Assessing secularism Flashcards
Assessing Freud
Weaknesses
- Can complex phenomena such as civilisation and society be explained solely on the basis of psychological factors?
- Is religion just a psychological reaction to things beyond our control and questions we cannot answer?
- Can religion have the wish fulfilment character that Freud thought it had?
- Freud was a reductionist and wanted everything to be dealt with in a factual and scientific way. He was not interested in engaging with ideas about the ‘other’
- Although some of Freud’s claims about religion could be seen to be correct, they don’t all work to disprove the truth claims made by religions.
- He claims that religion is disabling and cuts people off from the world but that’s not always the case, sometimes religion is enabling and helps people to appreciate the world in a different way. Rather than being the cause of social discontent, religion has the power to unite and bring communities together with a sense of shared values and purpose in life.
- Not every religion seeks to control people through strict dogma and rules, some have a completely different way of working – should they be condemned too?
- Wish fulfilment can be a source of creativeness and fuels the imagination.
Assessing Dawkins
strengths
• Christianity can be seen as having a negative influence on society.
• According to Dawkins, Christianity has played a part in the criminalisation of homosexuality and anything else that differs from their moral absolutes.
• He continues that it has a negative influence on the sanctity of human life and attempts to restrict women’s access to abortion/contraception.
E.g. When George Bush was the Governor of Texas, he oversaw a third of executions in the USA at the time, whilst preventing medical advancements in using embryonic life.
Assessing Dawkins
Weaknesses
Weaknesses:
• Dawkins does risk making generalisations about the faith here…
• Why ignore other examples that might contradict his viewpoint? For example, in the C19th, churches established schools for the poor or civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King jr.
• What about all the charity work that is done by organisations such as Christian Aid? What about hospices, food banks and soup kitchens?
• Reason can be reconciled with faith, therefore science and religion can have a complementary relationship – Stephen Jay Gould’s notion of “non-overlapping magisterial” – Noma
• As Scientific theories cannot explain everything, that does not mean that the atheism is true. The intelligibility of the universe might point indeed towards a greater intelligence. Therefore, science and religion are not in conflict.
• The complementarity has been argued by Stephen Jay Gould’s notion of NOMA.
• The charge of abuse and violence to religion can be applied to atheist and secular societies too, e.g., Communist regimes.
Are spiritual values just human ones?
Yes
A strong case can be made that compassion, forgiveness, justice and peace are all essential human values- keeps society from falling into brutal chaos.
Such a code can be articulated without recourse to belief in the afterlife, belief in a loving God or a saviour Lord, arguably then, these values are human not Christian.
Perhaps it is not possible to separate human values and spiritual values: spiritual values are just human values because human values are just spiritual values
Arguably there is, therefore, no contradiction between spiritual values and human values because, in the incarnation, the dualism that divides the sacred from the profane, the divine from the human, is rejected.
God represents them both
The fullest list of humanist values can be found in the 2002 Amsterdam declaration. Their list of seven core values include many things that most, if not all religious believers would identify as spiritual values.*at this level, spiritual values and human values are very similar. Similarly, the ten commandments have many core ethical demands that are universal, you do not need to be religious to follow those.
Are spiritual values just human values?
No
Self-sacrifice (of one friend for another, of a mother for her child, of a soldier for his platoon) and unconditional love are less easy to explain in purely rational terms
The Christian value of loving your enemy and those who are different is counter-intuitive; it contradicts feelings of self- interest and safety
loving your enemy expresses a commitment to a greater vision, something beyond the self.
Perhaps therefore spiritual values are better than human values in that human values are part of the physical, sensual, morally corrupt human world, and spiritual values are pure, perfected and untainted.
Human values ten to be shared on a worldly level, but that there is an additional layer or dimension to Christian, spiritual values: one that sees an ultimate purpose or reason, a world beyond this one and a creator God who loves and sustains the world and wants people to worship him
Is Christianity a major cause of personal and social problems?
Yes
There is a difficulty in talking about “what Christianity does”. Does this mean “What (Some) Christians do”, or “What (Some) Christian institutions do”, or “The impact that (some) forms of Christianity thought might have?”
It can be seen as patriarchal and sexist in the way in which it depicts women narrowly and limits their life chances
Christianity encourage infantile and “Unscientific” views of the world, criminalization of homosexuality- American Taliban( Evangelical Christians who say that Aids is God’s punishment on homosexuals)
Dawkins- an absolutist faith finds other belief systems and other ways of behaving incomprehensible, and exercises influence over the law to criminalize anything that differs from the moral absolutes it offers
Negative influence on society in the area of the sanctity of human life and the attempts to restrict or limit women’s access to abortion
Is Christianity a major cause of personal and social problems?
No
The multiple examples are used to make a general point about Christianity, or religion more widely. What about the examples of religious leaders that have spearheaded social change? In the 19th century, Christian churches established schools for the poor in England, Anglican bishops were instrumental in the decriminalization of homosexuality in the 1960s, at a time when other parts of the British establishment resisted change
The proponents of one particular viewpoint choose the most extreme examples to support their argument. Perhaps this is because the kinds of examples that best present everyday behaviour of religion and the religious, Christianity and Christians make the arguments less powerfully
Is Christianity a significant contributor to society’s culture and values, and should it be?
Yes
The head of State (The Queen) is the head of the Church of England
National holidays are linked to Christian festivals at Easter and Christmas
Most oaths taken in court are taken over the Christian Bible or an alternative sacred text
We remember our war dead on Remembrance Sunday, and the service at the cenotaph involves leading figures from different religious communities
The nation’s flag has a Christian cross at its centre.
