scholarly journals Secularization, Confessional Ideology, and Society

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (7) ◽  
pp. 91-106
Author(s):  
Mădălin Vasile Tăut

Social life is the keystone of the existence of a human and a people and, by extension, of an entire civilization. In this essay I will try to present the way in which religious affiliation has influenced the historical evolution of society and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, after analyzing the relationship between the Christian denomination and the capitalist economy in the context of the secularization process facing the peoples of Europe, I will present the consequences of the desacralization of the world for the spiritual health of modern humans and the consequent sociological implications which tend to create faults in the contemporary world. Communion is replaced by separation, solidarity by individualism, and the inner emotional balance of human beings is jeopardized by the spiritual chaos that seems to condemn the whole society to loneliness and disintegration.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore N Greenstein

*This paper uses materials from the World Values Survey and the EuropeanValues Study from 2006-2014 to study the relationship of gender and maritalstatus to life satisfaction. In an analysis of 103,217 respondents from 81nations I find that while there do not seem to be main effects of gender onlife satisfaction – that is, women are no more or less satisfied with theirlives than are men -- gender moderates the effects of geographical region,age, employment status, education, religious affiliation, and attendance ofreligious services on life satisfaction. In particular, there aresubstantial differences in the effects of marital status on lifesatisfaction by gender. The gender differences in most effects are sosubstantial that I argue that it makes no sense to analyze lifesatisfaction data without performing separate analyses by gender. *


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tehseen Nazir ◽  
Dr. Metin Pişkin

The use of social networking sites and other mobile applications have been growing intensively. Several researches indicated that it is one of the factors that impact the relationship maintenance between one another. It is highly desirable for all citizens to have a good interpersonal communication to maintain and develop further relationships. Bad communication skills may have harmed the interpersonal relationships. With technology advancing, Smartphone’s play an important part in people’s lives. It’s easy to see people talking, slipping, or even playing on their phones in public places. Certainly, when people are concentrating on the small screens in hands, they won’t care about their plights. So the probability of an accident is higher than before. Some countries even set up the “mobile phone sidewalk” to reduce potential hazards. But that is just palliatives. People needed to find a solution that “describe the annoying situation and further remind people to put their phones down, and get talking to each other again.”In response to this request, a new word “phubbing” was created.


2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
Piotr Aszyk

This article presents a general overview of philosophical issues undertaken in the work of Richard Otowicz (1953–2003), Jesuit and Professor of Moral Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw. Within the set of views developed by him, the theological perspective undoubtedly assumes pride of place. Often, however, he refers to philosophical issues from which, in his opinion, one cannot escape—issues that bear directly on human life. What is especially striking is Otowicz’s hypothesis that bioethics is a kind of self-defense reflex of mankind, who are attempting by means of it to intellectually grasp the issues relating to the unlimited expansion of technology. Developments and changes observed in the world are forcing humanity to rethink very fundamental issues, such as interpersonal relationships or the relationship of man to nature.


Glimpse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-38
Author(s):  
Junichiro Inutsuka ◽  

Keeping aside discussions about theories of depiction of photography and the epistemic value of photography from the viewer’s perspective, I reconsider this techne from the photographers’ entire act of photographing. It presents the quest of the possibility to regain the world by the art of photography, especially in a situation where human consciousness of the living environment is overwhelmed by the photographic effects. The nature of the current technological environment—while disguising the manifestation of pure humanity, in the sense that it is the externalization of technology due to human nature—is completely destructive. Today, trying to save or regenerate philosophy should be nothing more than seeking a way for human beings to refuse being incorporated as an automaton in an endless track of automated reproduction processes. As one of those who wish to find a way to reconstruct the relationship between humans and nature or to reveal that human existence can only be established in such correlation, I seek a way of breathing human freedom, momentarily disputing this automated living and social environment. In other words, to regain or to play the art of photography, to unsettle what usually works as concrete support for the cognitive transformation making us unconsciously think of the technological environment as something inevitable and natural. It would be presenting a temporary retreat and a more positive way forward.


2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 387-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Featherstone

The term global suggests all-inclusiveness and brings to mind connectivity, a notion that gained a boost from Marshall McLuhan's reference to the mass-mediated ‘global village’. In the past decade it has rapidly become part of the everyday vocabulary not only of academics and business people, but also has circulated widely in the media in various parts of the world. There have also been the beginnings of political movements against globalization and proposals for ‘de-globalization’ and ‘alternative globalizations’, projects to re-define the global. In effect, the terminology has globalized and globalization is varyingly lauded, reviled and debated around the world. The rationale of much previous thinking on humanity in the social sciences has been to assume a linear process of social integration, as more and more people are drawn into a widening circle of interdependencies in the movement to larger units, but the new forms of binding together of social life necessitate the development of new forms of global knowledge which go beyond the old classifications. It is also in this sense that the tightening of the interdependency chains between human beings, and also between human beings and other life forms, suggests we need to think about the relevance of academic knowledge to the emergent global public sphere.


