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The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism shows how people can live together and overcome the challenge of religious terrorism by adopting a "secular outlook" on life and politics. Shows how secularism can answer the problem of religious terrorism Provides new perspectives on how religious minorities can be integrated into liberal democracies Reveals how secularism has gained a new political and moral significance. Also examines such topics as atheism, religious criticism and free speech
This book aims to understand the motives of religious fanatics' and their extreme reactions to religious satire and criticism by means of the concept of theoterrorism: terrorism grounded in religious zealotry.
The purpose of this volume is to compare the experiences of state efforts to control moral behavior in two countries (The Netherlands and the United States of America) by exploring the historical developments in regulating morality and the contemporary efforts to implement moral policies. The volume opens with an overview of the theoretical and historical setting of the debate about moral developments in the Netherlands and the United States. Various hypotheses are then tested by comparing the histories of prostitution and abortion policies in both countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the jurisprudence and legislation with respect to euthanasia, and the course and contents of family law (divorce, adoption, homo marriage). Apart from the comparative aspect, these case studies are highly informative and fascinating to read in and by themselves.
In contemporary politics two conflicting trends have influenced freedom of expression. The first confirms that many Western countries have become less strict about sacrilegious expression and repealed their blasphemy laws or withdrew much of their punishment for blasphemy. Yet the second trend manifests in an opposing movement, often couched in terms of religious freedom, which attempts to reconcile free speech with freedom of religion by punishing expressions deemed, for instance, "hate speech." With contributions by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this book offers an examination of topical issues relating to both of these movements, looking at freedom of expression, censorship, and blasphemy in contemporary multicultural democracies.
An in-depth analysis that demonstrates how and why there has been a resurgence of nativist logic. It was once thought that liberalism and globalization would consign nativist logics to the fringes of societies and eventually to history. But if it ever left, nativism has well and truly returned, spreading across nations, across the political spectrum, and from the fringes back into the mainstream. In The Return of the Native, Jan Willem Duyvendak, Josip Kesic, and Timothy Stacey explore how nativist logics have infiltrated liberal settings and discourses, primarily in the Netherlands as well as other countries with strong liberal traditions like the US and France. They deconstruct and explain...
In today’s society, a positive relation between ‘God’ and ‘civilization’ is by no means self-evident. Religious believers who want to live their lives in accordance with ‘the law of God’ are often considered a threat to civilization. To many, monotheistic religion is inherently repressive and violent. The central aim of this volume is to think of both God and civilization in a more open, space-giving way. God is seen as the One who prevents man from making an absolute claim for a relative reality, including one's religion and culture. The multifaceted relations between God and civilization are explored from systematic-theological, missiological, philosophical and ethical perspectives.
A New Introduction to Jurisprudence takes one of the central problems of law and jurisprudence as its point of departure: what is the law? Adopting an intermediate position between legal positivism and natural law, this book reflects on the concept of ‘liberal democracy’ or ‘constitutional democracy’. In five chapters the book analyses: (i) the idea of higher law, (ii) liberal democracy as a legitimate model for the state, (iii) the separation of church and state or secularism as essential for the democratic state, (iv) the universality of higher law principles, (v) the history of modern political thought. This interdisciplinary approach to jurisprudence is relevant for legal scholars, philosophers, political theorists, public intellectuals, historians, and politicians.
While their use and significance have increased in recent decades, constitutional preambles have received only scant attention in academic literature. This presents a uniquely quantitative and qualitative analysis of all the preambles currently in force around the world and addresses fascinating questions concerning their occurrence, content, style, function and legal status. Studying preambles not only helps us understand the phenomenon itself, but also teaches us more about constitutions and the constitutional systems in which they are situated.
In comparing the ways in which China, Taiwan and Hong Kong punish religious claims and practices considered by the state to be false or fraudulent, Jianlin Chen presents a seminal contribution to the interdisciplinary study of religious freedom. The book not only reveals how these legal tools sustain a hierarchy of religion, but also the political dynamic behind the design and utilization of these legal tools.
Bhikhu Parekh As creative and reflective agents, human beings seek meaning in their lives, and develop more or less coherent views of the world or cultures in terms of which to organize their personal and collective lives. When different groups of individuals within the same society subscribe to different ways of thought, they face the crucial question of how to deal with their cultural diversity and sustain a shared common life. Premodern societies took a relatively relaxed view of diversity and generally opted for a looser union. Modernity brought with it a very different approach to the subject. This is reflected in, among other things, the institution of the modern state, especially the ...