In Islam, one of the core beliefs is in the life of the hereafter. At the end of time and all that exists, all human beings will be resurrected and will face the Day of Judgment. Even their body parts or organs will stand witness against them. Furthermore, in Islamic law, every action or thing is categorized either as legitimate or prohibited. This article explores ethico‐legal opinions on the issues of organ donation and transplantation in the light of these essential (...) Islamic beliefs. (shrink)

This book is a continuation of Giorgio Agamben's investigation of political theory, which began with the highly influential volume _Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life_. Having already traced the roots of the idea of sovereignty, sacredness, and economy, he now turns to a perhaps unlikely topic: the concept of the oath. Following the Italian scholar Paolo Prodi, Agamben sees the oath as foundational for Western politics and undertakes an exploration of the roots of the phenomenon of the oath (...) in human experience. He rejects the common idea that the oath finds its origin in religion, arguing instead that the oath points toward a particular response to the experience of language, a response that gave birth to both religion and law as we now know them. This book is important not only for readers of Agamben or of continental philosophy more broadly, but for anyone interested in questions relating to the relationships among religion, law, and language. (shrink)

This study examines the emergence of new forms of belief in today’s digital age, based on the historical roots of deist thought. Deism, particularly during the Enlightenment, developed a rational conception of God grounded in reason and natural laws, emphasizing individual freedom of belief against the dogmatic structures and intermediary institutions of traditional religion. This approach underscored the direct relationship between God and the individual, embracing the idea that the sacred can be understood through reason and the natural order of (...) the universe, and thus adopted personal autonomy and rationality as core principles of religious experience. Consequently, a significant paradigm shift occurred in the realm of personal belief.Today, technologies rapidly disseminated through artificial intelligence, big data algorithms, social media platforms, and digital networks are radically transforming religious practices and the concept of the sacred. The concept of “networked religion,” which has emerged on digital platforms, stretches the fixed, centralized, and hierarchical structure of sacredness, enabling the rise of a new understanding of the sacred that is collective, interactive, and multi-layered. This concept, pioneered by Heidi A. Campbell, serves as an important theoretical tool for understanding the complex nature of religious practices and perceptions of the sacred in the digital age. Digital sacredness transcends the boundaries of traditional religious authorities and represents an ever-evolving process in which the experience of faith is dynamically reshaped through networks and algorithms.Digitalization is not merely a technological advancement; it also triggers profound ontological, epistemological, and theological transformations in the fields of philosophy of religion, theology, and sociology. Ontologically, concepts of reality and being are reconsidered within the multilayered and mutable nature of digital space; epistemologically, the processes of acquiring, verifying, and sharing knowledge diversify through new tools offered by digital technologies. Theologically, concepts of God, sacredness, and religious authority are reinterpreted within the context of individual belief experiences and collective digital networks, supported by algorithmic mediation. This dynamic structure lays the groundwork for the expansion and transformation of traditional religious authorities, causing fundamental changes in the social and individual functions of religion.The article also addresses the emerging concept of “digital deism” in the digital age. Digital deism represents a new belief model that blends the classical deist emphasis on individual and rational belief with personalized data analytics and algorithmic guidance offered by digital technologies. In this model, the conception of God is reshaped to include not only the rational order of the universe but also the flexible and dynamic structure of digital networks. Individual faith experiences are enriched through data-driven guidance and community-based interactions. While maintaining individual freedom and rationality, digital deism offers a more inclusive and pluralistic belief model through the collective connectivity and adaptive interactions facilitated by digital environments. In the digital age, religion has moved beyond being solely an inner personal experience and has become a collective social practice within the interactive and participatory platforms of social media. In this environment, belief is nourished through constant interaction and communication among individuals.The understanding of the sacred has acquired a more multidimensional, flexible, pluralistic, and continually evolving character. Digital deism, by integrating individual rationality and freedom with network-based collective interaction, holds the potential to form new syntheses of contemporary beliefs. (shrink)

According to the social contract theory, in order to achieve justice, people grouped themselves in societies. Historically speaking, judges appeared long before the legislator which means that justice was the first element of the social life. Therefore, it expresses the social ethics of a particular time and requires a minimum of credibility. Excessive pragmatism and utilitarianism have kidnapped more and more of what is humane, superior and sacred in the act of justice, and “secularized” it. As Eliade said in The (...) Sacred and the Profane, the sacred is something which is totally different, a space of radical otherness which overshadows the physical territory. This shading manifests itself through limitation, sequencing, reiteration and keeping what is sacred there, even in a courtroom, through ritualization. (shrink)

Certain religious texts are deemed part of legal texts that are characterised by high sensitivity and sacredness. Amongst such religious texts are Islamic legal texts that are replete with Islamic legal terms that designate particular legal concepts peculiar to Islamic legal system and legal culture. However, from the syntactic perspective, Islamic legal texts prove lengthy and condensed, with an extensive use of coordinated, subordinate and relative clauses, which separate the main verb from the subject, and which, of course, carry (...) a heavy load of legal detail. The present paper seeks to examine the syntactic features of Islamic legal texts and the syntactic translation implications involved through studying three Islamic legal Arabic excerpts and their English translations. The paper argues that amongst the syntactic features of Islamic legal texts are nominalisation, participles, modals and complex structures. It also claims that the syntactic translation implications are indeed syntactic features of legal English, which are sentence combining versus sentence break, nominalisation, wh-deletion, passivisation, modals and multiple negations. Moreover, nominalisation, modality and complex structures are features of both Islamic legal texts and legal English, albeit with varying degrees. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the idea of life as a “forever festival,” drawing on Ancient Philosophy to reframe existence not as a problem to be solved or endured, but as an ongoing celebration in which each moment invites presence, gratitude, and participation. Inspired by Stoic, Epicurean, and Platonic thought, the chapter challenges modern narratives of postponement—where happiness is deferred to future achievements or external milestones. Instead, it presents Philosophy as an invitation to inhabit time fully, to recognise the sacredness of (...) the ordinary, and to cultivate joy grounded in awareness rather than consumption. The chapter argues that by learning to celebrate life as it unfolds, we free ourselves from the tyranny of constant striving and rediscover a deeper, steadier form of fulfilment that aligns inner peace with ethical living. (shrink)

