Questions and Tasks for Self-Control

1. What is the goal of Buddhist’s life?

2. What are the main branches of Buddhism?

3. Is there any difference between the concepts of karma and destiny?

4. Explain the main difference between Judaism and Christianity?

5. Christianity as a world religion: conditions of origination, faith and worship.

6. What are the main branches of Christianity?

7. Speak about Orthodox Christianity.

8. What is the common background between Catholic and Orthodox Churches?

9. Is there any difference between Protestantism and Catholicism?

10. Give general characteristic of Islam.

11. Who are the Prophets of Islam?

12. What are the main pillars and taboos of Muslim faith?

13. How is crime punished according to Sharia?

14. Is there any analogy between Islam and Christianity?

Literature

Basic:

Jan Assmann. Moses the Egyptian : the Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism / Jan Assmann. — Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1997. — 276 p.

James Kritzeck. Sons of Abraham: Jews, Christians, and Moslems / James Kritzeck. — Baltimore : Helicon, 1965. — 126 p.

Islamic Ethics of Life : Abortion, War, and Euthanasia / edited by Jonathan E. Brockopp. — Columbia, S.C. : University of South Carolina Press, 2003. — 248 p.

Paul Barnett. Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity : a History of New Testament Times / Paul Barnett. — Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1999. — 448 p.

Supplementary:

Akbar Ahmed. Islam Today : a Short Introduction to the Muslim World / Akbar S. Ahmed. — New York : I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2008. — 253 p.

The Just War and Jihad : Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam / R. Joseph Hoffmann. — Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2006. — 303 p.

Primary sources:

Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (the Lotus Sūtra) / Leon Hurvitz. — New York : Columbia University Press, 2009. — 384 p.

The Holy Bible : Containing the Old and New Testaments. — Nashville : T. Nelson Publishers, 1990. — 890 p.

Unit 25

Religion in modern world

The aim of the theme is to: master new tendencies in human religious activity, to analyze the phenomena of religious fundamentalism and violation of human rights, to reveal the importance of tolerance for the sake of peace on the Earth.

Key words of the theme are: secularization, secularism, toleration, religious tolerance, fundamentalism, freedom of consciousness.

25.1. Specific Character of Development of Religion in Modern Time: Modernism and Fundamentalism

The modern epoch is characterized by the development of scientific knowledge and technological progress. The main peculiarity of contemporary civilization is secularization. It is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious (or "irreligious") values and secular institutions. Secularization thesis refers to the belief that societies "progress" is possible mostly through modernization and rationalization, religion loses its authority in all aspects of social life and governance. The term secularization is also used in the context of the lifting of the monastic restrictions from a member of the clergy. Secularization has many levels of meaning, both as a theory and a historical process. Social theorists such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim, postulated that the modernization of society would include a decline in levels of religiosity. Study of this process seeks to determine the manner in which, or extent to which religious creeds, practices and institutions are losing social significance. Some theorists argue that the secularization of modern civilization partly results from our inability to adapt broad ethical and spiritual needs of mankind to the increasingly fast advance of the physical sciences. Secularization is closely connected with secularism and modernism. Secularism is the concept that government or other entities should exist separately from religion and religious beliefs. Modernism describes both a set of cultural tendencies and religious movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of traditional society. The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt that the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, and especially religious faith became outdated in the new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world. The opposite tendency to modernism is fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism refers to a belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles (often religious in nature), sometimes as a reaction to perceived doctrinal compromises with modern social and political life.

The term fundamentalism was originally coined to describe a narrowly defined set of beliefs that developed into a movement within the Protestant community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century, and that had its roots in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy of that time. The term has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations. Fundamentalism is commonly used as a pejorative term, particularly when combined with other epithets (as in the phrase "Muslim fundamentalists" and "right-wing/left-wing fundamentalists"). Richard Dawkins has used the term to characterize religious advocates as clinging to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence. Others in turn, such as Christian theologian Alistair McGrath, have used the term fundamentalism to characterize atheism as dogmatic.

Muslims believe that their religion was revealed by God (Allah in Arabic) to Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, the final Prophet delivered by God. However, the Muslims brand of conservatism which is generally termed Islamic fundamentalism encompasses all the following:

• It describes the beliefs of traditional Muslims that they should restrict themselves to literal interpretations of their sacred texts, the Qur'an and Hadith. This may describe the private religious attitudes of individuals and have no relationship with larger social groups.

• It describes a variety of religious movements and political parties in Muslim communities.

• As opposed to the above two usages, in the West "Islamic fundamentalism" is most often used to describe Muslim individuals and groups which advocate Islamism, a political ideology calling for the replacement of state secular laws with Islamic law.

In all the above cases, Islamic fundamentalism represents a conservative religious belief, as opposed to liberal movements within Islam.

Most Jewish denominations believe that the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible or Old Testament) cannot be understood literally or alone, but rather needs to be read in conjunction with additional material known as the Oral Torah; this material is contained in the Mishnah, Talmud, Gemara and Midrash. While the Tanakh is not read in a literal fashion, Orthodox Judaism does view the text itself as divine, infallible, and transmitted essentially without change, and places great import in the specific words and letters of the Torah. As well, adherents of Orthodox Judaism, especially Haredi Judaism, see the Mishnah, Talmud and Midrash as divine and infallible in content, if not in specific wording. Hasidic Jews frequently ascribe infallibility to their rabbie's interpretation of the traditional sources of truth.

Non-religious fundamentalism

Some refer to any literal-minded philosophy with pretense of being the sole source of objective truth as fundamentalist, regardless of whether it is usually called a religion. For instance, theologian Alister McGrath has compared Richard Dawkins' atheism to religious fundamentalism, and the Archbishop of Wales has criticized "atheistic fundamentalism" more broadly. Richard Dawkins has stated that, unlike religious fundamentalists, he would willingly change his mind if new evidence challenged his current position.

In France, the imposition of restrictions on public display of religion has been labeled by some as "Secular Fundamentalism". Intolerance of women wearing the hijab (Islamic headcovering) and political activism by Muslims also has been labeled "secular fundamentalism" by some Muslims in the United States.

The term "fundamentalism" is sometimes self-applied to signify a rather counter-cultural fidelity to some noble, simple, but overlooked principle, as in Economic fundamentalism; but the same term can be used in a critical way. Roderick Hindery first lists positive qualities attributed to political, economic, or other forms of cultural fundamentalism. They include "vitality, enthusiasm, willingness to back up words with actions, and the avoidance of facile compromise." Then, negative aspects are analyzed, such as psychological attitudes, occasionally elitist and pessimistic perspectives, and in some cases literalism.

Atheistic fundamentalism

State atheism is the official rejection of religion in all forms by a government in favor of atheism. When Albania declared itself an atheist state, it was deemed by some to be a kind of fundamentalist atheism and where Stalinism was like the state religion which replaced other religions and political ideologies. See also North Korea, China and Vietnam. State atheism is connected with atheistic fundamentalism. The term "atheistic fundamentalism" is controversial. In “The Dawkins Delusion?” Christian theologian Alister McGrath and psychologist Joanna Collicutt McGrath compare Richard Dawkins' "total dogmatic conviction of correctness" to "a religious fundamentalism which refuses to allow its ideas to be examined or challenged."

Thus, we may say that "atheistic fundamentalism" advocates that religion has no substance; the faith has no value but a superstitious nonsense. So, it leads to the situations such as schools refusing to put on nativity plays and crosses removed from chapels, though others have disputed this.