Presentation Transcript

1. Week 16- Religion.
2. Secularism: In political terms, secularism is a movement towards the separation of religion and government (often termed the separation of church and state). This can refer to reducing ties between a government and a state religion, replacing laws based on scripture (such as the Torah and Sharia law) with civil laws, and eliminating discrimination on the basis of religion. This is said to add to democracy by protecting the rights of religious minorities. Due in part to the belief in the separation of church and state, secularists tend to prefer that politicians make decisions for secular rather than religious reasons. In this respect, policy decisions pertaining to topics like abortion, contraception, embryonic stem cell research, same-sex marriage, and sex education are prominently focused upon by American secularist organizations such as the Center for Inquiry. In studies of religion, modern Western societies are generally recognized as secular. This is due to the near-complete freedom of religion (beliefs on religion generally are not subject to legal or social sanctions), and the lack of authority of religious leaders over political decisions. 
3. Secularism: Many Christians support a secular state, and may acknowledge that the conception has support in Biblical teachings, particularly Jesus' statement, "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.“ However, some Christian fundamentalists (notably in the United States) oppose secularism, often claiming that there is a "radical secularist" ideology being adopted in current days and see secularism as a threat to "Christian rights"and national security. The most significant forces of religious fundamentalism in the contemporary world are Fundamentalist Christianity and Fundamentalist Islam. At the same time, one significant stream of secularism has come from religious minorities who see governmental and political secularism as integral to preserving equal rights. Some of the well-known states that are often considered "constitutionally secular" are USA, France, India, Mexico, South Korea, and Turkey although none of these nations have identical forms of governance.
4. Faith Schools: The Education Act 1944 introduced the requirement for daily prayers in all state-funded schools, but later acts changed this requirement to a daily "collective act of worship", the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 being the most recent. This also requires such acts of worship to be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character".The term "mainly" means that acts related to other faiths can be carried out providing the majority are Christian. English education includes many schools linked to the Church of England, which controls governance and admittance while the funding comes from the state. Voluntary-controlled schools, the Church contributes only the building itself.  Voluntary-aided schools, the Church pays for 10% of projects; the Church sets the ethos of the schools and influences selection of pupils; at voluntary aided schools, usually half or more of the school's places are reserved for "actively involved" members of the Church determined by local clergy. These form a large proportion of the 6,955 Christian faith schools in England. The Roman Catholic church also maintains schools. In addition, there are 7 Muslim, 36 Jewish, 2 Sikh and 1 Hindufaith schools.
5. Faith Schools: Faith schools follow the same national curriculum as state schools, with the exception of religious studies, where they are free to limit this to their own beliefs. About one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England are faith schools. Madrassas are usually attached to a mosque, providing religious instruction in the evenings and at weekends. But many are run unofficially in homes by imams and teachers without any qualifications or background checks. There are only 7 Muslim state funded faith schools, but there are 2000 official Madrassas and many more unofficial ones ran from homes. Doctor GhayasuddinSiddiqui, the leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, has called for them to be subject to government inspection following publication of a 2006 report that highlighted widespread physical and sexual abuse.
6. In 2005, David Bell, the head of the Office for Standards in Education said "Faith should not be blind. I worry that many young people are being educated in faith-based schools, with little appreciation of their wider responsibilities and obligations to British society. This growth in faith schools needs to be carefully but sensitively monitored by government to ensure that pupils receive an understanding of not only their own faith but of other faiths and the wider tenets of British society".He criticised Islamic schools in particular, calling them a "threat to national identity". In September 2007, attempts to create the first secular school in Britain were blocked. Dr Paul Kelley, head of Monkseaton High School in Tyneside, proposed plans to eliminate the daily act of Christian worship and cause "a fundamental change in the relationship with the school and the established religion of the country". In November 2007, the Jewish Free School in north London was found guilty of discrimination for giving preference to children who were born to Jewish mothers. In January 2008, the Commons Children, Schools and Families Select Committee raised concerns about the government's plans for expanding faith schooling. The general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, Dr. Mary Bousted, said "Unless there are crucial changes in the way many faith schools run we fear divisions in society will be exacerbated. In our increasingly multi-faith and secular society it is hard to see why our taxes should be used to fund schools which discriminate against the majority of children and potential staff because they are not of the same faith".
7. Catholicism andCondoms: Issues involve religious participation in global health care services and collaboration with secular organizations such as UNAIDS and the World Health Organization. Catholic organisations like Caritas already perform extensive social and educational work relating to AIDS, as for example the provision of services to 14,000 AIDS orphans in Namibia. Available data indicates that condom use is very important to decreasing the risk of STD transmission, but also that teaching people in an abstinence-only style does not work. While condoms might serve as an effective barrier to the transmission of HIV, condoms also impermissibly impede the procreative aspect of the sexual act which is understood by the Church to have a deeply theological meaning. As such, their use is forbidden. The Church emphasizes "education towards sexual responsibility", focusing on partner fidelity rather than the use of condoms as the primary means of preventing the transmission of AIDS. The Church's position is that all responsible sex must occur within the framework of a faithful, monogamous relationship.
8. Catholicism andCondoms: Church officials argue that reliance on condoms to prevent transmission of AIDS can result in a false sense of security because of the problem of "leakage and breakage". Other more serious claims have been made, however. In 2003, contrary to empirical evidence, the president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family - "senior spokesman" Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo - claimed that condoms are permeable to the aids virus. He explained to BBC interviewers that "The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom." These false claims were echoed by an archbishop of Nairobi, as well as by Catholics as far Asia and Latin America. The BBC confirmed that this misinformation has real, damaging effects at the ground level.
