Atheistic Beliefs Research Articles

ДЕКІЛЬКА МІРКУВАНЬ ЩОДО СВОБОДИ СОВІСТІ ТА РЕЛІГІЇ

Freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and human rights are examined in the article in the context of their interrelationship and relationship. The authors analyze some canonical and legal definitions of the mentioned concepts, as well as the judicial practice of the European Court of Human Rights, where these concepts were evaluated and interpreted. The article draws attention to the fact that neither in the text of Article 9 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, nor in the practice of the Court, there is no definition of the term "religion". Arguments are also given regarding what the concepts of "freedom of conscience" and "freedom of religion" include. According to the authors, the scope of application of Article 9 is very broad, it protects both religious and non-religious views and beliefs. For an individual or collective belief to qualify as a right to "freedom of thought, conscience andreligion", it must reach a sufficiently high level of intensity, seriousness, persistence and importance. If this condition is met, the state's duty to observe neutrality and impartiality is incompatible with its discretion regarding the legitimacy of beliefs. The authors believe that the position of the European Court of Human Rights differs from the non- definition of the concept of "freedom of conscience" in Ukrainian legal documents. This is due to the fact that Ukrainian norms on freedom of conscience guarantee the right to be non-religious and to spread atheistic beliefs, leaving aside the question of beliefs. It is important to understand that conscience and belief are two different but interrelated concepts used to describe the internal processes of a person. Conscience is an inner voice or inner moral authority that leads a person to distinguish between good and evil, between right and wrong. Belief is an idea, idea or belief that a person has about certain issues or situations. They can be basic principles that guide our actions and deeds, or reflect our preferences, thoughts and attitudes to various aspects of life. Beliefs can be formed based on religion, culture, experience, education and other factors. Considering the legal capacity of religious groups and believers in accordance with international standards of the right to freedom of conscience, religion and belief, the authors come to the conclusion that an almost unsolved question remains open: "Who has the right to religion: a person or a legal entity (church)?" Depriving the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) of its legal status in Ukraine, which is currently being actively discussed, does not at all mean depriving its parishioners of the right to freedom of religion, who can join existing churches or create a new one in accordance with Ukrainian legislation. Key words: human right to freedom of conscience and religion, conscience, beliefs, consistent worldview concepts, international standards of freedom of conscience and religion, principle of religious freedom.

ALATYR THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL AND ALATYR UYEZD CHURCHES IN 1917–1922

This article examines closing of the Alatyr theological school and a number of churches in the Alatyr uyezd during the years of the Soviet rule in the Simbirsk province. The article focuses on the peculiarities of the structure and the significance of the religion and the operation of the Alatyr Theological School. It is noted that the Soviet government could not accept the existence of the school and churches, because it considered them to be an obstacle to spreading atheistic beliefs among the population and strengthening their own authority in the eyes of citizens. The population as a whole did not oppose the closure of these religious buildings, but the Soviet authorities could not immediately close down the religious school because of the struggle of the Red Army with units of the People’s Army of KOMUCH that was taking place on the territory of the Simbirsk province at that time. Therefore, its liquidation stretched from 1918 to 1919. During that time, the school continued to operate, despite the official closure. The Soviet government paid great attention to the development of education of citizens. Education was an important means of propaganda, including anti-religious one. The councils wanted as many people as possible to be involved in education. The teachers had the responsibility of educating citizens, and there was not supposed to be a question the teacher could give an evasive answer to or leave it aside. The main ideologist of Soviet anti-religious propaganda was E.M. Yaroslavsky. He believed that the work of teachers had to be set on the path of anti-religious propaganda. The Soviet government created all the conditions for the population to renounce the Christianity. The existence of the Alatyr theological school, in which, from the point of view of the Soviet regime, representatives of the exploiting classes of the population studied, contradicted religious propaganda and questioned the success of this propaganda. The churches were gradually closed down by the Soviet regime, so fewer and fewer priests were required. In 1917–1922, the Soviet government managed to significantly weaken the position of the Russian orthodox church in the Alatyr district.