The study of the bible in schools, outstanding literary merit and influence it has had on the arts, music and language for centuries
The bishops bench- The 2 bishops of the Church of England who sit alongside peers in the house of Lords- none of which are elected
Is Christianity a significant contributor to society’s culture and values, and should it be?
No
- Dawkins seems clear that Christianity is a significant contributor to society’s culture and values. Acknowledging Christianity’s role in the historical development of our culture and values is not however the same as giving religion a superior role in their future development
To describe the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a Christian country often raises criticisms that this flies in the face of evidence
* The cultural changes that have taken place as a result of migration and religious pluralism in recent decades mean that Christianity is no longer the sole or even the dominant, influence on our culture and values
Popular music, for example, has many diverse influences
Faith schools
Arguments FOR
Charles Taylor argues that a secular society should promote inclusivity between cultures and religions, making sure that each religion and culture gets equal recognition
Prof Leslie Francis argues that students of faith schools are more open to people from other religious backgrounds than students of state schools.
Catholic populations in England often have a greater proportion of poorer migrant families, and the resulting school populations may have richly diverse cultural and linguistic traditions as a result.
In England, the school system was established by Christian churches long before the national government was prepared to ensure education for all children, the relationship is, therefore, deep-rooted and this has led to what is called the heritage argument.
Such schools give parents who want an education framed by a religious ethos the choice to have such schooling and that a plural and diverse society should have plural and diverse kinds of schools
Religion is not the only factor that segregates school pupils in England. Socio-economic and cultural factors can also result in poor integration
Research at the University of Warwick, UK suggests there is evidence that young people who are themselves committed to Christianity are more, not less, open to people from other religious backgrounds, and that there are more often committed Christian students in church schools than in other schools
*Although some forms of religion do seek to indoctrinate or brainwash people, the testimonies of many scientists are evidence that it is not correct to assume religion and faith necessarily closes down thinking, particularly scientific thinking.
If a secular state is defined, not as a de-religionised space, but as a radically plural space containing many communities, many voices, multiple modernity’s, where different groups can experiment with different models of the good life, then shouldn’t schools reflect that diversity?
No culture including an atheistic one should impose itself on others because this causes minority cultures to diminish and vanish
Removing religion from culture, art, architecture and music not only deprives religion of a means of outward expression, but it also deprives people of the ability to make sense of their own culture given the extent to which culture is steeped in religion.
Churches built schools for the poor in England, and indeed continue to own a lot of school property, and so removing schools from Church control would be an act of robbery.
Faith schools
Arguments against
The British humanist association argues that a secular state should not fund schools with a religious character
It shouldn’t give permission to recruit pupils based on religion, or hold acts of worship or prayer in school lesson time- It argues that this segregates children into different religious groups, creating a sense that people of different religions live parallel lives, and increasing intolerance
Religious fundamentalism subverts science, replacing an evidence-based approach to understanding the world with superstition, which leads to the fundamentalist missing the engrossing and fascinatingly beautiful truths of evolution and science – “Fundamentalist religion is hell-bent on ruining the scientific education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning eager young minds” Dawkins, the god delusion 2006
He is concerned that teaching that evolution is one theory alongside other theories, such as creationism, in science classes fails to give credit to the evidence that supports evolution and places a literal, geological interpretation of the Bible above more robust scientific accounts. Dawkins is also more generally concerned that religious schools are teaching children ‘from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue
Freud- religion is a mass delusion
- Christianity can encourage infantile and ‘unscientific’ views of the world. For example, Dawkins points to the role he says Christianity has played in the criminalization of . He points to the ‘American Taliban’ (evangelical Christians who say that Aids is God’s punishment on homosexuals) as an illustration of how upsetting ideas can be developed through religion.
Mary Daly- Christianity is intrinsically sexist
Should politicians refer to their religious beliefs in their public work?
Yes
The British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, is also the head of the Church of England and, by ancient tradition, defender of the Faith
There are Anglican Bishops in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament
Supporters of the status quo argue that other faiths are not excluded from the house of lords.
The Chief Rabbi has a seat in the House of Lords, representing British Jews, members of other faith communities are also represented
Prince Charles said that when he becomes king, he would like to become “Defender of Faith” in recognition of the diversity and plurality of religion and beliefs rather than singling out one religion or denomination
The French enforcing laws on the wearing of religious dress can be argued as showing that there is an anti-religious or anti- Muslim sentiment at the heart of the French government.
It depicts non-inclusive secularity that seeks to remove religion from the public space
Inclusive secularity, means people playing by the same rules but expressing their differing beliefs and values through their clothing
Should politicians refer to their religious beliefs in their public work?
No
Anglican Christianity in the law-making process is not in keeping with the times and does not represent the diverse nature of the population of the country which contains people of many religions and people of no religion
Continuing to place the church of England at the heart of government effectively excludes citizens who are not Anglican
Do secularism and secularisation offer opportunities for Christianity to develop new ways of thinking and acting?
Yes
The beginning of secularism led to an important development in western European thinking, the advent of the idea of state tolerance
The emergence of secularism and secularisation brought an end to the concept of Christendom; the idea that there was a group of states in Europe where the vast majority of the population were Christians of the same denominations and other Christian denominations and religions were at worst persecuted or marginalised
It could try to incorporate modern ideas, changing and growing within the secular world
Do secularism and secularisation offer opportunities for Christianity to develop new ways of thinking and acting?
No
The secular settlement, found in many western countries, has not existed unchallenged. There has been repeated attempts to assert new kinds of religion; the religion of imperialism fuelled the first world war and the religions of nationalism and fascism fuelled the second
Some argue that the continued development of the secular state has led religion in recent times, to reassert itself and reemphasise its traditional more conservative forms