This volume is a reissue of an 1889 translation of Fichte’s third book, Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre, which first appeared in Jena in 1796. Fichte here attempts to reconcile his belief in the sacredness of the rights of the individual with his conviction that the individual is a member of a community of rational beings, and thus man develops his moral self only through relationship to others. ‘…Ego is the individual, the rational being determined as such (...) through opposition to another rational being’. His thesis is that human rights are essentially social rights and that, since the freedom of the individual implies responsibility, concrete freedom is necessarily finite. This affirmation of the limitation of a self by its relation to other selves corresponds with Fichte’s exposition of the mutual limitation of the ego and the non-ego in his theory of the intellect in his Science of Knowledge. Fichte declares that the fundamental principle of The Science of Rights is that each individual must restrict his freedom through the conception of the possibility of the freedom of the other. (shrink)

Although there are several provisions within the Nigerian legal framework that, however, address the issue of church attack, the state capacity to implement effective constitutional sanctioning on perpetrators of this heinous crime has always been found wanting or completely absent, leading to countless religious attacks on churches with seeming state consent. This study employs semi-structured interviews to draw data from affected families from Benue and Enugu States, Nigeria. The article explored their experiences. The study participants were recruited through snowball sampling (...) technique, and data were analysed thematically. The respondents stated that church killings or killing of Christians is rising because of the fact that perpetrators stand lower risk of detection and apprehension than other crimes. Also respondents interrogated that justification for the crime is land acquisition and religious intolerance. On the persistence of the challenge, all the 13 respondents stated that the crime seems to have state approval that has made it seemly impossible to tackle. The article calls for continuous inter-religious dialogue and intentional governmental responsibility in protecting lives of all persons living within the geographical enclave of Nigeria which is necessary for the common good. Closer understanding of other faiths and religions will help build bridges of peace and tolerance. The article also calls for the need to promote African traditional values, such as the value of sacredness of life, human respect and good neighbourliness. Contribution: This study initiated the discussions that will help the public understand the reason for continuous church attacks in Nigeria, what church crime connotes in the Nigerian context and its uniqueness from other crimes. These discussions sit quite well within the transdisciplinary religious perspective of this journal. (shrink)

This essay proposes an interpretation of Gianni Vattimo’spensierodeboleas a form of political theology, centred on the management of “thirdness”—a name for all mediating structures that allow for social order. Working in the framework put forward by René Girard and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, rather than viewing the right/left divideas a mere political taxonomy, the text frames it ontologically: the right affirms exogenous fixed points (tradition, sacredness, law), while the left seeks endogenous foundations through deliberation and shared meaning. However, genuine emancipation demands (...) recognition of a nonviolent, irreducible third: Heidegger’sGeworfenheit(thrownness). Without this acknowledgment, even leftist attempts at freedom risk giving rise to impersonal, alienating collective subjects. Only by integrating, also in its political implications, thrownness as an ontological limit—and simultaneously as acondition of every authentic projection—can weak thought sustain a truly liberating project. In this way,kenōsis, as a historical and theological weakening of metaphysical absolutes, becomes the key to imagining collective agency beyond domination, without erasing the conditions for meaningful responsibility and freedom: embodiment in a “here and now”. (shrink)

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road confronts readers with a question: what is there to live towards after apocalypse? McCarthy locates his protagonists in the aftermath of the world’s fiery destruction, dramatizing a relationship between a father and a son, who are, as McCarthy puts it, “carrying the fire.” This essay asserts that the body carrying the fire is a sacred, incandescent body that connects to and with the world and the other, unifying the human and the divine. This essay will (...) consider the body as a sacred connection in The Road. Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic approach will help to explore what is sacred. In addition, their works elucidate the body as a present site of human connection and sacredness while calling attention to what is glaringly absent yet hauntingly present in McCarthy’s text: the mother. In the aftermath of destruction, primitive, sacred connections become available through the sensual body, highlighting what is at stake in the novel: the connection of body and spirit. The essay will attempt to show that McCarthy’s rejection of a redemptive framework, or hope in an otherworldly reality, shrouds spirit in physicality symbolized by the fire carried by the body. This spirit offers another kind of hope, one based on the body’s potential to feel and connect to the other. The thought and works of Ricoeur and Kristeva will broaden a reading of McCarthy’s novel, especially as a statement about the unification of body and spirit, contributing a multidimensional view of a contemporary problem regarding what sustains life after a cataclysmic event. (shrink)

What makes some human rights campaigns for the physical integrity rights of prisoners more effective than others? Despite various normative arguments condemning these practices, only limited systematic analysis documents the relative effectiveness of different arguments on individuals. This is surprising, because the success of human rights campaigns depends on getting individuals to care about and support policy positions that protect human rights. We constructed an experiment to compare the effects of six different arguments against prisoner abuse and torture. We found (...) that an argument which emphasized the suffering of the prisoner had a consistently positive and significant effect on opposition to torture and prisoner abuse. However, this effect was largely contingent on subjects’ political ideology. Political conservatives actually became less opposed to torture, on average, after reading the same argument emphasizing the prisoners’ suffering or the sacredness of human beings. (shrink)

