Rejection Of Religion Research Articles

Spiritual Authority for a (Post)Secular Age: Olive Schreiner’s Dreams as Literary Theology

Although an outspoken freethinker, Olive Schreiner engaged frequently and creatively with religious texts and traditions throughout her writings. Her religious revisionism informs Dreams (1890), a collection of short narratives that influenced many subsequent women’s rights activists but has since fallen into relative critical neglect. Responding to developments in postsecular scholarship, this article re-reads Schreiner’s stories as advancing a literary theology of immanence. Her various and fragmentary revelations adapt inherited models of spiritual autobiography and refashion biblical imagery, experimenting with religious allegory to challenge religious exclusivism. These innovations reflect her participation in several intersecting developments within early feminist movements that sought not only to overturn patriarchal expressions of religion but also to reclaim women’s spiritual authority and imagine new pathways to divinity. Rather than advancing a linear model of spiritual development, Dreams reflects an eclectic, open-ended process of searching that refashions religious symbols even as it ventures beyond canonical and institutional boundaries. This work, in turn, invites a critical reassessment of Schreiner’s freethinking output not as a rejection of religion but as an effort to rewrite it.

Feminism in English Literature of 20th Century

Style of writing has changed over the centuries, and the need to talk about new things like sexuality, homosexuality, and the value of freedom. In the 19th century, writers began to talk about the importance of women being free and respected. For example, when women were finally able to vote and their status in society improved, writers wrote more openly about new subjects. This is also one of the great changes in the development of literature. Some subjects in 20th-century literature were considered taboo in the 19th century, such as religion, homosexuality and sexuality in general, and rejection of religion.

Основні педагогічні закони у канонічному праві

Canon law is closely related to pedagogical phenomena. After all, a person needs to learn, educate, give him the opportunity to develop. To do this, use different natural laws and patterns. We believe that the best pedagogical laws follow from canon law. We believe that the following basic pedagogical laws follow from the Ten Commandments of God: love; prevention of passions; prevention of blasphemy; recreation; respect for parents and elders; prevention of metaanthropological murder; fornication prevention; prevention of defamation; prevention of envy. It should be emphasized that these laws apply separately to the body, soul and spirit, which will reflect the real actions of man, for your Supreme Court. The implementation of the pedagogical laws of the Sinai imperative reveals, substantiates and solves all the problems of social phenomena. Polemical and pedagogical phenomena become instructive, do not have a worldview breakthrough, which follows from the Ten Commandments of God. The pedagogical law of love is fundamental in canon law. The supernatural reality of love changes man, his existential principles. Love is an unshakable foundation in human development, education and training, forms the supernatural and natural law regime, its vital functions. Ontological love gives a person and a person who has the greatest pedagogical canonical influence on it, and provides visible and invisible action. For the action to be ontological, it is necessary to nourish the love existentials and transcendents who give the psychic power that creates good. The main thing in the law of love is worship as metaphysical respect, unquestioning obedience and general commitment to all of God's creation. The law of prevention of passions as a strong sense of certain motives: stable, intense, purposeful. While these motivations may be for the better, they should not take the lead in levels with your ontological purpose. The law states that man is the image of God, so in the likeness of God's duty to be not with the help of strong earthly feelings, but only with the help of sentient sensibility. Of course, there may be some earthly favorites after the manifestations of heavenly feelings, but they should not be in the first place, because in canon law it is regarded as idolatry, inventing an idol, apostasy, etc. From a pedagogical point of view, the passion leads to vanity and pride. After all, a person with great passions (even in the field of good) is often praised, glorified, which is vanity. The pedagogical law for the prevention of blasphemy states the unforgiveness of sins of this type. Blasphemers deserve death. The Dictionary of Religious Studies states that blasphemy is in the narrow sense a verbal image of God, in the sincere sense - disrespect for the objects of religious worship. Blasphemy is sometimes overturned by various forms of criticism or rejection of religion. Followers of any religion accept disrespect only for their own shrines. In a simultaneous critique of other shrines, they study it as a struggle for "true faith." In many countries where state regions, blasphemy is considered a criminal offense [9, p.43]. In earthly life there are part-timers, when a person complains about God and God's will, there is a misunderstanding with God and holiness and mockery of them, is inconsiderate in prayer, utters false oaths and gods, uses abusive words with God's call in empty talk. These spiritual norms are very great and need to be explained in detail.

