Globalization and Technology

Author(s): Traian-Alexandru Miu / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2016

Globalization, very complex phenomenon, involves overcoming the barriers between different states, which allowed the rapid transfer of capital, technology, information, and the "toxins" from one country to another. First, the technology formed the basis of rapid expansion of great ideas promoted by globalization. Undeniable progress in the field of technology and science has conferred to the man extraordinary powers that have been used most often to the detriment of his spiritual progress. We must not deny that science and technology have brought many benefits to human, and he could expand the knowledge horizon upon the world in which he lives, exploiting information acquired and share them with others. Science and technology must become for postmodern man ways of talk and communion between human and divinity, all to the praise of God and the perfection of the creature.

Wiara w stworzenie a teoria ewolucji: konflikt czy symbioza? Debata "Schülerkreis" Josepha Ratzingera nad relacją stworzenie-ewolucja

Author(s): Mirosław Twardowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2013

In September 2006 in Castel Gandolfo, at a symposium organized by Pope Benedict XVI, there was certain debate around the topic of creation – evolution. The Pope invited his former students and seminarians – the so-called “Schülerkreis”, with whom, as Cardinal, he held regular meetings, to participate. The debate in Castel Gandolfo involved, among others: Cardinal Christoph Schönborn (Archbishop of Vienna), Robert Spaemann (professor of philosophy) and Paul Erbrich (Jesuit priest, professor of physics). Also Peter Schuster, professor of chemistry, president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, not associated with the “Schülerkreis” circles, was invited to join the discussion. In this article, the views of the above-mentioned participants in the debate in Castel Gandolfo are briefly presented. The response of selected authors to the views on the issues of concern as presented by the representatives of the “Schülerkreis” group, where, in particular, the Austrian cardinal’s speech aroused the most controversy.

Jak uczyć o stworzeniu?

Author(s): Michał Heller / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2013

Nowożytne przemiany w teologii stworzenia

Author(s): Janusz Królikowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2013

Postulaty nauk przyrodniczych pod adresem teologii stworzenia

Author(s): Tadeusz Pabjan / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2013

Teologia stworzenia w katechezie i przepowiadaniu w świetle publikacji J. Ratzingera – Benedykta XVI „Na początku Bóg stworzył...”

Author(s): Piotr Rossa / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2013

ODREĐENJE I DEFINICIJA RELIGIJE S OSVRTOM NA POJAM NOVIH RELIGIJSKIH POKRETA

Author(s): Edin Tulić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 73/2018

Even though religion is a phenomenon that dates long time back in human history, today, after thousands of years, it has not lost its significance and relevance on individual nor on social plane and keeps on making a great deal of influence upon a life of a man and upon the society as a whole. When we say “religion”, we mean a numerous religions, and a great number of varying religious consciousness and religious experience. Man’s tendency have been expressed and realised through searching for divine within the nature but also in divinization of a human, of a symbol or an object. The need of an individual or of a society for religion increases when faced by turmoil, crisis or tragedy. Then it is often embodied and manifested in divinization of some leader of a party or of ideological system, which even when being actively opposed to religion always carries within itself distinctly religious elements. However, after the Second World War, like mushrooms after the rain, new religious movements started growing and flourishing in the Western world. Main reason for this is that the developed world of the time was shaken by modernity crisis. Diversity of these movements was requiring systematization in order to make understanding of the differences within different movements easier. These new religious movements have relatively small number of adherents when compared to the great world religions.

Взаємовідносини науки та релігії: теоретико-методологічний аналіз

Author(s): Nataliya Mykolayivna Golovach / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 3/2011

In the article the state and development of scientific knowledge, his values, are examined on the modern stage of development of Ukrainian society. At the same time the tendencies of co-operation of science and religion and her display open up in public life of country.

Jürgen Habermas on the (Non-)Translatability of Religious Meaning

Author(s): Kevin M. Vander Schel / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The relationship between religious faith and public reason has occupied an increasingly central role in Jürgen Habermas’s mature work. Yet this recent engagement with questions of religious meaning also illuminates a significant area of development in Habermas’s thought. While his earlier writings emphasized a need to subordinate religious beliefs to rational critique and to translate religious truth claims into publicly accessible forms of reasoning, his later writings signal a shift to a more cooperative understanding of religious faith and critical reason that highlights the ongoing potential of religion to advance rational discourse and social criticism in the public sphere. This essay traces this growing recognition of the irreducibility of religious meaning in Habermas’s writings, and it attends to the non-translatable dimension of religious faith as a source of its ongoing contemporary significance.The relationship between religious faith and public reason has occupied an increasinglycentral role in  Jürgen Habermas’s mature work. Yet this recent engagement with questions of  religious meaning also illuminates a  significant area of development in Habermas’s thought. While his earlier writings emphasized a  need to  subordinate religious beliefs to  rational critique and to translate religious truth claims into publicly accessible forms of reasoning, his later writings signal a shift to a more cooperative understanding of religious faith and critical reason that highlights the ongoing potential of religion to advance rational discourse and social criticism in the public sphere. This essay traces this growing recognition of the irreducibility of religious meaning in Habermas’s writings, and it attends to the non-translatable dimension of religious faith as a source of its ongoing contemporary significance.