Multivariate performance principle of “Sicilian and burlesque” by A. Casella in stylistic conception of neoclassicism

The purpose of the article is the detection of neoclassicism characteristics of A. Casella in the composition “Sicilianna and burlesque”. Methodology. The intonational approach from the unity of music and speech from B. Asaief’s school in Ukraine has become the methodological basis for this work. The scientific novelty of the work. The analysis of A. Casella’s composition “Sicilianna and burlesque” has been made for the first time in the history of Ukrainian music studies. It has been done in a stylistic direction. Conclusions. The analysis has shown the polystylistic complex, which is determined by a variety of instrumental set-up, where the elements of the ancient sonata form were united with programmable and playing filling for entire. It unites the neo-baroque and neo-renaissance style characteristics with a primitivistic interpretation of semantic elements in genre typology, also generating a variety of ensemble and orchestra line-ups. The specified combination of semantic components creates the negligence in dealing with religious symbols, which is characteristic of the Italian modern (compare with atheistic beliefs of the futurists and neo expressionists in the second half of the 20th century).

On Jamesian ‘Passionally Caused Atheistic Belief’: a Reply to Cockayne and Warman

Cockayne and Warman recently argued that William James’s argument as stated in his lecture ‘The Will to Believe’ can be reconstructed so as to justify a ‘passionately caused atheism.’ I will argue that this reading misses the important point of James’s argument, which is the attempt to show that our initial atheistic passional tendencies become untenable once we are aware of the beneficial consequences we might obtain from forming the belief that God exists.

The Impact of the Communist Regime in Albania on Freedom of Religion for Albanians

The multi religions Albania passed last century from a country where atheism was the constitutional principle in a country where the basic card guarantees not only the freedom of religion but also the freedom from religion. Today, in order of guaranteeing the freedom of belief, the Constitution of Republic of Albania expresses principles which protect the religious freedom, starting from its preamble. Indeed, the preamble has no legal force but stated goals and assists in the interpretation of provisions. The spirit, with which the preamble stated, is that of tolerance and religious coexistence, in a vision where the people are responsible for the future with faith in God or other universal values. This statement reinforces the principle of secularism of the state where the latter appears as the guarantor of religious freedom by knowing in this perspective the beliefs that "sovereign" could have and can develop. In this context, the real guarantee is given to us by Article 24 of the Constitution which expressly guarantees the freedom of conscience and religion, in a perspective where any person has the right to choose if changing or not his religion or belief, so that this article appears not only as a guarantor of freedom of religion but also as a guarantor of freedom from religion. In a context like that of Albania, where for 40 years the religious freedom has been denied, and because of religious beliefs was conducted genocide, cannot be missing in its Constitution this freedom. Today it appears more consolidated than ever, from a vision that guarantees such as the freedom to choose and change religion by manifesting them freely in public or in private life, into a vision that guarantees also negative freedom or atheism. The purpose of this paper is to point out that otherwise than the socialist Constitution of 1976- which provided anti-religious atheism forms in a context where the faith was determined by the state, based in a "monotheistic" ideology and realized through policy, which denied any type of faith beyond what the material world of communist ideology had in foundation- the current one appears, secular and neutral in matters of religious faith by guaranteeing a as consequence the atheist beliefs as well.
 
 Received: 21 November 2020 / Accepted: 11 January 2021 / Published: 17 January 2021

On the Will Not to Believe and Axiological Atheism: a Reply to Cockayne and Warman

In a recent article in Sophia, Joshua Cockayne and Jack Warman (2019) defend a view they call supra-evidential atheistic fideism. This is the idea that considerations similar to William James’s defence of theistic belief can be used to justify atheistic belief. If an individual evaluates the evidence for atheism and theism as roughly the same (i.e. either can be epistemically rational), then she can rationally believe in atheism if her passions lean in that direction, provided the belief in atheism is forced, live and momentous. After outlining their defence of atheistic fideism, I offer some friendly amendments to their position. Cockayne and Warman claim that when the existential question of God’s existence is undecided for someone, she is rational to let her passions answer the existential question. This is a version of Rowe’s friendly atheism because it can explain the existence of religious disagreement, even in cases where an atheist and theist give the same assessment of the evidence for God’s (non)existence; they disagree at the passional level, not at the evidential level. I argue for a different version of friendly atheism: a mere passion need not settle the existential question about God when the evidence cannot decide it. For one might be rational in preferring that God not exist if God’s existence would make things worse. For certain individuals, this is reason enough to accept and act as if atheism is true, even if it is not epistemically rational to believe that it’s true.