Freedom on the Frontier: Sharon Butala’s Novel <i>Wild Rose</i> as Existential Autofiction

In Wild Rose (2015), the seventh novel by Canadian prairie author Sharon Butala, the protagonist—young wife and aspiring homesteader Sophie Hippolyte—expresses profound anguish, rejection of upbringing and religion, and headstrong desire to remake herself on the prairie frontier of southwestern Saskatchewan in the mid-1880s. The novel marks a turn in Butala’s fiction toward atheistic existential philosophy, a progression from a questioning to a rejection of organized religion and an emphasis on complete freedom. This turn was prompted by her suffering and questioning as Butala dealt with the rather sudden death of her husband, the loss of her way of life on, and intimate connection with, the prairie landscape, and the need to remake herself. Indeed, Wild Rose can be considered “existential autofiction” in which Butala fictionalizes her experience of loss and her rejection of religion (specifically Catholicism) via Sophie, one of her most resilient characters, who seeks freedom on the frontier.

Sacred Socialism

Sacred Socialism

Girls, gold, and gods: perverted individualism and heightened secularism in O’Neill‘s Desire Under the Elms

ABSTRACT Beyond the archetypal themes and motifs such as chauvinism, family dysfunctions and conflicts, Nietzschean and Freudian elements, Desire Under the Elms was a critique of America’s brands of individualist and secularist ideologies. Spreading in the US at the time was a faulty form of individualism which continues to affect and permeate other parts of the world through cultural imperialism. Concomitant with perverted self-reliance was a growing secularist worldview that was challenging established religion, as if demanding freedom from hundreds of years of clout from Calvinist Christianity. In this article, I will emphasize that the drama captured an increased preference for an extreme form of individualism that was going wayward, juxtaposed with the movement toward secularization before and during the early 1900s. Further, I will highlight that these twin ideologies underpin the three major themes in the award-winning drama: the peripheralization, objectification, and often negative portrayal of women, the obsession over possessions and of persons, and the rejection of religion.

