2009 - The Religious-Secular Divide: The U.S. Case -- Keynote: Charles Taylor | The New School

Center for Public Scholarship | http://www.newschool.edu/cps

March 5-6, 2009:

The 20th conference in the Social Research series explored the tension between religion and secularism in the United States, which is long-standing, widespread, and increasingly intense. These issues were addressed from the perspectives of religious studies, legal studies, political science, sociology, and philosophy.

Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University, addressed "The Polysemy of the Secular," in which he explains that, "treating 'secular' by its history is trailing several different meanings, and these for a variety of reasons can't be simply ironed out and reduced to one, hence the inevitability of confusions and cross-purposes."

This conference was made possible by generous support from the Russell Sage Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts.

The conference was co-directed by Arien Mack, Alfred and Monette Marrow Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research and editor of Social Research since 1970 and José Casanova, Professor of Sociology and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University.

The conference proceedings are available in a special issue of Social Research, Vol. 76 No. 4 (Winter 2009). You may also join our event mailing list by contacting us at cps@newschool.edu.

SOCIAL RESEARCH: AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY | http://www.newschool.edu/cps/social-research/

THE NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH | http://www.newschool.edu/nssr

EUGENE LANG COLLEGE THE NEW SCHOOL FOR LIBERAL ARTS | http://www.newschool.edu/lang/

THE NEW SCHOOL | http://www.newschool.edu

*Location: The New School -- Thursday, March 5, 6:00- 7:15 p.m. - John Tishman Auditorium - 66 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10011.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• The New School
• CPS
• Center for Public Scholarship
• New School
• New School University
• nyc
• religion
• secularism
• Charles Taylor
• Social Research

[BunWackettBuzzard]

Very interesting, but is freedom of religion the choice of the person in question? I mean, being born into a religion is not the choice of the child who was brought up in that particular religion. To have total freedom, is to choose for themselves what religion to follow, or no religion at all. To truly have freedom, you have to be free to choose, not have parents choose just because they also got chosen for them by their parents the religion they are now indoctrinating into their children.