Challenge of secularism

Question 1

Define ‘secularism’

Answer 1

The term used to describe the belief of the separation of religion and government and the principle that no one religion should be superior

Question 2

Define ‘secularisation’

Answer 2

A 1950 theory from Enlightenment that religious belief would decline as democracy advanced

Question 3

How many marriages were in the Church in the start 20th century compared to late?

Answer 3

Start - 80%

Late - less than 40%

Question 4

In what three ways does Jose Cassanova believe people talk about secularisation?

Answer 4

1 - decline of religious practise
2 - privatisation of religion
3 - separation of religious influence from spheres of state, economy and science

Question 5

(1) said religion is in the mind with no (2)

Answer 5

Karl Marx

Reality

Question 6

Religious adherence has increased in (1) due to the decline of (2)

Answer 6

1 - Soviet countries

2 - communism

Question 7

How is Sigmund Freud?

Answer 7

• Austrian neurologist

- Treated psychopathy through dialogue

Question 8

What does Freud believe about religion and childhood vulnerability?

Answer 8

R - an illusion and a product of wish fulfilment
- a cultural carrier for negative information
CV - made more tolerable by the invented belief that life has a purpose

Question 9

What is wish fulfilment?

Answer 9

A term created by Freud to describe the satisfaction of desire through a dream or imagination

Question 10

Give a quote from Sigmund Freud

Answer 10

“The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass delusions”

Question 11

Why does Freud believe people make a deity or divine being?

Answer 11

To replace the sense of uncertainty with something controllable with a moral code and purpose to life

Question 12

How does Freud believe religion can keep society safe?

Answer 12

Represses human desires destructive to society e.g. sexual violence, murder and theft in the Commandments

Question 13

Why does Freud believe religious ideas are highly prized?

Answer 13

Provide information that humans crave about what’s undiscovered through a study of reality

Question 14

“Anyone who knows nothing of religious ideas is very (1) and anyone who has (2) to his knowledge may consider himself much (3)” - Freud ‘The future of an illusion’

Answer 14

1 - ignorant
2 - added them
3 - richer

Question 15

Why did Freud also believe religion is unhealthy?

Answer 15

A cultural carrier for negative information and causing conflict as people without religious belief are seen as inferior and the psychological impact of relying on something unreliable

Question 16

What does Dawkins believe about religion?

Answer 16

Life should be meaningful without reference to religion and the human need for God is infantile and an adult should find meaning in another way

Question 17

Why does Dawkins believe religion is oppressive?

Answer 17

E.g. repressing women by dress codes such as the burka in Islam for female submission, religion narrows our understanding whereas science widens it

Question 18

Why does Dawkins believe religion is especially dangerous for children?

Answer 18

It indoctrinates children as well as harm e.g. children of Jewish parents being kidnapped by Priests and raised as Jewish in the 19th century

Question 19

Why does Dawkins believe that bring up a child in the Catholic faith to be long term psychological harm?

Answer 19

He spoke with girls who were victims of sexual abuse but they said that fear of going to hell was greater than harm from sexual abuse. As well as this he cites the example of Hell House by a pastor in Colorado where children were scared by what happened to them when they die due to actors performing consequences for certain sins

Question 20

What does scientist Jo Merchant believe?

Answer 20

Compelling evidence for positive medical and psychological benefit from practises and beliefs found in religion and social gatherings

Question 21

Why does Merchant believe religion brings psychological benefit?

Answer 21

Belief in a loving God, time for stillness, feeling apart of something bigger

Question 22

“Feeling apart of (1) may help us not only to deal with (2) but to defuse our deepest source of angst: knowledge of (3)” - Jo Merchant

Answer 22

1 - something bigger
2 - life’s daily hassles
3 - our own mortality

Question 23

Describe French secularism

Answer 23

French revolution abolished monarchy and removal of religion from established positions of authority, absence of religion in state, absence of religious involvement in government affairs and prohibition of religious influence in public matters

Question 24

What changes to the law have been a result of French secularism?

Answer 24

• Removal of state funded Christian schools but there is tax relief to private Catholic schools
• Ban wearing of religious symbols in public

Question 25

What is 'Pillarisation'?