Alice Walker's Metaphysics: Literature of Spirit by Nagueyalti Warren

Reviewed by: Alice Walker's Metaphysics: Literature of Spirit by Nagueyalti Warren Rochell Isaac (bio) Warren, Nagueyalti. Alice Walker's Metaphysics: Literature of Spirit. Landham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019. 220 pp. ISBN: 978-1538123973. $129.85 Hardcover. In multiple interviews, Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker, has shared the story of seeing the dead body of her classmate's mother whose husband had shot her in the face. Walker explains that as a child, she knew that she would tell that woman's story and that while she didn't yet have the words, she would learn, and that story would be about poverty, rage, oppression, sexism, and misogyny. As Walker surmised at a young age, she would indeed learn to tell such stories; in fact, addressing these social ills has been the focus of her life's work. Professor of African American Studies, Nagueyalti Warren, in Alice Walker's Metaphysics: Literature of Spirit, seeks to securely place Walker and her work in the African American homiletic tradition. Warren's ambitious book delves fully into Walker's body of work. She locates Walker in the tradition of Sojourner Truth who wrote on matters of race and gender drawn explicitly from her own lived experiences. The truth is Walker's only guide and compass. Warren blesses her audience with theological, metaphysical, ecocritical, ecofeminist, cultural, and structuralist readings of Walker's texts. Her access to Walker's private notes and manuals provides profound insight into Walker's thinking, further heightening the book's appeal. Warren presents Walker's works as the culmination of an aesthetic vision of her theology of spiritual liberation and transformation, embedded with a rejection of religion, dualism and suffering. She depicts Walker's search and exploration of mystical truth for self-empowerment. Alice Walker is represented as literary mystic, pagan sage, and healer. Warren introduces Walker as mystic born of childhood trauma: the eye injury she sustained at 8-years-old, the unwanted pregnancy and abortion, and a long illness which she self-diagnosed as Lyme disease. These existential crises brought Walker to experience the dark night of the soul, a common experience for mystics, and as mystic, she draws on her own experience as an African American woman in her writing. I was first introduced to Walker's work as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University and was instantly captivated by Walker's own story. The daughter of sharecroppers, Alice Walker rose to become a major writer of the 20th century, becoming the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award in 1983 for her novel The Color Purple. A prolific writer, Walker has written several novels which Warren dissects chronologically illustrating how with each novel, Walker takes her audience deeper into the "mystical realm." Warren concludes that Walker's collective work has brought about a paradigm shift, which unveils and challenges our archaic binary thinking [End Page 320] about life as simply defined by our notions of good and evil. Walker's writing then, opens up a sacred and communal space to the "infinite possibilities" created in a spiritual universe for readers who dare to journey with her. Walker's first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Warren describes as a "mediation on choice" where free will, fate and destiny are highlighted with sexism, classism, and poverty categorized as intersecting symptoms (21). Walker's second novel, Meridian (1976), is followed by her magnum opus, The Color Purple (1982), which Walker herself posits is a theological work and which Warren depicts as a sermon. The novels: The Temple of My Familiar (1989), Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), By the Light of My Father's Smile (1998), Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004), and a memoir, The Chicken Chronicles (2011) follow to varying degrees of acclaim. Walker has also produced several collections of short stories: In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Woman (1973), You Can't Keep A Good Woman Down (1971), Alice Walker Banned (1996), The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart (2000). Warren uses Organic Inquiry—a research method and spiritual inquiry blend aimed at transformative change—to unpack Walker's...

Telaah Kritis terhadap Fungsionalitas Gereja Toraja Berdasarkan Kritik Sosio-Religi Karl Marx

This study aims to critique and evaluate the church's functionality, namely the church in its social function. The Toraja Church is still not here to carry out its real social function. As a result, various kinds of social injustice that are produced from culture settle right within the sphere of the church. The church exists only as a producer of the imagination: directing the imagination, without fixing problems on earth. This study uses a qualitative method with a literature observation approach. As a basis, the theory used in this research is Karl Marx's socio-religious criticism theory. The essence of this criticism is not rejection of religion, but rejection of religious practices which merely produce illusions, so as not to solve the problems experienced by society, especially Christians, as a result, society becomes alienated. The Toraja Church is required not to solve problems through imagined solutions, but instead to bring concrete liberating solutions in society. The church should be a real medicine where there is a sick soul due to the chaos of the world. With the revival of church functionality, the church has become a strong fortress for the community towards peace.

Features of the formation of spiritual and moral values in the educational practice of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century