A complex process of place-making by Vedic and Purāṇic primary narratives and localized oral secondary narratives shows how nature in India is perceived from a deeply humanized worldview. Some form of cosmic descent from other place-worlds or lokas are used to account for the sacredness of a landscape in the primary narrative called stala purāṇa, while secondary narratives, called stala māhāṭmya, recount the human experience of the sacred. I suggest that sacred geography is not geography of “terrestrial” but of (...) implaced otherworldly materials––rivers, mountains or forests. An ecological ethics based on sacred geography must therefore take into account the sacred aspects of such narratives and encourage normative values that could apply to both the sacred and the ecological for such places. (shrink)

It is uncontroversial that betrayal of trust which one has encouraged is a grave moral wrong. One case of this is promise breaking, whose self-evident moral wrongness contractarians must invoke to reduce the whole or the most important part of morality to the keeping of a hypothetical mutual agreement for minimal reciprocal services. Mutual advantage, and the sacredness of commitments or encouraged trust, both lie at the heart of what most moral philosophers take to be the point and content (...) of morality. (shrink)

The objective of the article is to show how the development of Brazilian music is within the scope of multiplicity, which suggests non-dualistic forms of philosophical constitution. There is an attempt at a split between the popular and the erudite, some attributing simplicity to the former as synonymous with alienation and the latter as sophistication as identical to the superior. The point is that Brazilian music had other directions, due to the strong influence of Sons dos Negros, the work of (...) José Ramos Tinhorão. Musicality is strongly linked to the liturgical ceremonialism of the traditions of African-based religions. In these religions, the sacred and the profane, not properly separated into antagonistic poles. Musical and bodily elements were incorporated into the country's cultural traditions when the sacred suffered a certain distance from the profane. But even when the lundu and umbigada, under the influence of another trait, the alembamento ceremonies, common in Angolan culture, became completely separate from terreiro religions, the sacredness of the orixás and voduns still remained as an immaterial sanctuary of history resistance of black people in Brazil. We will also comment on the persecution of these cultural manifestations. And, in the end, we will analyze some sambas from Rio's carnival, as a demonstration of their complexity, heterogeneity and sophistication: the popular, under no circumstances, reduced in relation to the erudite. In fact, both of them, as categorical examples, of the human creative capacity to transform the banal into the extraordinary, through the untimely power of the work of art. (shrink)

The texts of the Bible treasure a high amount of theatrical potential. Thus, the book of Job constituted the basis of the Theatrum Mundi. Nevertheless, the Jewish and Christian conception of the world and history, despite its tragedies and Passions, is far removed from Greek tragedy. The figure of Job constitutes a contrast to the tragic in King Lear. An exorcistic formula from the Bible appears in Hamlet, Macbeth, and in plays of the Faustian theme –El mágico prodigioso and Marlowe’s (...) and Goethe’s Fausts –, as well as, surprisingly, in Don Quixote and in many other plays where the devil appears on stage. OscarWilde’s Salome finds inspiration in the language of Song of Songs and of apocalyptic prophecies. Rituality and sacredness are common to the Bible and theatre in the quest for representation of the invisible through the visible. (shrink)

This article examines the notions of left and right poles of Georges Bataille’s sacredness and also analyses their complexity and ambiguous meaning of duality and binary’s contexts through a prism they are usually viewed. Particularly, key factors that influence Bataille’s thought of sacredness are being analysed, the criticism of wrong notion of sacredness interpretation by modern philosophers is being formed. Based on challenging positions of sacred and profane’s binary opposition and also revealing volatile and random movements between (...) pure and impure sacredness and between sacred and profane, Bataille’s philosophy actuality is being proved. Despite wide researches held in this field Bataille’s philosophy potential is still not fully revealed in relation to modern cultural and social researches of religion and philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

The object of the study is the cultural concept of N.A. Berdyaev, his doctrine of the categories of “culture” and “civilization” under conditions of technological progress. The author examines its content in detail through three analytical dimensions: origin and essence, logic of development, and value orientation, and also clarifies the nature of the conceptual tension between these categories. Special attention is paid to the key provisions of Berdyaev: culture is rooted in the sacredness of sacrifice, expresses spiritual freedom and (...) individual creativity, developing according to the hierarchical logic “from above to below”; civilization, on the other hand, has a secular origin, is associated with the practical development of nature, relies on instrumental rationality, and is formed according to the democratic logic “from below to above”. The study is based on a comprehensive approach including cultural analysis, philosophical hermeneutics, and existential methodology. A special contribution of the author to the topic is a holistic three‑dimensional analysis of the opposition between culture and civilization, which reveals their fundamental contradictions and emphasizes that the dichotomy acts as an analytical tool, not an absolute, since in modern culture the spiritual and the material, the sacred and the profane are interpenetrating. The novelty of the study also lies in the fact that it substantiates the need for balance and dialectical unity of spiritual development and material practice, and also shows that understanding dualistic tension is an important step toward comprehending and overcoming modern cultural challenges. A key result of the study is the substantiation that, in the context of digitalization, Berdyaev’s ideas about the enslaving nature of civilization acquire new meaning. (shrink)

"But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence,... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness,".