Reading Camus Carefully?

Abstract Michel Onfray’s L’Ordre libertaire is a passionate defence of Camus as a philosopher, and an attempt to co-opt him as a representative of Onfray’s own Nietzschean, hedonistic, libertarian, atheist beliefs. But the account is far from successful. Onfray’s presentation is highly repetitive, and though he promises us a ‘careful reading’, in fact his work contains many errors and misrepresentations. His vituperative attacks on Marxism in general, and on Sartre in particular, are often based on serious inaccuracies. His attempt to defend Camus en bloc makes him frequently insensitive to the complexities and contradictions of Camus’s thought, and in particular of his political stance. The treatment of Camus’s views on the Algerian War in particular, and the role of violence in history in general, is equally unsatisfactory.

The Will Not to Believe

Is it permissible to believe that God does not exist if the evidence is inconclusive? In this paper, we give a new argument in support of atheistic belief modelled on William James’s The Will to Believe. According to James, if the evidence for a proposition, p, is ambiguous, and believing that p is a genuine option, then it can be permissible to let your passions decide. Typically, James’s argument has been used as a defence of passionally caused theistic belief. However, in the existing literature, little attention has been given to topic of passionally caused atheistic belief. Here, we give much needed attention to the issue of how areligious passions can justify atheistic belief. Following James, we argue that if atheism is a genuine option for an agent, it is permissible to believe that God does not exist based on her hopes, desires, wishes, or whatever passions incline her to disbelieve. After defending the coherence of passionally caused atheism, we go on to suggest why this position is a tenable one for the atheist to adopt.

The atheistic factor? Explaining the link between atheistic beliefs and child-rearing values in 30 countries in Europe

ABSTRACTIn this study, the link between atheistic beliefs and two child-rearing values (obedience and autonomy) is explored. Atheists would be more likely to show preferences for autonomy and less likely for obedience. Two individual-level explanations, namely educational attainment and expressive individualism, are tested. Moreover, the contextual effects of both religious climate and collectivistic-individualistic culture in a country are investigated. Using data from 30 countries from the European Values Study [(2011) 4th wave, Integrated Dataset ZA4800. Data File Version 3.0.0. (November 2011). Cologne: GESIS Data Archive. doi:10.4232/1.11004], it was found that both educational attainment and expressive individualism are explanations of why individuals with atheistic beliefs prefer autonomy more compared to other individuals. However, for obedience, expressive individualism could only explain the difference in preferences between religious individuals and atheists, but not the difference between atheists and those who are unsure about their religious belief. In addition, contrary to our expectations, no moderating effect of the religious context and collectivistic-individualistic culture on the relationship between atheistic beliefs and child-rearing values was found.

Linguistic creativity in the words of Imam Ali ()

After this study, in the words of the Commander of the Faithful, I wanted to summarize the most important findings of the study: No one denies that the words of Imam Ali (B) are words that represent the truest manifestations of creativity. This is why his reasons are summarized as follows:His soul had never been infected with atheistic beliefs or other than the monotheistic belief before, so it accepted Islam with eagerness and sincerity.The Bani Hashem boy was raised in the homes of eloquence and eloquence, and in the tribe of eloquence and eloquence, and in the most eloquent environment of those who uttered adverbs, so he learned his qualities and virtues and gained from his logic what he acquired. Reasons to say he has and contented himself with the inexhaustible spring, which is the Holy Quran.You study in the greatest school in history (the Qur’an school),

РЕЛІГІЙНІСТЬ ЯК ЧИННИК МОДЕРНОЇ ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО СЕЛЯНСТВА ПЕРШОЇ ТРЕТИНИ ХХ ст.

