What Do We Share? A Secular-Humanist Response

2018 ◽  
pp. 279-300
Author(s):  
Shoshana Ronen
Keyword(s):  
Secular Humanist

Humanism in Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Schröder
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Secular Humanism ◽  
Group Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Environments ◽  
Free Thought ◽  
Multiple Secularities ◽  
Secular Humanist

This chapter addresses secular humanism in Europe and the way it is “lived” by and within its major institutions and organizations. It examines how national and international secular humanist bodies founded after World War II took up, cultivated, and transformed free-religious, free-thought, ethical, atheist, and rationalist roots from nineteenth century Europe and adjusted them to changing social, cultural, and political environments. Giving examples from some selected national contexts, the development of a nonreligious Humanism in Europe exemplifies what Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt call “Multiple Secularities”: different local or national trajectories produced a variety of cultures of secularity and, thus, different understandings of secular humanism. Apart from this cultural historization, the chapter reconstructs two transnational, ideal types of secular humanism, the social practice type, and the secularist pressure group type. These types share similar worldviews and values, but have to be distinguished in terms of organizational forms, practices, and especially policy.

Black Infidels

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sikiyu Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Secular Humanism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Secular Humanist ◽  
Economic Injustice

African Americans are among the most religious groups in the United States. Consequently, secular humanism and atheism are largely anathema to mainstream African Americans. Nonetheless, secular humanist and atheist traditions have coexisted with religious traditions in African American social thought and community as a progressive political and cultural counterweight to black religious orthodoxy. Radical or progressive humanism is specifically concerned with the liberation struggle of disenfranchised peoples. Organized religion is one of many powerful forces solidifying inequity based on race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. Racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism are amplified and reinforced by economic injustice institutionalized under global capitalism. Hence, humanism is especially relevant for people of color living in conditions of structural inequality in which the state serves only the human rights of the wealthy.

Christopher Hitchens’ Public Dying: Toward a Secular-Humanist Ars Moriendi?

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-132
Author(s):  
Michael Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Esophageal Cancer ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Terminal Illness ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
Secular Humanist

This article explores the public dying of journalist, writer, provocateur, public intellectual, and renowned atheist, Christopher Hitchens. It does so primarily through an analysis of television interviews given by Hitchens following his diagnosis with esophageal cancer in June 2010. Four key themes are identified as emerging from analysis of the interviews: (a) Hitchens’ explicit sense of mission in challenging myths and superstitions surrounding cancer, dying, and death; (b) the personal experience of terminal illness and dying and the particular way (or style of dying) by which it is approached; (c) issues of regret and a life well lived; and (d) questions surrounding religion, the afterlife, and possibility of deathbed conversion. In light of the claim that ours is a culture in search of an ars moriendi, the article examines what we can learn from Hitchens’ auto/pathographic interviews (and writings) and the extent to which this rational-humanist, atheistic, and stoical style of dying provides a useable “template” for others nearing the end of life.

Modernism as Postnationalist Politics:

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 532-549
Author(s):  
Adnan Morshed
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Architecture ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Secular Humanist ◽  
Dual Commitment

After completing architectural studies in the United States in 1952, Muzharul Islam returned home to Pakistan to find the country embroiled in acrimonious politics of national identity. The young architect began his design career in the midst of bitterly divided notions of national origin and destiny, and his architectural work reflected this political debate. In Modernism as Postnationalist Politics: Muzharul Islam's Faculty of Fine Arts (1953–56), Adnan Morshed argues that Islam's Faculty of Fine Arts at Shahbagh, Dhaka, embodied his need to articulate a national identity based on the secular humanist ethos of Bengal, rather than on an Islamic religious foundation. With this iconoclastic building, Islam sought to achieve two distinctive goals: to introduce the aesthetic tenets of modern architecture to East Pakistan and to reject all references to colonial-era Indo-Saracenic architecture. The Faculty's modernism hinges on Islam's dual commitment to a secular Bengali character and universal humanity.

scholarly journals The Legal Principles of Bethlehem & Operation Timber Sycamore: The “Islamist Winter” Pre-Emptively Targets “Arab Life” by Hiring “Arab Barbarians”

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Khaled Al-Kassimi
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
Epistemic Violence ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
Secular Humanist