Answer 25

A Netherlands policy referring to politico-denominational segregation of society

Question 26

Describe secularism in the Netherlands

Answer 26

Dutch society was divided by Christian denominations so social and educational services were provided by denomination, each pillar has its own newspaper, political parties, trade unions and universities

Question 27

Describe education in England and the opposing views

Answer 27

- 1.8 million children are educated in Catholic and CoE schools - Churches are by far the biggest sponsors of schools - Organisations such as the British Humanist Association campaign against schools with a religious character

Question 28

Why does the BHA campaign against schools with a religious character?

Answer 28

This causes children to be segregated and creates a sense that religious children live in parallel lives increasing intolerance and so schools should not worship, pray or recruit based on religious background

Question 29

Why does Dawkins support the BHA?

Answer 29

Religious fundamentalism subverts science, replacing an evidence based approach with superstition and that unquestioning faith is a virtue

Question 30

"Fundamentalist religion is (1) on ruining the (2) of countless thousands of (3) eager young minds" - Dawkins

Answer 30

1 - hell-bent 2 - scientific education 3 - innocent

Question 31

Why is English education and Christianity deep rooted?

Answer 31

Churches provided education before the national government which has led to 'heritage argument' in defence of religious schools

Question 32

Why do some argue removing Churches from the school system is an act of robbery?

Answer 32

Churches built schools for the poor in England and continue to own a lot of school property so a plural and diverse society should have plural and diverse education and allow parents to send their children to schools with a religious ethos

Question 33

What does Professor Leslie Francis argue?

Answer 33

Young people committed to Christianity are more open to people from other religious backgrounds Greater concentration in religious schools

Question 34

Describe Francis Collins as an interesting contrast to Dawkins

Answer 34

- American physician-geneticist - Atheist in uni - Work with dying patients led him to re-examine his beliefs in arguments for and against God - Converted to Christianity

Question 35

Give some criticisms to Dawkins

Answer 35

- View of religion is narrowly fundamentalist and extreme, if religious schools were only fundamentalist then they would limit the ability of logic and reason - If religion is viewed as a cultural phenomenon associated with culture and identity then this weakens Dawkins argument

Question 36

How does Dawkins counter argue critiques against him?

Answer 36

Liberal religion simply advocates religion and literal belief which narrows thinking is at is core

Question 37

Describe the views of Charles Taylor

Answer 37

- Societies are increasingly multi-cultural - Every person should be recognised by identity not way of life that leads to loss of distinctiveness - No culture should impose itself of another - Schools with religious character can nurture cultural diversity and by a symbol of plural, liberal secular society

Question 38

Why does Professor James Conroy argue that religious schools have an important role in liberal democratic state?

Answer 38

Perform a 'liminal function' to test the perspective of human flourishing that is offered by liberal democratic state in state run schools to counter the general view that the market should define the aims of education and people are cogs in the economy

Question 39

"The student is not a (1) for a nation or one who is to be (2) within a consumer (3)" - (4)

Answer 39

1 - resource 2 - cultivated 3 - teleology 4 - Conroy

Question 40

Why do many believe that the Church of England should be removed from law based decision making?

Answer 40

Excludes those who are not Anglican and does not represent the diverse population, however others argue that other religions are not excluded from the House of Lords

Question 41

Describe Japan in WW2

Answer 41

The Japanese Emperor was viewed and taught as a god to the extent that a military cult was made to combine nationalism, religion and political leadership so when Japan was defeated by the Americans he was forced to pulicly declare he was not a god

Question 42

How did Prince Charles say he would keep secularism but keep religion at the heart of the state?

Answer 42

Instead of his title being 'Defender of the faith' he would be 'Defender of faith' to represent plurality and diversity

Question 43

How does former Archbishop Rowan Williams distinguishes two types of secularism?

Answer 43

Programmatic - assumes any public expression of faith is offensive Procedural - permits as many public voices as possible without priviledge

Question 44

What is the secularisation theory?

Answer 44

The theory that religious belief would progressively decline as democracy advanced

Question 45

What does Berger believe?

Answer 45

The assumption that we live in a secular state is false, with some exceptions notably Western Europe is furiously religious as it ever was

Question 46

What does David Ford believe?

Answer 46

We need to stop thinking about World development as linear, the 'unpredictability of drama' is a better metaphor as we don't know what will happen and there are different ways of being modern