This paper reflects on the attempt to ‘re-sacralize’ the cosmos in the context of the ‘return of religion’ to the public sphere, which has led scholars to describe our age as post-secular. This phenomenon contrasts with the association between secularization and disenchantment with the world that seemed to characterize modernity in some Western societies. On the one hand, the paper considers the idea of the sacredness of nature as a means of promoting respect for it and preserving it. Here (...) the question is posed as to what extent this attitude has a place in today’s religions. On the other hand, the feasibility of this possibility without displacing an anthropocentric vision of the world that seems to have been central to some religions is pointed out. Finally, these issues are illustrated with some concrete examples within the Buddhist and Christian traditions. (shrink)

Orthodox Christian ethics is grounded in the sacredness of life principle. Yet, it can accept a quality of life approach where “quality” refers not to capacities or states, but to the relationship between the patient's condition and the quest for transcendent life goals (Walter and Shannon, 1990). The true quality of human life derives from the vocation to stewardship, which enjoins an attitude of humble acceptance toward beneficial or “redemptive” suffering. The proper response to suffering in terminal cases is (...) not active euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide but appropriate pain management and personal care. In cases of PVS or deep coma, only the determination of higher brain death can warrant the withholding or withdrawing of food and hydration. Yet, artificial maintenance of biological existence is also immoral. Death is to be accepted and embraced as a transition to eternal life. (shrink)

Bioethics and the stages on life's way -- Bioethical challenges in the new millennium -- The covenantal aspect of Christian marriage -- The use and abuse of human embryos -- The sacredness of newborn life -- On addictions and family systems -- The hope of glory : from a physical to a spiritual body -- Care in the final stage of life.

Part 1, "The Religious Urge", carefully distinguishes the heart's ineradicable religious instinct from cultural trappings and conventional religious forms. It also evaluates services and dis-services of institutional religion and points to ways in which the current spiritual impulse is likely to unfold. Part 2, "The Reverential Life", gives an individualised, practical approach to honest communion with the sacred through intelligent devotion, reverence, prayer, and mature humility. It features a section on what Grace is, and how it can open us to (...) the sacredness of each moment of life. (shrink)

Chinese religion is deeply wedded with the economy and reflects the historical completion of the Chinese market economy in the Qing dynasty. This is where the distinction between market economy and capitalism comes into full significance. Weber already recognized that China had developed a strong commercial culture and markets. Hence, implicitly he distinguished between markets and capitalism. Yet his focus on European history undermined this analytical distinction. But it is essential to explain the apparent contradiction between the two narratives about (...) Confucianism and markets: the Confucian failure story and the Confucian capitalism story. Weber failed both to adequately recognize the nature of Chinese religion and the nature of the Chinese market economy as ritual economy because he projected his grand narrative on capitalist rationalization on China. Chinese religion, in conjunction with the philosophy of Confucianism, may be reinvented today as a way of expressing beliefs about the sacredness of certain pivotal human relations to the world, which enable humans to conduct good life in a way of acting reasonably and responsibly. (shrink)

The management of patients suffering from chronic disorders of consciousness inevitably raises important ethical questions about the end of life decisions. Some ethical positions claim respect of human life sacredness and the use of good medical practices require allowing DOC patients to live as long as possible, since no one can arbitrarily end either his/her or others’ life. On the other hand, some currents of thought claim respect of human life dignity, patients’ wishes, and the right of free choice (...) entail allowing the withdrawal of life sustaining therapy. This could happen when patients believe their own life to be not worth living, or if therapy is not very beneficial, excessively burdensome, or even futile. Indeed, the decision to withdraw therapies in a DOC patient should be guided by reliable information about DOC diagnosis and prognosis and on how the patient would wish to be treated in such a condition. Taking into account such issues, it would be possible to make the decision that more adequately fits a DOC patient’s best interest. This review aims to overview the range of ethical issues referring to end-of-life decisions in DOC patients, with regard to the thorny debate on the sacredness and dignity of human life. (shrink)

Double Effect Donation claims it is permissible for a person meeting brain death criteria to donate vital organs, even though such a person may be alive. The reason this act is permissible is that it does not aim at one’s own death but rather at saving the lives of others, and because saving the lives of others constitutes a proportionately serious reason for engaging in a behavior in which one foresees one’s death as the outcome. Double Effect Donation, we argue, (...) opens a novel position in debates surrounding brain death and organ donation, and does so without compromising the sacredness and fundamental equality of human life. (shrink)

This paper analyses Agamben’s notion of homo sacer, showing how it should not be confined to the field of a negative critique of biopolitics. In his work, Agamben cautiously delineates a positive figure of homo sacer, whom, according to him, we all virtually are. Such figure would be able to subvert the form in which the relation between bare life and political existence has so far been both thought and lived in the West. How and when is this passage from (...) negative to positive sacredness historically accomplished for Agamben? Is such transit after all thinkable? These are the two basic questions he both unintentionally formulates and leaves undecided in his book Homo Sacer. Agamben further elaborates his investigation of biopolitics in the book he dedicates to Saint Paul, The Time That Remains. Chiesa suggests that, in this volume, the figure of homo sacer as earthly hero is transposed onto that of the messianic man. This can only be achieved by means of a detailed Christian—and more specifically Franciscan—development of the ontological notion of ‘form of life’. Problematically enough, Agamben is able to carry out a transvaluation of biopolitics only in the guise of a bio-theo-politics. (shrink)

This article shows how eco-theology could and should be indigenised in an African context using the Copperbelt in Zambia as a case study. The ecological crisis worldwide has given rise to the call for everyone to work together to start caring about our natural environment. In theology, the response to this call received the name eco-theology. By means of a literature review, ethnographic information and governmental legislation, the article tries to illustrate how eco-theology could and should be indigenised in an (...) African context using the Copperbelt in Zambia as a case study. This article makes an attempt to contribute to the needed ecological renewal by reinterpreting two traditions that inform thinking on the Copperbelt: Christianity and African traditional religion. The supernatural belief of the Lamba people is no longer embodied in this creation, and it is not too late for the people to form any indigenous environmental protection movement to protect the sacredness of mother Earth from further contamination and exploitation by strengthening, maintaining and respecting the traditional teachings and the cultural laws. Obedience to God’s command to tend creation is a quest for continued creation by humans, so that value is added to what is already in existence. This is embodied making the place we live in more beautiful, appealing and peaceful. Fruitfulness with sustainability becomes core values for interdependence and earth keeping.Contribution: We wish to address the ecological situation of the mining industry in Zambia from a theological perspective by assessing the impact of the copper mining and processing industry on humans, their environment and nature and by showing how the traditions of African traditional religion thought can be transformed into tools to oppose this ecological disaster. (shrink)