A Critique of Alvin Plantinga’s Speech: ‘’Science and Religion: Where the Conflict Really Lies?’’

Author(s): SÜMEYRA TURAN / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

This article aims to examine Alvin Plantinga's speech at Biola University which name is: ‘‘Science and Religion, Where the Conflict Really Lies.’’ In order to achieve this purpose, after giving a description of the emergence of conflict between two disciplines, the ideas of Plantinga is examined through his speech and articles. The remainder of the article conducts a critical examination of his thesis in the light of Islamic viewpoint.

Contemporary Catholic Studies in a Secular University: Friend or Foe?

Author(s): Birutė Briliūtė / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Through the introduction of a new hermeneutical model of communication in RE, this article intends to explore an innovative approach to developing Christian identity in a secular university. The author holds a joint lectureship in religious education, catechesis and pastoral theological education. Religious education and catechesis are concerned with all aspects of the teaching of religion in schools, within the parish and any other pastoral setting. pastoral theological education is concerned with the place of learning within religious communities and the larger society. This distinction has resulted in this research proceeding along two parallel routes: the institutional educational environment, religious communities and society as a background influencing our value change as well as the way we do RE in schools. The main concern of the author is to develop practical ways of enhancing the Catholic religious identity and theological literacy of students in the state secondary schools and universities in the UK, on the basis of contemporary theological anthropology and educational theoretical foundations. This article is an investigation into a new understanding of the development of Catholic identity and new models of RE used in a contemporary secular university.

DZIAŁALNOŚĆ NAUKOWA DIECEZJI RZESZOWSKIEJ 1992−2017

Author(s): Jerzy Buczek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 24/2017

This article discusses the scientific activity of the Rzeszów diocese in the years 1992−2017. It shows the formation of priests from seminary to solid formation and specialized studies, discusses the training of lay and religious catechists from the catechetical college, the supplementary master's studies to permanent formation and finally presents various forms of secular education in the Theological and Pastoral Institute in Rzeszow: doctoral seminars conducted by professors of the University of Warsaw, study of family theology taught by UPJP II in Cracow, BA and MA studies in family studies conducted by UR in Rzeszow, as well as Organist Study, Bible Study, University of the Third Age of the Diocese of Rzeszów. The scientific activities carried out by symposia, conferences and training, through publishing and media, are also important, especially through Radio Via.

DYDAKTYKA KONWERGENTNA W KATECHEZIE W PERSPEKTYWIE MEDIATYZACJI RZECZYWISTOŚCI

Author(s): Janusz Miąso / Language(s): Polish Issue: 24/2017

Reality mediatization is at present one of the most powerful processes which means new media influence almost all areas of individual and social life, including religious life as well. New media are very effective in occupying time and space and cause great transformation of one's life. Areas which are not unaffected by media influence include also education and religion which in particular way meet during catechesis where we do care about its effectiveness because it conditions one's happiness both earthly and eternal. Didactics is a great art and care about better and more effective teaching-learning process, also in catechesis. Today, in my view, this didactics must be convergent that is combine elements of good, traditional didactics with sensible use of new media which can raise the effectiveness of the process. Such didactics, also in catechesis, should make good use of media because pupils themselves are highly mediatized and thanks to convergent didactics we may address a contemporary man to make him better and happier and eventually, what is the most important aim of catechesis, help him to be redeemed.

What is invariant? On the possibility and perspectives of the evolutionary theology

Author(s): Wojciech P. Grygiel / Language(s): English Issue: 25/2018

The evolutionary theology is a new branch of theology in which the dynamic picture of the origin and development of life in Universe by means of the adaptive processes governed by the natural selection is considered to be the adequate ontological foundation. The presented paper surveys the challenges that the implementation of the evolutionary ontology presses upon selected basic theological issues: methodology of theology, natural theology, the doctrine of the original sin and the problem of suffering and evil. It will be argued that the large extent of the expected modifications within the theological expression as the dynamic ontology is introduced qualifies as the change of the theological paradigm similarly to how the changes of the paradigms in sciences lead to the scientific revolutions. Finally, a novel model of the rationality of the development of the theological doctrine will be proposed where the hermeneutics of continuity and the hermeneutics of rupture are not in opposition but they contribute to the overall rationality as its complementary constitutive principles.

