Forum Fridininum

Elaine Howard Ecklund published an interesting blogpost on the religiosity of scientists on SSRC’s The Immanent Frame weblog. The post is based on research she already has published about in Social Problems (54:2, 2007). She however does not talk about her research findings too much, but instead argues how universities could better facilitate the public discussion on religion and science. A must read for anyone interested in religion, which probably involves all of you who made it here and read this post And of course congratulations to Elaine about being asked to publish on such a prestigious weblog.

For those really interested: I had an interesting discussion two years ago on this subject here: http://religionresearch.org/marten/2005/01/13/anthropologists-are-secularists/ and here http://religionresearch.org/marten/2005/01/14/real-scientists-also-secular-or-not/

“As long as secular citizens are convinced that religious traditions and religious communities are to a certain extent archaic relics of pre-modern societies that continue to exist in the present, they will understand freedom of religion as the cultural version of the conservation of a species in danger of becoming extinct.” (15)

I have just read Religion in the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas. In this article Habermas discusses several views on the use of religious arguments in the public sphere. It is an interesting, but contested article. Read the rest of this entry »