The battle for secularism has leaped to center stage worldwide; we find it being contested or defended everywhere. Of the world's fifty-seven Islamic countries, virtually all except Turkey and Tunisia attempt to safeguard or enact Islamic law (sharia) as embodied in the Qur'an. Radical Islamists wage jihad against the secular society. Pope Benedict XVI rails against secularism, portraying it as the major challenge to Roman Catholicism. There have been attempts in Eastern Europe to reestablish the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the United States, the religious Right and its spokespersons—among them Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly, George Weigel, and Newt Gingrich—vociferously castigate secularism. Mitt Romney claims that freedom requires religion (since when?). He says nothing about the rights of unbelievers in America and accuses them of wishing to establish "the religion of secularism." Regrettably, leading Democratic candidates have thus far remained silent rather than defend the secular society for fear of antagonizing religious supporters. Nevertheless, secularism is growing; it is essential for flourishing vibrant, pluralistic, democratic societies and especially important in today's developing countries...
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Bad Vibrations by A.C. Grayling
on the battle for the soul of a science
Physics is beset by serious problems, and it is so because of physics. By the first use of the word “physics” here I mean a set of scientific theories about the structure and properties of the material universe, and by the second I mean the human endeavour of enquiry which produces, examines and develops those theories. Call them physics-1 and physics-2 respectively.
On the Archbishop's 8 March Centennial Message by Azar Majedi
Perhaps Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury thought his statement about Sharia Law would be received enthusiastically as well-intended and an effort to reduce racial tensions in the society. However, his proposal got him into trouble. He was attacked from right and left. Those who saw their “white Christian culture” under threat asked for his resignation. Women’s rights activists, secularists and such like attacked him for the negative effects of Sharia Law on human rights, particularly the disastrous effects of such a practice on women in so-called Muslim communities. In response to harsh criticism he tried to qualify his proposal by stating that he did not mean the whole Sharia Law, but in family matters. He has just missed the point...
The Sacred and the Human by Roger Scruton
It is not surprising that decent, sceptical people, observing the revival in our time of superstitious cults, the conflict between secular freedoms and religious edicts, and the murderousness of radical Islamism, should be receptive to the anti-religious polemics of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others. The "sleep of reason" has brought forth monsters, just as Goya foretold in his engraving. How are we to rectify this, except through a wake-up call to reason, of the kind that the evangelical atheists are now shouting from their pulpits?
In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson
American culture's overemphasis on happiness misses an essential part of a full life
Ours are ominous times. We are on the verge of eroding away our ozone layer. Within decades we could face major oceanic flooding. We are close to annihilating hundreds of exquisite animal species. Soon our forests will be as bland as pavement. Moreover, we now find ourselves on the verge of a new cold war.
But there is another threat, perhaps as dangerous: We are eradicating a major cultural force, the muse behind much art and poetry and music. We are annihilating melancholia.
But there is another threat, perhaps as dangerous: We are eradicating a major cultural force, the muse behind much art and poetry and music. We are annihilating melancholia.
The End of Postmodernism: The “New Atheists” and Democracy by Tina Beattie
The Economist recently published a colour supplement titled "In God's Name: A Special Report on Religion and Public Life" (3 November 2007). The accompanying leading article included a rueful admission: "The Economist was so confident of the Almighty's demise that we published His obituary in our millennium issue." There is an almost palpable sense of discomfort at a leading international journal finding itself confronted with the unexpected resurgence of religion as a newsworthy topic which merits serious debate...
Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism By Martha Nussbaum and Charles Taylor
I
In Rabindranath Tagore's novel, The Home and the World, the young wife Bimala, entranced by the patriotic rhetoric of her husband's friend Sandip, becomes an eager devotee of the Swadeshi movement, which has organized a boycott of foreign goods. The slogan of the movement is Bande Mataram, "Hail Motherland." Bimala complains that her husband, the cosmopolitan Hindu landlord Nikhil, is cool in his devotion to the cause:
And yet it was not that my husband refused to support Swadeshi, or was in any way against the Cause. Only he had not been able whole-heartedly to accept the spirit of Bande Mataram.
'I am willing,' he said, to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.'
Americans have frequently supported the principle of Bande Mataram, giving the fact of being American a special salience in moral and political deliberation, and pride in a specifically American identity and a specifically American citizenship a special power among the motivations to political action...
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