Törekvések a magyar református egyház szellemi megújulására

Author(s): Julianna Örsi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2017

The movement for the reformation of the Reformed Church, whose flagship was Sommerville, started in Edinborough, Scotland in the last quarter of the 19th century. The Scottish missionary went through several countries and proclaimed renewal. In 1888, he made a lowland tour in Hungary. On his way, he was assisted by severalwell-known former disciples (József Szalay from Nagybecskerek, Ferenc Kecskeméti from Békés and Mihály Révész from Túrkeve). The people becam ereceptivetore newal. At the turn of the 19–20th century, Hungary also felt that the Reformed Church was a waiting renewal. Young people became the flagships of change. After the First World War and the Peace Treaty in Trianon, various youth organizations developed insuccession, and new ecclesiastical board sappeared. The first youth organization was formed by the Christian Youth Association in the early years of the 20th century, followed by other ones (Gábor Bethlen Circle, Hungarian Reformed Student Associations, Scouting Movement, etc.). One of the most significant of these organizations was Soli Deo Gloria between the two world wars. Student organizations, apart from the fact that they regarded thes piritual renewal of the Hungarian Reformed Church as a very important activity, also delt withth esocial problems of the Hungarian society. The irsuggestions to solves ocialissues were closest to the views of folkwriters. Student organizations could operate in Hungary until the middle of the 20th century.

MOŻLIWOŚĆ ATEIZMU A MOŻLIWOŚCI ATEIZMU

Author(s): Szymon Wróbel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2018

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari claim that religion exists only when there is transcendence, a vertical being or an imperial state. Philosophy, with its passion for concepts, continuously seeks its revival in the plane of immanence, and the more radical the immanence, the more atheistic philosophy is. Following Duns Scotus, Spinoza, Nietzsche and Bergson, the authors of the book What is Philosophy? are so radical in applying their postulate of fi delity to immanence that they go as far as to claim that Christian thought creates concepts solely on the basis of its atheism. For philosophers, the problem is neither the ‘death of God’ nor the ‘concept of atheism, but the ‘atheism of the concept.’ Atheism—in this perspective—is not a drama, but a good state of mind of a philosopher and an achievement of philosophy; a kind of joyful knowledge. In the present paper I try to rethink the ‘atheism of the concept,’ fostering—as I claim—a kind of ‘cult of the concept.’ I reflect on whether the ‘atheism of the concept’ is the remains of theistic thought. Further, I also ask whether the ‘atheism beyond the concept’ is at all possible. This, however, makes me reflect on the very notion of concept. I am aware that the ‘concept’ is not ‘beyond life,’ rather, it is one of the ‘modes of life.’ The fact that man lives in a completely designed environment does not mean that man has turned away from life or has turned around the order of life, but only this much that man lives in a certain way. Therefore, the ‘atheism of the concept’ is not opposed to the ‘atheism without the concept’ as long as ‘the concept’ is not opposed to ‘life.’ ‘Atheism without the concept’ is, rather, an atheistic practice and refers to ‘lifestyle’ rather than ‘beliefs’ or ‘conceptual forms.’ It requires involvement in a non-sacred life. ‘Atheism without the concept’ is the attempt to withdraw the ‘created life’ from the sphere of salvation through Something that is other than life. To an atheist, the object of faith is not God—a guarantee of unity, rationality, and world order—but the world itself and without any guarantee. Perhaps it signifies the primacy of the necessity of contingency (Quentin Meillassoux). In the atheistic world, time does not unlock the potential opportunities, it is not the reality of time which produces the reality of events, but the events themselves allow the course of time to emerge. Such a time and cosmos is not governed by any timeless principle; it is left to the pure immanence of its non-righteousness and un-conceptuality. The reason for the ‘atheism without the concept’ is ‘life itself,’ the banality of life, ‘life as-is,’ while the reason of theology is ‘holy life’ which points to something other than life.

Evolution and Theology, or Theology of Evolution in the USA

Author(s): Stanisław Obirek / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2017

The impact of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution on religious thinking is beyond dispute. Darwin published his most important work on general biological evolution (On the Origins of Species) in 1859, and in 1871 he applied this theory to the origin of man (The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex). From the beginning, most Christian churches rejected Darwin’s view, but most scientists accepted it as the most convincing explanation of the mechanisms of life. A new chapter in this controversy was opened by Richard Dawkins in 2006 with the publication of The God Delusion, in which he not only vigorously defended Darwin’s theory but also rejected any religious dimension of biological reality. An interesting alternative to Dawkins’s theory was elaborated by John F. Haught in his trilogy: God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (2000); Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and The Drama of Life (2010); and Resting on the Future: Catholic Theology for an Unfinished Universe (2015), in which he elaborated a theology of evolution wherein he reconciled the theory of evolution with Christian-Catholic theology. The aim of this essay is to ask to what extent this attempt is successful.