This essay examines the persistent engagement with cosmopolitan inclusivity through the endorsement of indigenous sacredness in works of ethnographic fiction. I focus on Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home, James Cameron’s Avatar, and Taiwanese writer Ming-yi Wu’s science fiction The Man with the Compound Eyes, three iconic environmental representations of indigenous knowledge. These texts illustrate how indigenous thinking has very often been transformed from place-bound, locally-embedded cultural traditions to an embodiment of Euro-American eco-spirituality that overturns both national boundaries (...) and the humannature divide at the turn of the twenty-first century. In settler environmental narratives, the insistence on the ethnographic mode strengthens the desire for authenticity and intimacy. (shrink)

The doctrine of the sanctity of life has traditionally been characterised as a Judeo‐Christian doctrine that has it that bodily human life is an intrinsic good and that it is always impermissible to kill an innocent human. Abortion and euthanasia are often assumed to violate the doctrine. The doctrine is usually understood as being derived from religious dogma and, as such, not amenable to debate. I show that this characterisation of the doctrine is problematic in a number of ways, and (...) I go on to rethink the doctrine. In doing so I follow in the footsteps of Ronald Dworkin, who offered a characterisation of the doctrine in his 1993 Life's Dominion, drawing on a conceptualisation of sacredness that is radically different from standard ones and not dependent on religious dogma. I'll argue that although Dworkin's efforts have much to recommend, his conceptualisation of sacredness is inadequate. Dworkin attempted to reconceptualise sacredness ‘from the armchair’. Here I explain how sacred values are thought of in anthropology and psychology and argue that the sanctity of human life should be understood in the same way. I'll explain how doing so allows us to resolve a number of conceptual problems that bedevil standard characterisations of the doctrine of the sanctity of life. I'll also consider the possibility of a compromise over the sanctity of human life, and as a consequence, compromise over the permissibility of abortion and euthanasia. I'll argue that such compromise is possible, albeit difficult to achieve. (shrink)

No writer or public intellectual of our era has been as sensitive to the role of faith in the lives of ordinary Americans as Robert Coles. Though not religious in the conventional sense, Coles is unparalleled in his astute understanding and respect for the relationship between secular life and sacredness, which cuts across his large body of work. Drawing inspiration from figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, and Simone Weil, Coles’s extensive writings explore the tug of war between faith (...) and doubt. As Coles himself admits, the “back-and-forthness between faith and doubt is the story of my life.” These thirty-one thought-provoking essays are drawn from Coles’s weekly column in the Catholic publication America. In them, he turns his inquisitive lens on a range of subjects and issues, from writers and painters to his recent reading and film viewing, contemporary events and lingering controversies, recollections of past and present mentors, events of his own daily life, and ordinary encounters with students, patients, neighbors, and friends. Addressing moral questions openly and honestly with a rare combination of rectitude and authorial modesty, these essays position Coles as a preeminent, durable, and trusted voice in the continuing national conversation over religion, civic life, and moral purpose. (shrink)

After a critique of the conservative and speculative approaches dominating the field of the protection and promotion of cultural heritage, the paper introduces a sociological perspective that considers cultural heritage an essential factor of identification and belonging, as well as a mean for the reproduction of life forms. The heritage of the past, in fact, is a living body contributing to the symbolic transmis-sion of the aesthetic, ethical and cognitive values of communities. Rather than the protection of guardians and the (...) exploitation of traders, this heritage needs the ac-tive participation of citizens to its regeneration. The paper then argues for a “secularization” of the cultural heritage, shielding it from the separetedness of musealization and returning the religious sense of bond to its sacredness. The sociological perspective has the task of revealing that awareness and proposing strategies for the construction of integrated networks of rational practices. (shrink)