9. Catholicism andCondoms: Pope John Paul II: In September 1990, visited the small town of Mwanza, in northern Tanzania, and gave a speech that many believe set the tone for the AIDS crisis in Africa. Being unequivocal, he told his audience that condoms were a sin in any circumstances. He lauded family values and praised fidelity and abstinence as the only true ways to combat the disease. Many members of the church have since spoken out and said that although abstinence is preferable, in certain circumstances, such as one married partner having HIV / AIDS or in the epidemic in Africa, use of condoms are “the lesser evil”. The Church's stance has been criticized as unrealistic, ineffective and irresponsible by some public health officials and AIDS activists. They often refer to the scientific consensus that condoms greatly reduce the risk of STD transmission, but also that Abstinence-only sex education is ineffective - discussed below.
10. Catholicism andCondoms: Empirical evidence suggests that, although condoms do not guarantee the perfect prevention of STD transmission, condoms greatly reduce the risks of transmission. Other studies have focused more on HIV/AIDS and have reliably found more than an 80% drop in the risk of transmission when condoms are used. Researchers report that the primary challenge is getting people to use condoms all the time. Currently, empirical evidence also suggests that abstinence-only sex education does not work, and comprehensive sex education should be used instead. For instance, abstinence only education fails to decrease people's risks of transmitting STDs in the developing world.
11. Sharia Law: Sharia or Islamic law is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Islamic jurisprudence (see Fiqh) interprets and extends the application of sharia to questions not directly addressed in the primary sources by including secondary sources. These secondary sources usually include the consensus of the religious scholars embodied in ijma, and analogy from the Quran and Sunnah through qiyas. Muslims believe sharia is God's law, but they differ as to what exactly it entails.Modernists, traditionalists and fundamentalists all hold different views of sharia, as do adherents to different schools of Islamic thought and scholarship. Different countries, societies and cultures have varying interpretations of sharia as well. Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. Where it has official status, sharia is applied by Islamic judges, or qadis. The imam has varying responsibilities depending on the interpretation of sharia; while the term is commonly used to refer to the leader of communal prayers, the imam may also be a scholar, religious leader, or political leader.
12. Sharia Law: Many Westerners consider the punishments prescribed by some countries' interpretation of Islamic law to be barbaric and cruel. Islamic scholars argue that, if implemented properly, the punishments serve as a deterrent to crime. In international media, practices by countries applying Islamic law have fallen under considerable criticism at times. This is particularly the case when the sentence carried out is seen to greatly tilt away from established standards of international human rights. This is true for the application of the death penalty for the crimes of adultery, blasphemy, apostasy and homosexuality, amputations for the crime of theft, and flogging for fornication or public intoxication. Freedom of speech Qadi'Iyad argues that sharia does not allow freedom of speech in such matters as criticism of Muhammad. Such criticism is blasphemy and punishable by death. Slander, gossip, and backbiting, or "ghiba" is regarded as a major sin. Homosexuality Homosexual activity is illegal under sharia, though the prescribed penalties differ from one school of jurisprudence to another. For example, these Muslim-majority countries may impose the death penalty for acts perceived as sodomy and homosexual activities: Iran,Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia.In contrast, in some Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia (outside of Aceh province),Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, same-sex sexual acts are illegal but there is no specific penalty.In Turkey, homosexual acts in private between consenting individuals are legal.
13. Sharia Law: Women: In terms of religious obligations, such as certain elements of prayer, payment of the zakatpoor-tax, observance of the Ramadan fast, and the Hajj pilgrimage, women are treated no differently from men. There are, however, some exceptions made in the case of prayers and fasting, as women are relieved from the duty of the five daily prayers or fasting during their menstruation.  In practice, it is much more common for men to be scholars than women, however in the early days of Islam, female scholars were much more common. Islam does not prohibit women from working, married women may seek employment although it is often thought in patriarchal societies that the woman's role as a wife and mother should have first priority. Islam unequivocally allows both single and married women to own property in their own right.Islam grants women the right to inherit property from other family members, and these rights are detailed in the Quran. A woman's inheritance is different from a man's, both in quantity and attached obligations.For instance, a daughter's inheritance is usually half that of her brother's. Men are fully obliged to financially maintain their household, whereas women are not; it is often said that even if the woman is a millionaire and he is poor, he is still obliged to spend on her. She is not obliged to share her wealth with her husband unless she does so out of kindness.
14. Sharia Law: Historically, Islamic law granted women certain legal rights that Western legal systems did not grant women until the 19th and 20th centuries.Noah Feldman, a Harvard University law professor, has noted: “As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them – hardly progress toward equality of the sexes.” Since the 19th century, Western legal systems have generally allowed for greater women's rights than Islamic law.
15. Mormonism: Mormonism is the religion practiced by Mormons, and is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement. This movement was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. beginning in the 1820s as a form of Christian primitivism. During the 1830s and 1840s, Mormonism gradually distinguished itself from traditional Protestantism. Mormonism today represents the new, non-Protestant faith taught by Smith in the 1840s. After Smith's death, most Mormons followed Brigham Young to the Rocky Mountains as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Other branches of Mormonism include Mormon fundamentalism, which seeks to maintain practices and doctrines such as polygamy that were discontinued by the LDS Church, and various other small independent denominations. The movement began in western New York during the Second Great Awakening when Smith said that he received visions revealing a new sacred text, the Book of Mormon, which he published in 1830 as a supplement to the Bible. Based on the teachings of this book and other revelations, Smith founded a Christian primitivist church, called the Church of Christ.
16. Mormonism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism#Theological_divisions_within_Mormonism