Orphaned Children in Traditional Chinese Religious and Philosophical Doctrines: Social Aspect

Author(s): Lyubov Kalashnyk,Yana Levchenko,Tetiana Dovzhenko,Oksana Mkrtichian,Nataliya Rudaya / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

The article studies the historical and pedagogical aspects of the Chinese social care over orphaned children system`s establishment, in particular - the reflection of the social care over orphans idea in traditional Chinese philosophical and religious doctrines (Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism). The aim of the article is to analyze the reflection of the idea that orphaned children are to be over the social care and guardianship (social welfare and social care system) in theory and practice of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. The methodological basis of the article is represented by the methodology of historical pedagogical and comparative pedagogical studies. The article presents the author`s personal point of view that the idea of social guardianship over the orphaned children in forms familiar to Europeans (orphanages, shelters attached to religious organizations, adoption), which was brought to China in the middle of the 18th century by abroad religious adepts, is not reflected in the traditional Chinese religious and philosophical doctrines. Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism at the theoretical level practically did not develop the idea of social care over the defined category of children, confining themselves to general declaration of the need to be mercy to unfortunates. In practice it resulted in the non-inclusion of the doctrines and their adepts as equal agents of socialization in the system of social welfare for orphans in Traditional China and modern PR China as well.

RECEPCIJA KUR'ANSKIH I HADISKIH POTICAJA ZA RAZVOJ ZNANOSTI U KLASIČNOM I MODERNOM MUSLIMANSKOM SVIJETU

Author(s): Muamer Neimarlija / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 16/2018

The aim of the current paper is to compare the reception of the Qur’an and Hadith texts related to science in the classical and modern world of Islamic culture. For this purpose, we have made the reinterpretation of certain texts related to science, within the constituent sources of Islam, the Qur’an and the Sunnah of Muhammad s.a.w.s., on the one hand, and the presentation of the attitude of Muslim people towards science in the medieval and modern times, on the other hand. Only certain texts from the Qur’an and Hadith, those, in the author’s opinion, the most relevant ones, were chosen for the further analysis. Moreover, the flash indicators in relation to the Muslim attitude towards science were presented through scientific innovations and current statistical data. For the purposes of this paper, a methodological approach based on the combination of traditional and rational tafsir (Halilović, 2015) and the application of a historical method (Granić & Karić, 2009) was used. The findings reveal the discontinuity of the initial scientific strenuousness within the Muslim circles, as well as the correlation between the multi-century scientific impotence and the long-lasting civilizational flounder of the Muslim community –ummah.

Ali Abdurazik i teorija odvojenosti islama i politike: kritičko vrednovanje

Author(s): Seid Halilović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2018

A year after Atatürk abolished the institution of the caliphate, Ali Abdel Razek, an Islamic scholar from the traditional al­Azhar University, published a not-too-thick volume entitled Islam and the Foundations of Political Power and initiated a new and dynamic discussion of completely unexpected proportions about the relationship between Islam and politics. Distinguished professors of al-­Azhar had an urgent meeting and made a decision that Abdel Razek should be stripped of his title of an Islamic cleric because of the views he had expounded in his book. However, despite this, in the following decades his book became one of the most popular texts among the contemporary Muslim thinkers in the Egyptian scientific and political circles and beyond. On the basis of a detailed analysis of the contents of this book we notice that Abdel Razek persistently attempts to show that the caliphate did not have any benefit for the Muslims, and that it even was a source of permanent injustice and evil. He concludes that the political power, the state and even the judiciary should not be connected with religion, because they are exclusively political phenomena. He also insists that the Prophet Muhammad was a purely spiritual leader and that he had never contemplated the concepts of political authority or the state. For this reason he explicitly claims that politics and religion are mutually incompatible and warns Muslims that they must follow the latest results of human reason in the field of political science if they wish to consolidate the foundations and structure of the political power in their societies. However, we notice that, due to his frequent and generally objective criticism of the Caliphs and their policies in various historical periods, Abdel Razek ignores the fact that in the Quran and the Islamic tradition there are frequent references to the political power, the judiciary, defense issues, economic control, and the organization of internal and international politics, that is, that both the Quran and the Islamic tradition contain teachings about a different policy that leads one toward eternal bliss. Such policy, the ultimate purpose of which is the enlightenment of man and society, was written about extensively by the representatives of a brilliant political philosophy and political jurisprudence in Islam, who relied on the cognitive credibility of the religious texts and the various categories of theoretical and practical reason.