A problemática do justo relacionamento entre o sagrado e o profano foi objecto de uma particular clarificação no Concílio Vaticano II. Ao estabelecer o conceito de secularidade como estatuto que compete à ordem temporal ou da natureza em face da ordem sobrenatural ou da graça, aquela instância do magistério da Igreja legitimou a sua aplicação ao domínio da cultura em geral e da filosofia em especial. A secularidade é aí definida como autonomia relativa. Como tal, ela representa a posição justa (...) entre dois possíveis excessos: o do secularismo e o do sacralismo. Afirmá-la da filosofia, na hipótese da sua elaboração por um filósofo cristão, implica em primeiro lugar admitir que, para este, existe a possibilidade de ser verdadeiramente filósofo sem necessidade de renunciar ou colocar entre parêntesis a sua condição de cristão. Por outro lado, essa condição de filósofo cristão tem implícita uma atitude de abertura mútua, no seu espírito, entre a fé religiosa e a razão filosofante, da qual porém não resulta para este prejuízo mas benefício. Na recta atitude secular, pois, a autonomia supõe que a razão filosófica não perde a sua dignidade, o seu valor e a sua função próprios, deixando-os absorver totalitariamente pela fé; em compensação, porém, o carácter relativo de uma tal autonomia impede que esta seja ignorada por aquela, perdendo-a de vista no seu horizonte filosófico. Sacralismo fideísta e secularismo racionalista estão aí necessariamente ausentes. A possibilidade de uma filosofia qualificada de cristã parece decorrer de uma abordagem do problema por este prima. ///La problématique des relations correctes entre le sacré et le profane a fait l'object d'une clarification spéciale au Concile de Vatican II. Par le fait d'établir le concept de sécularité comme statut qui revient à l'ordre temporel ou a celui de la nature face a l'ordre surnaturel ou de la-grace, l'instance du Magistère de l'Eglise a legitimé son application au domaine de la culture en général et de la philosophie en particulier. La sécularité y est définie comme autonomie relative. En tant que telle, elle représente la position juste entre deux excés possibles: celui du sécularisme et du sacralisme. L'affirmer de la philosophie, dans l'hypothèse de son élaboration par un philosophe chrétien,implique en premier lieu que Ton admette que pour celui-ci, il est possible d'être vraiment philosophe sans nécessairement à sa condition de chrétien ou sans devoir la mettre entre parenthèses. Par ailleurs, cette condition de philosophe chrétien présuppose implicitement une attitude d'ouverture mutuelle, en son esprit, entre la foi religieuse et la raison pensante, ouverture dont pourtant il ne resulte pour celle-ci aucun préjudice, mais bien un acquis positif. Car dans l'attitude seculiere correcte, l'autonomie suppose que la raison philosophique ne perde pas sa dignite, sa valeur et sa fonction propre, en se laissant absorber totalitairement par la foi; en revanche, cependant, le caractere relatif d'une telle autonomie empeche que celle-ci soit ignoree par celle-la, la perdant de vue dans son horizon philosophique. Sacralisme fideiste et secularisme rationaliste doivent la disparaitre. La possibility d'une philosophic qualifiee de chretienne semble surgir d'une approche du probleme par ce biais. /// The problem of the proper relation between the sacred and the profane was object of a particular clarification in the Council Vatican II. In establishing the idea of secularity as a statute which belongs to the temporal order or of the nature in view of the supernatural or of grace, that instance of the Church teaching made lawful its application to the domain of culture in general, and of philosophy in particular. Secularity is there defined as relative autonomy. As such, it represents the right position between two possible excesses: on one side the secularism, and on the other side the sacredness. To affirm it of philosophy, supposings its elaboration is made by a Christian philosopher, implies first of all to admit that for this the possibility exists of being truly philosopher, without needing to renounce or to put between parentheses his condition of Christian. On the other hand, this condition of Christian philosopher contains implicit an attitude of natural openness in his mind, between religious faith and philosophizing reason, from which however no harm results for it at all, but benefit. In the right attitude of secular, therefore, the autonomy supposes that the philosophical reason doesn't loose its own dignity, its value and its function, letting itself absorve wholly by faith; in compensation however the relative character of such an autonomy prevents this from being ignored by the other, loosing sight of it in its philosophical horizon. Fideistic sacradness and rationalistic secularism are there absent. The possibility of a philosophy qualified as Christian seems to derive from an approach of the problem from this point of view. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Sacredness of Nature: Response to Six Objections to Religious NaturalismDonald A. Crosby (bio)The poet Mary Oliver speaks as a kind of religious naturalist when she writes in her book of prose and poetry Winter Hours, “I would not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me, the door to the woods is the door to the temple. Under the trees, (...) along the pale slopes of sand, I walk in an ascendent relationship to rapture, and with words, I celebrate the rapture. I see, and dote upon, the manifest.”1 She speaks as a poet and not as a philosopher or religious scholar, but she does so as one who is ardently in touch with the sacredness of nature. Her vocation as a poet is testimony to this constant attunement. Her daily walks in the woods and by the sea are her portals of access to the temple of the natural world. Her every step makes contact with holy ground.Oliver’s poetic vocation shows itself to be in deep sympathy with all of the living and nonliving aspects of nature, and thus with the imminent ecological crisis of our time, when she reflects later in this same book, “The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense of honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves—we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.”2Poet, philosopher, religious scholar, ecologist, and perceptive human being are bound together in Mary Oliver’s alert responses to the sacredness of nature. She captures in both her poetic and prose writing the essential spirit and outlook of religious naturalism. I do not claim that she is a religious naturalist; that would be going beyond what I am capable of knowing. But she certainly sounds like one in many respects throughout the poetry and prose of this book.I want us to keep constantly in mind her spirit and outlook as we ponder the cogency, adequacy, and appeal of religious naturalism as a way of thinking and living religiously, for they are the ultimate tests of that adequacy. I want us to do so by considering objections of various sorts arguing that religious [End Page 24] naturalism fails to be sufficiently religious in the way of satisfying the deepest discernments, needs, hopes, and foundations of authentic religious faith. My plan for this essay is to present what I surmise to be some of the most substantive objections, and to reply to each of them in turn.I do so in defense of the thesis that religious naturalism—at least as I have come to interpret and understand it over many years—is a strong contender for having an honored place among the religions of the world. My personal conception of religious naturalism is of course only one of many, and other religious naturalists might have different kinds of response to at least some of these objections. But my responses indicate the capability of religious naturalism to take such objections seriously into account and to provide plausible answers to them.The objections I want to respond to in this essay are six in number. All of them, as will be seen, assume a kind of panpsychism or the primordiality of some kind of mind or spirit, a view I find unnecessary and tending strongly toward an untenable mind-matter dualism in my defense of religious naturalism. 3 The first one is that nature by itself has no overarching purpose or reason for being. The second is that if mind and spirit are emergent rather than primordial, then they are reducible to blind physical processes, meaning that religion is implausibly reduced to physics. The third objection is that nature is just a mass of meaningless facts, with no objective, dependable values of any kind, including religious values. The fourth objection is that with impersonal nature rather than a personal, loving, God as its focus, religious naturalism lacks essential divine... (shrink)

To what extent is the contemporary world still aware of the risks of excessive technologicalization? Does the warning of the ancient Greeks who announced, through the Promethean and age myth, the danger of detachment from sacredness and the fatality of man's damnation to his own annihilation under the mirage of unbridled exploitation of nature still reach us? Is it still possible to re-evaluate the progress of modern man, in his negative, destructive aspects? Are not we currently witnessing, in the (...) age of digital communication, the distancing of the human being from his own existential-spiritual foundations by assuming a model of machinal Super-man, technical in the operations of the mind but also of affectivity? Perhaps a reconsideration of the ontological and gnoseological position of modern man, anchored in the age of high-tech constructions and digital communications, could be inaugurated starting from the reinterpretation of the mythical-symbolic warnings of ancient meditation. (shrink)