The following legal-historical research is critical of “Islamist” narratives and their desacralized reverberations claiming that Arab-Muslim receptivity to terror is axiomatic to “cultural experiences” figuring subjects conforming to Arab-Islamic philosophical theology. The critique is founded on deconstructing—while adopting a Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL)—the (im)moral consequences resulting from such rhetoric interpreting the Arab uprising of 2011 from the early days as certainly metamorphosing into an “Islamist Winter”. This secular-humanist hypostasis reminded critics that International Law and International Relations continues to assert that Latin-European philosophical theology furnishes the exclusive temporal coordinates required to attain “modernity” as telos of history and “civil society” as ethos of governance. In addition, the research highlights that such culturalist assertation—separating between law and morality—tolerates secular logic decriminalizing acts patently violating International Law since essentializing Arab-Muslims as temporally positioned “outside law” provides liberal-secular modernity ontological security. Put differently, “culture talk” affirms that since a secular-humanist imaginary of historical evolution stipulates that it is “inevitable” and “natural” that any “non-secular” Arab protests will unavoidably lead to lawlessness, it therefore becomes imperative to suspiciously approach the “Islamist” narrative of 2011 thus deconstructing the formulation of juridical doctrines (i.e., Bethlehem Legal Principles) decriminalizing acts arising from a principle of pre-emption “moralizing” demographic and geographic alterations (i.e., Operation Timber Sycamore) across Arabia. The research concludes that jus gentium continues to be characterized by a temporal inclusive exclusion with its redemptive ramifications—authorized by sovereign power—catalyzing “epistemic violence” resulting in en-masse exodus and slayed bodies across Arabia.

scholarly journals The Roles of Corporate Governance Towards Value-Oriented Islamic Finance Practices

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Zulkifli Hasan
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Islamic Finance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Financial Institutions ◽  
Financial Growth ◽  
Secular Humanist ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Business Morality

This paper argues that while significant concerns have been invoked on the material aspects of Islamic finance such as financial growth and products sophistication, it is nevertheless observed that equal emphasizes have not been given on social objectives of Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) as part of its value-oriented frameworks. In the absence of extensive discourse on corporate governance and its roles on CSR, this paper attempts to highlight the importance of corporate governance in stimulating the social function of IFIs within the Islamic ethical dimension paradigm. This paper aims at expanding the normative objective function of IFIs by advocating corporate social responsibility (CSR) via strengthening the corporate governance framework. Unlike the western concept of corporate governance, which is based on the western business morality that derived from “secular humanist”, this paper suggests that corporate governance in IFIs is founded on the epistemological aspect of Tawhid, Shari’ah and ethics. This paper employs theoretical and case study research method to develop understanding and to advocate the notion of value oriented Islamic finance practices. The study utilizes descriptive, comparative and critical analysis approaches in extracting and analyzing the information.

scholarly journals EDITORIAL

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. v-vii
Author(s):  
Sayyid M. Syeed
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
Human Geography ◽  
Four Seasons ◽  
Great Sense ◽  
Secular Humanist

It is with a great sense of pride that we announce the quarterly publicationof the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences with this issue. We startedin 1984 with two issues a year, and in 1990 added a third. We are now gladto provide issues of AJISS corresponding to the four seasons of the year.We have been encouraged to increase our journal‘s frequency due to theoverwhelming response and appreciation of its uniqueness on the part ofindividual scholars, institutions, contributors, and subscribers. May Allahbless our well-wishers and help us to further enhance the scholarly role ofAJISS.In this issue, Amriah Buang introduces a hitherto neglected subject tothe Islamization of knowledge: human geography. Asserting that this fieldhas reached an epistemological impasse, she describes the nature of thecontending philosophies currently characterizing human geography and therebyhighlights those difficult-to-reconcile epistemological points of contention.Buang briefly recounts the nature of structuration theory, which is proposedby some geographers as a solution to the present impasse, and then subjectsit to a preliminary Islamic evaluation.In an earlier issue (AJISS 8:2, September 1991), Fazal Khan proposeda theoretical perspective on the process of the Islamization of the entertainmentvideo medium with special reference to Pakistan. In this issue, he exploressome empirical basics of the Islamization of the enculturation model basedon his study of youth viewers of Pakistani television.Theodore Wright, Jr., critiques the concepts and value assumptions ofexisting literature in the field of comparative politics in order to bring outthe built-in Eurocentric bias which it has acquired through its Judeo-Christianand secular-humanist orientation. He suggests a research agenda for Muslimand sympathetic non-Muslim specialists with the intent of recasting theperception of reality in terms which are objective and thus less biased thanthose currently found in the contemporary modern discourse of comparativeand developmental politics. Wright’s concerns are well appreciated and hisagenda should be taken seriously by Muslim researchers, but dependenceon empirical data alone is not going to solve the problem. Muslim socialscientists must participate in advancing Islamic positions on current issuesbased on the Qur’an, the hadith literature, and the insights gained from theirexpertise. For example, while an unbiased study of the preponderance of ...

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