Author of the paper argues that in the age of revolutionary shakes of the first third of the XX century, Ukrainian peasantry lost its traditional religiousness under the influence of general social modernization. The background of research is an analysis of modern research practices, widespread in Ukrainian and partially, foreign historiography. One of the perspectives is their optimization, depending upon possibilities and certain tasks, that lies before historian. And the task is the ascertainment of religiousness as a factor of complex evolutionary processes, that seems to went “beyond the boundaries “of traditional beliefs. Thorough analysis of the problem attests that modern transformation (modernization) of society had for the first time in history seriously challenged the religiousness, established for centuries and millennia. That wasn’t an accidental, as in this historical period, human consciousness experienced the destruction of itself, to clarify – the consciousness of agrarian (traditional) society. Suffering certain psychological stress, it has been forcefully changing its inner world by adapting it to new reality. At the same time, religiousness did not abandoned human completely, but influenced noticeably the transformation itself. The result of such cooperation was an emerging of a “new human being” – collective farmer (kolgosp/kolhoz farmer) which had modified religiousness with noticeable inclusions of atheistic beliefs with the background of “Forgetting God”

Towards a geopolitics of atheism: Critical geopolitics post the ‘War on Terror’

Political geography has an established tradition of engaging with religiously-driven geopolitik. However, despite the remarkable growth in professed atheist beliefs in recent decades and the popular expression of an imagined geopolitical binary between secular/atheist and religious societies, the geopolitics of irreligion have received almost no attention among academic practitioners. This paper outlines the core tenets of ‘New Atheist’ philosophy, before addressing how its key representatives have taken positions on the ‘Global War on Terror.’ In particular, we critically interrogate the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens and identify a belligerent geopolitical imagination which posits a civilizational clash between an existentially-threatened secular, liberal West with responsibility to use extraordinary violence to protect itself and the world from a backwards oriental Islam. The paper concludes with four possible explanations for the paradox that the New Atheist critique of religion for being violent acts itself as a geopolitical incitement to violence. In so doing, we seek to navigate debates about the nature and purpose of critical geopolitical research given that the historical, intellectual and political contexts in which it was formed have changed.

Does absence make atheistic belief grow stronger?

Discussion of the role which religious experience can play in warranting theistic belief has received a great deal of attention within contemporary philosophy of religion. By contrast, the relationship between experience and atheistic belief has received relatively little focus. Our aim in this paper is to begin to remedy that neglect. In particular, we focus on the hitherto under-discussed question of whether experiences of God’s absence can provide positive epistemic status for a belief in God’s nonexistence. We argue that there is good reason to accept an epistemic parity between experiences of God’s presence and experiences of God’s absence

The Epistemology of Modest Atheism

Distinguishing between the old atheism, the new atheism, and modest atheism, and also between belief and acceptance, and belief and acceptance tokens and types, I defend the disjunctive view that either modest atheistic belief or modest atheistic acceptance, construed as type, is today epistemically justified in the context of philosophical inquiry. Central to my defence is a deductive version of the hiddenness argument and an emphasis on the early stage of philosophical inquiry that we presently occupy.

Lost Monuments of the Bogorodsk Church Architecture of the Late 19th and the Early 20th Century

Deals with the problem of study and preservation of the monuments representing the church architecture in the town of Bogorodsk and its immediate environs. Most of the churches have lived through numerous destructive processes that were rooted in religious or atheist beliefs of different periods including blasphemous attitude to holy places. Though some churches were lately restored or re­built almost from scratch, many were lost.

