matters is how we treat one another in this life and what we do with our time. Engaging with great philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel and Marx, literary writers from Dante to Proust and Knausgaard, political economists from Mill to Keynes and Hayek, and religious thinkers from Augustine to Kierkegaard and Martin Luther King, Jr., Hägglund points the way to an emancipated life.

The Impossibility of Religious Freedom

The Impossibility of Religious Freedom
Author: Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2018-04-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0691180954

The Constitution may guarantee it. But religious freedom in America is, in fact, impossible. So argues this timely and iconoclastic work by law and religion scholar Winnifred Sullivan. Sullivan uses as the backdrop for the book the trial of Warner vs. Boca Raton, a recent case concerning the laws that protect the free exercise of religion in America. The trial, for which the author served as an expert witness, concerned regulations banning certain memorials from a multiconfessional nondenominational cemetery in Boca Raton, Florida. The book portrays the unsuccessful struggle of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish families in Boca Raton to preserve the practice of placing such religious artifacts as crosses and stars of David on the graves of the city-owned burial ground. Sullivan demonstrates how, during the course of the proceeding, citizens from all walks of life and religious backgrounds were harassed to define just what their religion is. She argues that their plight points up a shocking truth: religion cannot be coherently defined for the purposes of American law, because everyone has different definitions of what religion is. Indeed, while religious freedom as a political idea was arguably once a force for tolerance, it has now become a force for intolerance, she maintains. A clear-eyed look at the laws created to protect religious freedom, this vigorously argued book offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society. It will have broad appeal not only for religion scholars, but also for anyone interested in law and the Constitution. Featuring a new preface by the author, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society.

The Myth of American Religious Freedom

The Myth of American Religious Freedom
Author: David Sehat
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2011-01-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199793115

In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

Faith in Freedom

Faith in Freedom
Author: Thomas Szasz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2017-07-12
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1351520741

The libertarian philosophy of freedom is characterized by two fundamental beliefs: the right to be left alone and the duty to leave others alone. Psychiatric practice routinely violates both of these beliefs. It is based on the notion that self-ownership—exemplified by suicide—is a not an inherent right, but a privilege subject to the review of psychiatrists as representatives of society. In Faith in Freedom, Thomas Szasz raises fundamental questions about psychiatric practices that inhibit an individual's right to freedom. His questions are fundamental. Is suicide an exercise of rightful self-ownership or a manifestation of mental disorder? Does involuntary confinement under psychiatric auspices constitute unjust imprisonment, or is it therapeutically justified hospitalization? Should forced psychiatric drugging be interpreted as assault and battery on the person or is it medical treatment? The ethical standards of psychiatric practice mandate that psychiatrists employ coercion. Forgoing such "intervention" is considered a dereliction of the psychiatrists' "duty to protect." How should friends of freedom—especially libertarians—deal with the conflict between elementary libertarian principles and prevailing psychiatric practices? In Faith in Freedom, Thomas Szasz addresses this question more directly and more profoundly than in any of his previous works.

World of Faith and Freedom

World of Faith and Freedom
Author: Thomas F. Farr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2008-11-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0195179951

Most trouble spots have some sort of religious component, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Israel and Palestine. These conflicts are of great geo-political importance and of interest to the US. Yet, argues Farr, our foreign policy is handicapped by an inability to understand the role of religion in these places.

Making Sense of God

Making Sense of God
Author: Timothy Keller
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2016-09-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0525954155

We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age

Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age
Author: Nelson Tebbe
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2017-02-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674971434

Tensions between religious freedom and equality law are newly strained in America. As lawmakers work to protect LGBT citizens and women seeking reproductive freedom, religious traditionalists assert their right to dissent from what they see as a new liberal orthodoxy. Some religious advocates are going further and expressing skepticism that egalitarianism can be defended with reasons at all. Legal experts have not offered a satisfying response—until now. Nelson Tebbe argues that these disputes, which are admittedly complex, nevertheless can be resolved without irrationality or arbitrariness. In Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age, he advances a method called social coherence, based on the way that people reason through moral problems in everyday life. Social coherence provides a way to reach justified conclusions in constitutional law, even in situations that pit multiple values against each other. Tebbe contends that reasons must play a role in the resolution of these conflicts, alongside interests and ideologies. Otherwise, the health of democratic constitutionalism could suffer. Applying this method to a range of real-world cases, Tebbe offers a set of powerful principles for mediating between religion and equality law, and he shows how they can lead to workable solutions in areas ranging from employment discrimination and public accommodations to government officials and public funding. While social coherence does not guarantee outcomes that will please the liberal Left, it does point the way toward reasoned, nonarbitrary solutions to the current impasse.

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy
Author: David M. Elcott
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2021-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268200599

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.