The problem of forming spiritual and moral values in the educational practice of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century is of theoretical interest and practical value for Russian teachers in terms of using the experience accumulated by foreign colleagues in the course of reforming the national school. The hypothesis of the study was that the various forms of work practiced by teachers of the two countries – the GDR and the FRG, – during this period contributed to the formation of spiritual and moral values among the youth of the two German states. The following research methods were used: literature analysis, scientific and pedagogical interpretation of information contained in sources; comparative method; axiological method that allows to identify the positive content in the scientific subject. Main results of the study. The fundamental difference in socio-political and ideological attitudes that took place in the GDR and the FRG in 1949-1989 determined to a decisive extent the choice of forms and content of educational work carried out in educational institutions in both countries. In the GDR, there was a single comprehensive public school, which was under the full ideological and administrative control of the ruling Socialist United Party of Germany. Special attention was paid to educating the younger generation in the spirit of devotion to the ideals of socialism, rejection of religion and the values of bourgeois society. The Union of Free German Youth and the children's pioneer organization named after Ernst Telman were actively used in the process of socialist education of young people. At the same time, they actually copied the forms and methods of work of the corresponding organizations that operated in the USSR, – the Komsomol and the Lenin Pioneer organization. In Germany, on the contrary, there was a significant number of types of secondary educational institutions, many of which were non-governmental: private, Waldorf, Catholic and Evangelical, etc. Ideological education, aimed, among other things, at the assimilation of spiritual and moral values, was carried out mainly at school, in accordance with the guidelines adopted in this educational institution. The study allowed us to characterize the features of the formation of spiritual and moral values in the educational practice of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century. The significance of the results obtained is that they to a certain extent factual enrich modern Russian historical and pedagogical science. The main conclusion of the study is that in the GDR, the concept of the goal of education was inextricably linked with collective interests and orientation to the socialist ideology, while the liberal-democratic ideology in the FRG gave absolute priority to the individual over the collective. A scientifically formulated study of this approach provides a perspective for further research.

Secularism and guided democracy

Secularism is the recognition of religion and politics as distinct and autonomous domains. As a doctrine of the state, it has in practice been taken to mean indifference to or rejection of religion, laicization, neutrality, disestablishment and recognition of cultural diversity. Rejection of secularism as antithetical to a nation’s cultural traditions calls for special concern in a guided democratic system. The paper addresses the problem of disunity arising from rejection of secularism as diverse groups fan the politics of identity in Nigeria. The objective of the paper is to show that secularism as principle for structuring the organization of the state is a solid base for the unity of the state and a safeguard against drift into anarchy or theocracy. Adopting analytic and historical approaches, the paper argues that secularism is needed to stem the tide of reactionary and fanatical religious ideologies that threaten contemporary society. The paper concludes by noting that secularity of the state is to be upheld in Nigeria to ensure a viable and peaceful polity. Keywords: Laicism, Laicity, Disestablishment, Secularity, Neutrality

ВАСИЛЬ БАРКА. ФІЛОСОФСЬКЕ КОНСТРУЮВАННЯ МИТЦЕМ ВЛАСНОЇ МОДЕЛІ СВІТУ

This article deals with the life and work of Vasyl Barka. He is one of the most prominent writers of the 20th century and one of the brightest representatives of Ukrainian emigration. The artist spent most of his life outside Ukraine. Nowadays he is returning to his native land in his poems. Deservedly, he gains appreciation and becomes the subject of research interest. Life conditions made him create a special world model, which the writer had created in his writings. This research analyzes the facts of his life in order to explain the original poetic micro– and macrocosm of the writer, it focuses on such aspects of his creativity, which underlie the philosophical design of the writer’s own picture of the world. The author tries to understand the basis of the writer’s life philosophy. Emphasis is laid on the fact that his hard, and sometimes even dramatic life totally fits into the context of our difficult times. It is believed that faith in God has always lived in the soul of the writer. But tough rejection of religion by the communist system, aggressive destruction of everything related to faith and church, encouraged the artist to look for the depths of this phenomena. Searching for the truth, Vasyl Barka is convinced that the deepest human’s tragedy lays in their sinful separation from God. The article says that Barka’s dream of an ideal world coincides with Skovoroda’s theory. However, the artist not only dreamt of such a world, but he became his representative himself. This view is confirmed by the last period of his life. Constant philosophical reflections about the sense of life have resulted in the change of the world outlook and the complete adoption of Christian ideology. With the help of his writings, Vasyl Barka tries to purify our spirituality from all the stinging and hypocritical things which were done by the Pharisees from science and arts and their books. In search for harmony, Barka creates poetry of original style which requires the reader’s physical and spiritual attention. The study showed that the poetic palette of the artist had been influenced by various style schools and directions. Such an alloy of styles largely explains the difficulty of perceiving of Vasyl Barka’s poems. Therefore, Barca’s poetry is on the verge of the general literary process. So, in future, Vasyl Bark’s extraordinary and rich creativity is worth investigating. Besides, it is worth analyzing from the point of view of national, religious and Christian principles.