Religious experiences of the human spirit are implemented, in an inevitable way, due to body-soul connection, at the level of the dynamics of corporeality. Gestures in religious rites are a key issue for the believer who sits in front of the Deity to supplicate and adore. Among the most common religious gestures are kneeling and putting the hands together in a vertical position. Far from being simple positioning and posture without any symbolical meaning, they express intense inner feelings of the (...) human emotionally and mentally directed from the profane dimension towards the endless extensions of the sacredness in a total approach of worship and mystical confession. (shrink)

Groups based on the notion of a shared sacralized descent enjoyed considerable influence in religious, social or political affairs in Central Asia by grace of their actual or imagined ancestry. They were credited by titles like īšān, sayyid, hwāğa and tūra. The flexibility of multiple genealogy accounts provided ample space for negotiations of conceptions concerning identity, descent, and sacredness as well as for their affirmation or disapproval. The 19th century saw an increase in newly emerging, self-styled religious dignitaries, but (...) the strategies these people adopted to achieve their goals and the responses of their environment remain largely understudied, the more so if their attempts remained unsuccessful. This article explores the vain endeavour of two īšāns, father and son, to establish themselves in the religious market in the Ferghana Valley, and discusses the “making of new religious figureheads” during the tsarist and early Soviet period. Based on letters and documents from the īšāns‘ private holdings, the essay shows their efforts to present themselves as progeny of the Prophet Ayyūb – patron saint of the silk processing craftsmen – from whom they tried to levy donations, but met repeated refusal. (shrink)

The foundation of ethics, created in the image of God -- A lifestyle of honesty and integrity -- A lifestyle of loyalty -- The sacredness of trust and confidence -- Ethics in horizontal relationships -- Ethics in vertical relationships, leaders in authority -- Ethics between men and women -- Avoiding the trap of criticism -- Living as a spiritual leader -- Ethics of influence -- Ethics in the workplace -- Ethics of stewardship, time, finances, and talents -- Maintaining one's (...) mental, physical, and spiritual well-being in Christ -- Ethics in ministry -- A final word, a lifestyle that honors Jesus Christ and avoids reproach. (shrink)

In this chapter I introduce and defend the democratic individualism in William James’s thought. Drawing on the work of George Kateb and others, I show how what James calls the “democratic respect for the sacredness of individuality” can be understood in terms of four inter-related commitments: (1) A commitment to the principle that each person’s individuality counts equally; no one’s more or less than anyone else’s. (2) A commitment to the principle that each individual should be able to flourish, (...) on his or her own terms, and to a set of social conditions that enable such flourishing. (3) A commitment to examine oneself for moral blind spots: for ways in which one might be oblivious to, and complicit in, the frustration of others’ individuality. (4) A commitment to “strenuously” revise one’s habits and behavior in light of the previous three commitments. (shrink)

This book focuses on the role and prophecy of Huldah, one of only five female prophets identified as a naviah in the Hebrew Bible. Huldah has unique accomplishments as depicted in the narrative of 2 Kings 22. Huldah contributes to the development of canon as the first person who authenticates before an official delegation the sacredness of a previously written text, which becomes authoritative scripture for the community. Her oracles result in extensive religious reform as conducted by King Josiah. (...) Moreover, Huldah utters nuanced prophecy concerning the destiny of Judah’s monarch. In examining Huldah’s prophetic utterances, this study employs an innovative approach of peripherality which is derived from socio-spatial theory. Attention will be given to how Huldah’s prophecy has been shaped by her peripheral locus, as a prophet, a woman, a wife, and a resident of Mishneh, located outside the central royal and priestly power complex. This monograph aims to fill a lacuna in critical studies by accentuating the significance and impact of Huldah’s prophecy and revaluing her legacy. (shrink)

(in lieu of abstract, first paragraphs here) For philosophers, reading Richard Dawkins is often a frustrating experience. Many of Dawkins’ writings treat important philosophical topics, such as the existence of God, the meaning of life, the relationship of randomness to order. Dawkins has original ideas, but he lacks the philosophical training and vocabulary to articulate these ideas properly and to develop them coherently. In Believing in Dawkins, Eric Steinhart sets himself an ambitious task: to use the writings of Dawkins to (...) present a coherent, naturalistic alternative to religious metaphysics, specifically to Christian theism. Using an architectural metaphor, he summarizes the project of Believing in Dawkins as follows It is helpful to think of the Dawkinsian texts in architectural terms. His fragmentary sketches for spiritual naturalism are like architectural drawings. Sometimes they depict little windows, while other times they portray enormous spires reaching towards the stars. The edifice is vast. But these architectural diagrams are often unclear, incomplete, and inconsistent. I want to clarify them, fill in their missing parts, and resolve their conflicts. So I’m using his writings to construct a novel building. … To fit his fragmentary plans into a coherent and self-supporting structure, I will add some large-scale frameworks (10). Steinhart’s wide-ranging book covers many topics: complexity, ontology, possibility, humanity, spirituality, among many others. He does not sneak theism into Dawkins’ writings. In fact, Steinhart argues that many practices and ideas that he uses to construct the edifice of Dawkins’ spiritual naturalism have been hijacked by theism, such as the notion of an afterlife, sacredness, holiness, and even the notion of gratitude. (shrink)

