Context Quotes & Facts Flashcards
Arthur C. Clarke
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Karl Marx
“Religion is the opiate of the masses”
Albert Einstein
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Democritus (Greek Philosopher)
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”
John Dalberg Acton
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Displacement of Humanity Facts
1 in every 122 people internally displaced or seeking asylum.
60 Million people displaced worldwide (UNHCR)
Religious Landscape Study 2014
The share of Americans who are “absolutely certain that God exists” sharply dropped from 71% in 2007 to 63% in 2014.
The study also outlined that people who identify as “Religiously Unaffiliated” now make up 1/4 of the U.S. population.
Doctrine Definition
Ideas, beliefs and principles taught as unquestionable truths.
Religion and it’s relationship to economic prosperity
‘Religious diversity is associated with the overall productivity and economic competitiveness of nations. Religious diversity is positively associated with total factor productivity (.32) based on World Bank measures and overall economic competitiveness (.56) as ranked by the World Economic Forum.’
Zero is no correlation and one is a perfect correlation.
(Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project.)
Media Ownership
Increased concentration of media ownership increases bias in the publication.
Securalism
From this it appears to follow necessarily that the state, the law and the public institutions we all share must be neutral towards different religions and beliefs. On questions of profound disagreement and deep sensitivity where there is no agreed way to establish the truth or falsehood of the claims made variously by Christians, Muslims, humanists and everyone else, it is quite wrong for the state to throw its weight behind any one particular religion or belief. This neutrality is what is meant by secularism. It is a political principle applicable to states: a secular state may be supported by religious believers and be the home of widespread religious belief. Indeed, secularism is the best guarantee of freedom of religion or belief – but the enemy of religious privilege. It must be distinguished from a secular society, a term that suggests a society that has distanced itself from religion.
Edmund Burke
In his classic Reflections on the French Revolution, Edmund Burke argued that religion was the underlying basis of civil social order.
Volitaire
Voltaire, the celebrated Enlightenment philosopher, argued that without theism society could not function; it is necessary for people to have “profoundly engraved on their minds the idea of a Supreme being and creator” in order to maintain a moral social order.
Secularization
Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward nonreligious values and secular institutions. The secularization thesis refers to the belief that as societies progress, particularly through modernization and rationalization, religion loses its authority in all aspects of social life and governance.