Centralność religijności i przekonania postkrytyczne a otwartość na karierę międzynarodową studentów

The importance of religion on the several stages of migration is mentioned in the literature (Hagan, Ebaugh 2003; Hagan 2013; cf. Williams 2000). Although in the shaping of migrational intentions and decision making in this area, the crucial role play financial issues and need of improving material status (Kontuly, Smith, Heaton 1995; Myers 2000), it seems that axiological beliefs, especially religious ones, are important. The conducted research regarding importance of religion and religiosity for shaping of migrational intentions are not so numerous. However, they show the significance of these factors (Myers 2000). The aim of the research presented in this article was the analysis of two multidimensional theoretical constructs – religiosity and openness to international career. There were 324 students examined (75.30% of them were women). The mean age in this group was M=20.84 (SD=1.58). There were used following measures: The Centrality of Religiosity Scale of Huber (2003; Zarzycka 2007, 2011), The Post-Critical Belief Scale of Hutsebaut (1996; Bartczuk, Wiechetek, Zarzycka 2011; Bartczuk, Zarzycka, Wiechetek 2013) and Openness to International Career Scale of Banka (2005). The obtained results did not confirm previous results indicating that individual religiosity has an important meaning in the context of migrational intentions (see research review of Myers [2000]). However, the research reveals that rather rejection of religion may be connected with bigger openness to international career.

Bonhoeffer’s “Religionless Christianity” and the Evangelical Rejection of “Religion”:A Comparison

The following article compares Bonhoeffer’s writings on “religionless Christianity” with the opinion, common among evangelicals, that Christianity is not about “religion,” based on a study of members of the Vineyard Church in T.M. Lurhmann’s When God Talks Back. While there are important similarities between Bonhoeffer and the evangelical rejection of religion, the article argues that the two theologies part ways on a number of points, most importantly concerning the theology of suffering.

CREDs, CRUDs, and Catholic scandals: experimentally examining the effects of religious paragon behavior on co-religionist belief

ABSTRACTPrevious research on credibility-enhancing displays (CREDs) suggests that long-term exposure to religious role models “practicing what they preach” aids the acceptance of religious representations by cultural learners. Likewise, a considerable amount of anecdotal evidence implicates its opposite, perceived “religious hypocrisy” (forthwith credibility-undermining displays or CRUDs), as a factor in the rejection of religion. However, there is currently little causal evidence on whether behaviors of either kind displayed by religious authorities directly affect pre-existing religious belief. The current study investigated this question by priming Irish self-identified “Catholic Christian” participants with either a clerical CRED or CRUD and subsequently measuring levels of explicit and implicit belief. Our results revealed no effects of immediate CRED or CRUD exposure on either implicit religious belief or three different measures of explicit religiosity. Instead, explicit (but not implicit) religiosity was predicted by past CRED exposure. Prospects and limitations of experimental approaches to CREDs and CRUDs are discussed.

Atheism and Morality, Guilt and Shame: Why the Moral Complacency of the New Atheism is a Mistake

AbstractWhen it comes to morality, the New Atheists appear to think that their rejection of religion, except for the removal of fundamentalist distortions, changes nothing. We think that this is because they have not thought things through. Atheism might not be a threat to shame morality, but it is certainly a threat to guilt morality. Given that there are reasons to doubt the viability today of shame morality, we face a far greater problem if atheism triumphs than the New Atheists admit.