According to many scientists and philosophers, recent biotechnological discoveries and advances lead inescapably to the new, fundamental question: why consider the existing nature of man as untouchable, as sacred? Whereas the general public feels fear and outrage at the very thought of the creation of 'monsters', leading bioethicists find all this talk about the sacredness of human nature unacceptable or prejudiced. It is argued here that an answer to the question "is the existing human nature sacred?" cannot be given (...) unless another question is answered first: "why preserve our ethical way of life?" In the remaining part of this paper, the desire to transcend existing human nature is understood by linking it to two different forms of dissatisfaction with the human way of life: it can find its origin either in the unwillingness to accept certain 'lotteries' producing all kinds of unequality among people, or in the desire to willingly lose oneself in a game of endless genetic experimentation. (shrink)

This article examines the sacredness of modern sports games by comparing the Olympic and Paralympic Games with the ancient Greek Olympics and analysing the evolution of ethos between ancient and modern games. Drawing on the theories of Johan Huizinga and Friedrich Nietzsche, it identifies an originary structure of sacred play that contributes to the formation of social and cultural identity. Concepts of sacredness, rituality, and agonism in ancient games are explored to understand their influence on modern games. Through (...) a hermeneutic investigation of Huizinga and Nietzsche’s works, the article identifies six fundamental elements of sacred play: inviolable rules, space separated from daily reality, symbolic and cultural meaning, experience of transcendence, reflection of myths and meanings, and self-affirmation, self-overcoming and creativity. These elements are applied to the modern Olympic and Paralympic Games, highlighting their presence in shared rituals and symbols. The discussion focuses on the tension between the traditional Olympic Ethos and the current Efficiency Ethos, highlighting the possible implications on the elements of Olympic sacredness. Finally, it calls for critical reflection on the values and practices of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to preserve their sacredness over time. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explain the role of persuasion and what has been called here pre-persuasion in the perception of the world and of ourselves and in philosophical reflections in general, trying to show that, however original we have wanted to consider, throughout the centuries, the fundamental questions surrounding the ultimate meaning of things, such as “what is being?”, “what is good?”, or “what is the truth or the beauty?”, or yet, “who are we?”, there are always (...) background persuasions that once made explicit by the rhetorical analysis method, it relativizes not only the possible answers, but the question itself. This, in turn, reveals the priority of persuasion on the perception and the unconfessed rhetoric of the speeches. The contribution of the present study is to avoid the naivety of objectivism and metaphysics, the claim of the ultimaverba, or last conversation and to prevent the illusion of definitive speech, seen, by Perelman, as a pseudo lay form of revelation. The only sacredness admitted which, therefore, pre-persuades us is, in Perelman‟s words, that of endless dialogue, in Blanchot‟s words, the infinite conversation, and, finally, in Rorty‟s words, the edifying philosophy. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objeto o estudo do lugar da religião nas sociedades de mercado. Para isso coloca em questão o conceito de religião como a expressão de fé em entes transcendentes ou sobrenaturais, porque ele se aplica bem a religiões deístas como o cristianismo, mas deixa em segundo plano o fundamento mesmo do fenômeno religioso: a sacralidade. Recuperando a teoria de Durkheim, este artigo parte da hipótese de que a sacralidade é fundamental também nas sociedades de mercado. Abandonando o (...) conceito de religião derivado da fé, propõe uma explicação sociológica da religião nas contemporâneas sociedades de mercado por sua sacralidade. A argumentação é organizada em cinco passos: (1) o “crepúsculo dos grandes deuses” nas sociedades de mercado, (2) a crítica ao conceito de religião relacionada a fé, (3) o resgate da contribuição de Durkheim para o estudo da religião como fato social (4) o fetichismo da mercadoria como base da sacralidade do mercado (5) o lugar das atuais religiões nas sociedades de mercado. Palavras-chave: Religião. Sacralidade. fetichismo da mercadoria. Mercado. Fato Social.This article aims to study the place occupied by religion in contemporary market societies. It calls into question the concept of religion as the expression of faith in transcendent or supernatural beings, because it is well suited to theistic religions like Christianity, but leaves in the background the very foundation of religious phenomena: the sacredness. Recovering Durkheim's theory, this article assumes the hypothesis that sacredness is essential also in market societies. Abandoning the concept of religion derived from faith, it proposes a sociological explanation of religion in contemporary market societies by its sacredness. The argument is organized in five steps: (1) the "twilight of the great gods" in market societies; (2) criticism to the concept of religion related to faith; (3) recovering the contribution of Durkheim for the study of religion as a social fact; (4) the fetishism of merchandise as the base for the sacredness of the market; (5) the place of current religions in market societies. Keywords: Religion. Sacredness. Commodity Fetishism. Market. Social Fact. (shrink)

On the 3rd of March 380, Theodosius, moved by the qualitas (pro reverentia religionis) of the pre-paschal period, a special time of preparation for Easter,mandates the suspension during Christian Lent of all penal trials which normally resulted in torture (Cod. Theod. 9,35,4 = Cod. Iust. 3,12,5). Lent is a specifically Christian time which developed to a large degree in the course of the fourth century, but which varied in duration and organization in the various churches. The law adapts the judicial (...) calendar for the administration of justice to the rhythms of Christian liturgy. Theodosius in 389 (Cod. Theod. 9,35,5; 9,35,7) decrees that during Lent supplicia corporis could not take place, due to the sacredness of those days intended as a salutary penance which culminates in Easter reconciliation. Since the duration of Lent varied within the various churches, civil authorities of the provinces were to be informed by local Christians of the beginning and end of Lent. (shrink)

Starting from the hypothesis that we are faced with pictures as dynamic entities and as actions, this article investigates scenes of (political) confliict and of fight in Pasolini's films. Priority is given to the rhythmic quality of Pasolini's vital realism, which also characterises his application of montage as a procedure of contamination. Abigioia – that abysmal joy, which is based on the fear of and the longing for the lost life – here determines the poetics of anachronistic and impure (...) class='Hi'>sacredness. (shrink)