Author(s):  
Sandra Walklate

It is without doubt that the 21st century is marked by ever-present 24-hour media. Mobile phones, iPads, and Wi-Fi networks mean that many people in many different parts of the world are “connected” to each other and to global events as they happen in ways not really imagined less than a century ago. Of course the nature of this connectivity is variable. It dominates more in some parts of the world than others, in urban areas more than rural, among wealthier communities more than poorer ones, and perhaps among younger people more than older people. Such variations notwithstanding, it is the case that the minute-by-minute live reporting of events, as they happen, exposes the nature of those events to people not necessarily close to them or impacted by them, albeit vicariously. Such exposure means that people are potentially witnesses to events and images they would not otherwise have experience of. It is within this context this article considers the concepts of victim, witness, and the linkages between them. The concept of the witness has a varied history, from its presence in the law, to its connections with religious affiliation, to its legacy in experiences of atrocity. These different historical legacies are suggestive of different claims to victimhood. Simultaneously, these different claims to the status of victim (who constitutes a victim and under what conditions) have become conflated. In mapping the trajectories of each of these concepts, it is possible to discern considerable fuzziness in the relationship between victim and witness, suggestive of a continuum from the victim as witness to the witness as victim. Moreover, when these two concepts are put in such a relationship with each other, it is possible to observe how transgressive capacity takes its toll on people, how to make sense of the issues that concern them, and how best to respond to those concerns. This article considers the questions posed by the relationship between being a victim and being a witness, paying particular attention to who is and who is not considered to have a legitimate claim to victim status, and the role of ever-present media coverage in contributing to such claims and/or even creating them.


2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Biesta ◽  
Patricia Hannam

AbstractIn this paper we explore the relationship between religious education and the public sphere, suggesting that religious education, if it takes its educational remit seriously, has to be orientated towards the public sphere where human beings exist together in and with the world. Rather than seeing religion as propositional belief, we argue for an existential approach that focuses on the question as to what it means to exist religiously. We offer educational and theological arguments for our position and, along both lines, seek to (re)connect religion and religious education to the idea of democracy.


Author(s):  
Madhuri M. Yadlapati

This chapter examines four particular ways in which faith has been expressed as a commitment to one's responsibilities vis-à-vis one's community and God. It discusses Hindu epic illustrations of dharma, or sacred duty; an allegorical extrapolation of Christian responsibility in C. S. Lewis's Narnia series as well as his discussion of the relationship between faith and works; Islamic understanding of human beings as God's caliphs (khalifa) and the responsibility for jihad; and Jewish articulations of human responsibility in a covenantal relationship with God. These examples concern a specific interface of religious ethics and the commitment to faith, by which one embraces a tremendous sense of responsibility for the very fate of the human world.


2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Audrey Horning

The comments of Nicholas Sarkozy provide a powerful and forceful opening to Dr Richard's article and remind us of the potential significance of academic considerations of colonial legacies in the contemporary world. Dr Richard argues strongly against static conceptualizations of pre-‘Atlantic-era’ Africa and seeks to recast Africans not as victims, but as active ‘producers of history and culture’ (p. 26). In so doing he aligns himself with current trends in critical scholarship on colonial encounters in the Atlantic worlds of the last four centuries, scholarship that overtly criticizes dichotomous understandings of such encounters in favour of approaches that emphasize ambiguity (e.g. Hall 2000; Silliman 2001; 2009; Stahl 2007). Dr Richard's introductory suggestion that we should formulate ‘new questions instead of supplying different answers to the quandaries of an earlier generation of historians’ (p. 3) is clearly applicable to studies of colonial arenas beyond West Africa. In all parts of the world touched by European colonialism (including, of course, Europe itself) the ways in which scholars approach their subjects are very much conditioned by more widely held cultural memories, whatever the relationship of those memories may be to whatever may have occurred in the past.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Soo Chon

The current study assessed the relationship between national religious affiliation and lethal violence by simultaneously examining homicide and suicide rates. The information on homicide and suicide rates for 124 countries came from the World Health Organization (WHO). Regression results suggested no significant difference in lethal violence between predominantly Catholic and Protestant countries, although Islamic countries revealed significantly lower homicide, suicide, and overall lethal violence rates than non-Islamic countries. Countries with a high level of religious heterogeneity are subject to an increased suicide rate. The implications of these findings were discussed.


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