Word: secularize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...great humbling. The most absolutist visionaries found a limit to their certitude. Benedict XVI went in a matter of months from proclaiming an irreducible gulf between Christianity and Islam to visiting a mosque in Turkey with white slippers on his feet. He publicly called for Turkey, a secular state but a Muslim country, to be integrated into the European Union. In the U.S., the religious right saw its most enthusiastic repre sentative in the Senate, Rick Santorum, go down to defeat by a crushing 18 points. For the first time, a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage failed...
...This is highly unfortunate. Religious illiteracy is the norm at our largely secular campus, making it almost impossible for Harvard to converse with a religious world. Furthermore, forgoing the reason and faith requirement will perhaps irretrievably confirm the pragmatic, utilitarian ethos of the task force’s vision for Harvard education, banishing rigorous thought about meaning, purpose, and life’s ultimate questions to an academic never-never land...
...decent, fair-minded person has a moral obligation to condemn extremism, religious or secular. But the Pope's peremptory linking of Islam and violence is irrational and irresponsible, especially when such a wildly inaccurate judgment comes from somebody whose religion has historically caused more extensive and brutal suffering than Islam ever has. Husam Dughman Toronto...
...blame can easily be placed, and no quick fixes to cheaply and easily make everything “work out.” This is why it has been ignored. Europe’s demographic implosion cuts across countries that are both post-communisst and Western European, religious and secular, small and large, economically stagnant and dynamic, and virtually any other category one sees fit to create. Like the editors of the HPR, I do not have a fully formed explanation for this, maybe because there simply isn’t one. I don’t, however, think that...
Ultimately, it shouldn’t really matter to anyone who is celebrating Christmas or why. The way and the reason that an individual and his or her family decides to observe the holiday season is something personal that does not affect anyone but themselves. For non-Christians, the secular celebration of Christmas is not a malicious attempt to dismantle the foundations of Western Christianity. Rather, it is an important expression of their American culture, centered around love for family and friends, spreading good cheer, and the spirit of giving, which some might even say are Christian ideals...