Spiritual, religious, and personal beliefs are important and distinctive to assessing quality of life in health: A comparison of theoretical models

The study investigates theoretical debates on the contribution of spiritual, religious, and personal beliefs (SRPB) to quality of life (QoL) in health, by examining contrasting models. The WHOQOL-SRPB assesses QoL relating to SRPB where 33 QoL facets are scored in 6 domains, of which SRPB is one. The measure was completed by a heterogeneous sample of 285 sick and well people representing a cross-section of religious, agnostic, and atheist beliefs in UK, and structured for gender (52% female) and age (mean 47 years). No evidence was found to support the model of spiritual QoL as a concept that overarches every other QoL domain. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that SRPB is an integral concept to overall QoL, with a very good fit (comparative fit index=.99). Spiritual QoL made a significant, relatively independent contribution, similar to the other five domains (β=0.68). Spiritual QoL is most closely associated with the psychological domain, particularly hope and optimism and inner peace; two of the nine SRPB facets. Spiritual QoL, but not most other aspects of QoL, is higher for religious people. The results explain theoretical confusion arising from previous research. Spiritual QoL makes a significant and distinctive contribution to QoL assessment in health and should be assessed routinely in health care populations.

Faith Tweets: Ambient Religious Communication and Microblogging Rituals

Faith Tweets: Ambient Religious Communication and Microblogging Rituals

Death in media

This paper discusses the role of media in a construction of public image speech and presentation of death. The main research questions could be posed as follows: does the media discourse confirm a thesis about modern society as the one which intensely avoids encounter with Death, or does it defy it? Frequent images or hints of death in visual media in films informative and entertainment programs-suggest certain changes related to this issue in the past few decades. This analysis focuses on printed media hence the paper assesses numerous issues of the daily journal Politika from 1963, 1972, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2007 and 2008, as well as some other daily journals after 2000. The analysis confirms a strong connection between the current political systems and ideology and speech about death. In addition, it reveals a political usage of this event but also speaks up about cultural and historical models, underlying all other constructions. During the 1960's and 1970's, the presentations, including the speech about death relied on the traditional understandings about inevitability of death and dying, and alternatively on atheistic beliefs related to the progress and wellbeing of the society. In this particular discourse, death was present to a limited degree, serving primarily to glorify socialist order. The end of the 1970's witnessed an increase in the glorification of the death, correlated with the decrease of the dominant political ideology. On the other hand, the 1990's brought about more presence of the national and religious symbolism and glorification of the dead as heroes. After 2000, mercantilism is evident throughout the media. All of the media broadcast drastic images of death and dead, thus providing an answer to the posed question at the beginning of this paper about the relationship of the modern society towards death but nevertheless, this still leaves out many implicit consequences and possible meanings.

Strong beliefs and coping in old age: a case-based comparison of atheism and religious faith

ABSTRACTAlthough a variety of research projects have been conducted on the benefits of religious coping in older adults, no direct comparison between atheism and religious faith has been published. The study reported in this paper tackled this issue by interviewing two matched groups of people aged over 60 years living in southern England, one of 11 informants with strong atheistic beliefs, and the other of eight informants with strong religious beliefs. Five paired comparisons were undertaken to examine the role of the content of the belief system itself in coping with different negative stresses and losses commonly associated with ageing and old age. The pairs were matched for the nature of the loss or stress that the two people had experienced, but the two individuals had opposed atheistic and religious beliefs. The analyses showed that all the study participants – regardless of their beliefs – were coping well, and suggested that a strong atheistic belief system can fulfil the same role as a strong religious belief system in providing support, explanation, consolation and inspiration. It is postulated that the strength of people's beliefs and how those beliefs are used might have more influence on the efficacy of coping than the specific nature of the beliefs. Further research into the strength of belief systems, including atheism, is required to test and elaborate this hypothesis.

Can children and young people learn from atheism for spiritual development? A response to the National Framework for Religious Education

The new National Framework for Religious Education (RE) suggests, for the first time in national advice on agreed syllabuses, that atheism can be included in the curriculum alongside world religions. This article counters objections to the inclusion of atheism in RE and argues that children and young people can learn from atheistic beliefs and values for their spiritual and moral development. It explores the idea of atheism as ‘faith’ and illustrates atheism’s spiritual and moral potential through examples of writing from Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre. The article concludes that RE (preferably under a new name) can continue to be a valuable curriculum subject, provided it responds to the non‐statutory guidance of the new framework by offering a broader, more inclusive spiritual education which includes positive accounts of atheistic beliefs. Indeed, it is contended that without this change schools can not fulfil their legal obligation to provide opportunities for spiritual and moral development to all pupils.