FROM BHAGAT SINGH, ATHEIST, TO AGNOSTIC KHUSHWANT

Using Bhagat Singh (an atheist) and Khushwant Singh (an agnostic) as primary examples, this paper explores the particular nature of Sikh irreligiosity or rejection of religion. I argue that terms such as ‘atheist' and ‘agnostic’, even when adopted by authors such as Bhagat Singh and Khushwant Singh themselves, cannot fully capture the views they expressed regarding the rejection of key components of Sikhism. The paper further considers the nature of the alternative worldviews advocated by Bhagat Singh and Khushwant Singh, noting those aspects of Sikh tradition they found most troubling, and those that they wished to preserve.

Socio-Economic Philosophy of Conventional and Islamic Economics : Articulating Hayat-E-Tayyaba Index ( HTI ) on the Basis of Maqāṣid Al-Sharīʿah

In this paper, we have presented contrasting positions of Conventional Economics and Islamic Economics with respect to socioeconomic philosophy. The epistemology of human life as deemed in conventional economics is strongly rooted in rejection of religion and rewards in life hereafter. In the conventional terms, human is a self-autonomous being, with sole motives of self-interest, growth, and development. Contrary to this position, Islam guides and encourages toward becoming a non-self-centric man, with a mission to spiritually develop oneself and others, by taking a leap from darkness to lightness. This Islamic religiostic approach in every sphere of life—Religion, Life, Intellect, Lineage, Property—is governed more generally by Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah, through which one gains internal and external satisfaction, leading toward a peaceful life—Qur’ānically termed as Hayat-e-Tayyaba. Further on, the notion of Growth and Development in Conventional Economics is contrasted with the superior notion of Hayat-e-Tayyaba for Islamic Economics. This paper identifies and suggests variables within the society for deriving essence of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah and utilizing it for developing a Hayat-e-Tayyaba Index. A survey exploring the religiosity among the male and female youth of Pakistan was also carried out.

Religiosity and Soviet ‘modernisation’ in Central Asia: locating religious traditions and rituals in recollections of antireligious policies in Uzbekistan

The main argument of this article is that religious policies implemented during the Soviet era and adaptations of the public to them produced a new understanding of religiosity and religious life among the population in Uzbekistan. The Soviet administration promoted the rejection of religion as an official policy and utilised a vast range of opportunities to criticise religion and promote secular education. However, there were other policies the public remembers as initially shocking to indigenous society but eventually accepted as positive because they assisted in the process of modernisation. These policies are exemplified by the hujum (unveiling) campaign to institutionalise safeguards against under-age and forced marriage, introduce conventional education and promote the wider integration of non-religious Soviet men and women into public life. An analysis of the manner in which people have come to terms with their past and their recollections of antireligious campaigns helps us understand how life under the Soviet government not only resulted in changes in lifestyles but also redrew the ‘boundaries’ of ‘proper’/‘modernised’ religious life and of what are now considered to be the religious remnants of the past.

French Eighteenth-Century Materialists and Natural Law

SummaryThis article looks at the discussions of natural law by the eighteenth-century French materialists Julien Offray de La Mettre, Denis Diderot, Paul Thiry d'Holbach and Claude-Adrien Helvétius. It is particularly concerned with their discussion of moral values and their attempt to find a materialistic basis for them as part of their rejection of religion. The discussion brings out the différences between them and analyses their dialogues on this question, including the other materialists' rejection of La Mettrie's amoralism, which threatened to undermine their attempt to found a natural law taught by experience and based on human nature. Particular attention is paid to Diderot's many writings which grapple with the subject, beginning with his Encyclopédie article droit naturel, probably written in 1754. He discussed the question in many of his later writings, including in his annotations on the works of Helvétius, who based natural law on the general interest. These writings reveal a tension between Diderot's emphasis on the search for individual happiness and the interests of society as he, together with d'Holbach, attempted to provide a natural basis for morality and government from which to criticise existing institutions.

A Spirituality of the Commons: Where Religion and Marxism Meet

A Spirituality of the Commons: Where Religion and Marxism Meet