"This book attempts to equip the reader with a holistic and accessible account of Islam and evolution. It guides the reader through the different variables that have played a part in the ongoing ...dialogue between Muslim creationists and evolutionists. This work views the discussion through the lens of al-Ghazālī (1058-1111), a widely-known and well-respected Islamic intellectual from the medieval period. By understanding al-Ghazālī as an Ash’arite theologian, a particular strand of Sunni theology, his metaphysical and hermeneutic ideas are taken to explore if and how much Neo-Darwinian evolution can be accepted. It is shown that his ideas can be used to reach an alignment between Islam and Neo-Darwinian evolution. This book offers a detailed examination that seeks to offer clarity if not agreement in the midst of an intense intellectual conflict and polarity amongst Muslims. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Science and Religion, Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Islamic Studies, and Religious Studies more generally. "
We use data from a nationally representative survey to analyze anti-atheist sentiment in the United States in 2014, replicating analyses from a decade earlier and extending them to consider the ...factors that foster negative sentiment toward other non-religious persons. We find that anti-atheist sentiment is strong, persistent, and driven in part by moral concerns about atheists and in part by agreement with cultural values that affirm religiosity as a constitutive moral grounding of citizenship and national identity. Moral concerns about atheists also spill over to shape attitudes toward those who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs) and influence evaluations of the recent decline in religious identification. Americans have more positive views of SBNRs than of atheists, but a plurality of Americans still negatively evaluate the increase in the percentage of Americans who claim no religious identification (nones). Our analyses show the continuing centrality of religiously rooted moral boundary-making in constituting cultural membership in the American context.
Religious belief is a topic of longstanding interest to psychological science, but the psychology of religious disbelief is a relative newcomer. One prominently discussed model is analytic atheism, ...wherein cognitive reflection, as measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test, overrides religious intuitions and instruction. Consistent with this model, performance-based measures of cognitive reflection predict religious disbelief in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, ＆ Democratic) samples. However, the generality of analytic atheism remains unknown. Drawing on a large global sample (N = 3461) from 13 religiously, demographically, and culturally diverse societies, we find that analytic atheism as usually assessed is in fact quite fickle cross-culturally, appearing robustly only in aggregate analyses and in three individual countries. The results provide additional evidence for culture's effects on core beliefs.
The idea of human mortality and the funerary practices that derive from it seems to be one of the most enduring aspects of culture. What if we stated that death means nothing but pure organic ...decomposing, leaving nothing behind but the chemical constituents? What if such an approach became the basis of an active reformatory policy of a state? Soviet practices of death and attitudes toward dead bodies can be mentioned among the most significant changes that have taken place in Russian society over the past 150 years. While Soviet leaders have been given lavish state funerals, the death of an ‘average’ person has become less and less visible. Although the state made considerable efforts to reform the funeral sphere, this did not lead to the development and enhancement of brand-new funeral rituals. Rather this policy gradually diminished the social value of funerals and facilitated a transition to DIY funerals. Following Robert Hertz and Arnold van Gennep, I consider funerary practices as a social phenomenon and a social mechanism that allows society and its members to adapt to mortality, experience loss, and restore their integrity. In my talk, I will show how a new understanding of human nature and human mortality transformed the social fabric of Soviet society. Will the lecture be based on my recently published book ‘A New Death for a New Man? Funeral Culture of Early USSR’.
...this book offers a study of eighteenth-century atheism from the perspective of atheists themselves. ...we find references to "his atheism" (twice), "his own atheism" (once), and the description of ...Diderot as "an atheist" (all four quotations from 190). Needless to say, as reservations go, these are quite minor, and Devellennes' book is overall a fine study of how four eighteenth-century thinkers could envisage atheism as not merely a simple rejection of the divine, but as a coherent worldview in its own right and the source of positive social change.
Being an Atheist is always an unpopular choice in the middle of high religious context society. The stigma and pressure from religious groups forced Atheists in Indonesia to hide their identity in ...public generally and when taking care of the affairs of state administration. This research utilized Communication Privacy Management and Dramaturgy Theory alongside the phenomenology perspective to reveal how Atheists in Indonesia live their "beliefs" in their not-so-friendly environment. The results showed that they generally presented themselves as religious in front of their family by pretending to practice religious rituals, contributing to their special personal branding for the families. Meanwhile, in other social environments, such as friendship, they could be freer to present themselves as they were, although they still had to manage private information about their Atheist identity.
Abstract
Philosophers who hold the compatibility of reason and faith, are vulnerable to the charge of opening the way to atheism and heterodoxy. This danger was particularly acute when, in the wake ...of Cartesianism, the philosophy of Spinoza and Hobbes necessitated a resetting of the relationship of philosophy with religion. My paper discusses three English philosophers who illustrate the difficulties for the philosophical defence for religion: Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and Anne Conway, for all of whom philosophical and religious truth were deeply intertwined. But each of them also subscribed to heterodox religious beliefs. This raises questions of whether there is a direct the relationship between their philosophy and religious heterodoxy-whether they exemplify the charge that philosophy undermines religion, or indeed whether their defence of religion was a cover for heterodoxy.
A leading figure of "new atheism", Sam Harris, maintains that religion and morality are in conflict. He, despite what religious believers generally think, does not take religion to be a basis for ...morality, instead, he believes that religion devastates morality and the moral system. In order to substantiate this claim, Harris takes two ways. First, based on some surveys, he argues that religious countries witness a moral decline, while atheist countries are morally in an acceptable situation. Accordingly, he seeks to induce by field studies that atheist countries are in a much better position than the theist countries in the moral indicators such as material well-being, respect for women's rights, human rights, etc.. As a result, it is atheism that has made society more moral. Second, by inspecting some religious doctrines, he decides that they are sources of violence and clashes among human beings and, consequently, lead societies toward moral decline. In this article, we examine Harris' claims concerning the relationship between religion and morality, concluding that they suffer from following flaws: not accurately determining the meaning of theism and atheism, misunderstanding about moarality and values, not paying attention to various indicators in human moral life, taking a weak scientific approach in evaluating the moral indicators of theist and atheist countries, not paying attention to the crimes of atheists throughout history, and having a superficial and false understanding of religious teachings.
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