June 7, 2013 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on June 7, 2013July 28, 2016 by JCPW

Around the Web This Week

Some interesting law & religion stories from around the web this week:

In Turkey, a struggle over urban spaces is erupting as a broader fight over Turkish identity where difficult issues of religion, social class, and politics intersect
The Czech Republic’s highest court has upheld a government plan to pay 59 billion koruna ($3 billion) over the next 30 years to religious groups as compensation for property seized by the country’s former Communist regime
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati fired a lesbian teacher who became pregnant by artificial insemination, arguing that her employment contract required her to live within Catholic teachings (she did not disclose her sexual orientation to the school). On Monday, a federal jury found that the firing was discriminatory and awarded her $171,000
An Egyptian court has convicted a Coptic Christian lawyer of blasphemy and sentenced him to one year in prison with hard labor
Missouri governor Jay Nixon vetoed a bill that would have prohibited judges from considering Shariah and other foreign law in their decisions, claiming that the bill would make it harder for Missouri families to adopt children from overseas
According to a new study by the Pew Forum, Muslims who use the internet are more likely than other Muslims to have a favorable opinion of Western culture, and are more likely to see commonalities between Islam and Christianity
USA Today reports on Zaytuna College, a liberal arts college founded as a place for American Muslims to study and grow in their faith
In secular Norway, the Bible is making a comeback via a new Norwegian language version and a popular six-hour (!) play called “Bibelen” (that’s “Bible” in Norwegian)
In addition to tracking hate crimes against Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and atheists/agnostics, the FBI will begin formally tracking hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus, and Arabs

Posted on June 7, 2013July 28, 2016 by JCPW

Sezgin, “Human Rights Under State-Enforced Religious Family Laws”

This September, Cambridge University Press will publish Human Rights Under State-Enforced Religious Family Laws in Israel, Egypt, and India by Yüksel Sezgin (Syracuse University). The publisher’s description follows.

About one-third of the world’s population currently lives under pluri-legal systems where governments hold individuals subject to the purview of ethno-religious rather than national norms in respect to family law. How does the state-enforcement of these religious family laws impact fundamental rights and liberties? What resistance strategies do people employ in order to overcome the disabilities and limitations these religious laws impose upon their rights? Based on archival research, court observations and interviews with individuals from three countries, Yüksel Sezgin shows that governments have often intervened in order to impress a particular image of subjectivity upon a society, while people have constantly challenged the interpretive monopoly of courts and state-sanctioned religious institutions, re-negotiated their rights and duties under the law, and changed the system from within. He also identifies key lessons and best practices for the integration of universal human rights principles into religious legal systems.

Posted on June 7, 2013July 28, 2016 by JCPW

Dworkin, “Religion Without God”

This August, Harvard University Press will publish Religion Without God by the late Ronald Dworkin. The publisher’s description follows.

In his last book, Ronald Dworkin addresses questions that men and women have asked through the ages: What is religion and what is God’s place in it? What is death and what is immortality? Based on the 2011 Einstein Lectures, Religion without God is inspired by remarks Einstein made that if religion consists of awe toward mysteries which “manifest themselves in the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, and which our dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive forms,” then, he, Einstein, was a religious person.

Dworkin joins Einstein’s sense of cosmic mystery and beauty to the claim that value is objective, independent of mind, and immanent in the world. He rejects the metaphysics of naturalism—that nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences. Belief in God is one manifestation of this deeper worldview, but not the only one. The conviction that God underwrites value presupposes a prior commitment to the independent reality of that value—a commitment that is available to nonbelievers as well. So theists share a commitment with some atheists that is more fundamental than what divides them. Freedom of religion should flow not from a respect for belief in God but from the right to ethical independence.

Dworkin hoped that this short book would contribute to rational conversation and the softening of religious fear and hatred. Religion without God is the work of a humanist who recognized both the possibilities and limitations of humanity.