C ontemporary religious terrorism propels in the forefront of philosophical, sociological, anthropological and political discussions and analysis the issue of religious violence. The violence belongs to the nature itself of religion? If so, what mechanisms can be activated to reduce violence? How to reconcile Christianity's central idea - the love of our neighbor - with the sacred violence thesis? How can the idea of religious violence be reconciled with the idea of (...) class='Hi'>religious love? Weak thinking, that is the logic of a weak thinking may be a solution? We try to answer to such questions by appealing to the debate of ideas offered by the French anthropologist René Girard and the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo. (shrink)

Religious violence is a function of deep philosophical and psychological belief-behavior. This article explores the issue in light of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Psychology of evil.

How are justifications for religious violence developed and dothey differ from secular justifications for violence? Can liberalsocieties tolerate potentially violent religious groups? Can thosewho accept religious justifications for violence be dissuaded fromacting violently? Including six in-depth contemporary case studies,The Justification of Religious Violence is the first book toexamine the logical structure of justifications of religiousviolence. The first book specifically devoted to examining the logicalstructure of justifications of religious violence Seeks to (...) understand how justifications for religious violenceare developed and how or if they differ from ordinary secularjustifications of violence Examines 3 widely employed premises used in religiousjustifications of violence – ‘cosmic war’, theimportance of the afterlife, and ‘sacred values’ Considers to what extent liberal democratic societies shouldtolerate who hold that their religion justifies violent acts Reflects on the possibility of effective policy measures topersuade those who believe that violent action is justified byreligion, to refrain from acting violently Informed by recent work in psychology, cognitive science,neuroscience and evolutionary biology Part of the Blackwell Public Philosophy Series. (shrink)

Violence in the name of God is a complex phenomenon and oversimplification further jeopardizes peace because it obscures many of the causal factors. This paper categorizes three hundred scholarly claimed causes of religious violence and then offers thirteen guidelines for navigating the complicated relationship between religion and violence. Understanding this complexity is an important step towards diagnosing the problem and moving towards reconciliation.

Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World. By Christian C. Sahner. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Pp. xxi + 335, illus. $39.95, £34 ; $27.95, £22.

In his book Terror in the Mind of God Mark Juergensmeyer writes: ‘Perhaps the first question that came to mind when televisions around the world displayed the extraordinary aerial assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th 2001, was why anyone would do such a thing. When it became clear that the perpetrators’ motivations were couched in religious terms, the shock turned to anger. How could religion be related to such violent acts?’. That question – (...) ‘how can religion be related to violent acts?’ – is the question Susan Mendus addresses in this article. She discusses the concept of toleration; the specific problems associated, historically, with religious toleration and the differences between modern and historical understandings of religious belief. Her overall aim is to see whether the history of religious tolerance and intolerance can offer some lessons to us, now, in our attempts to secure political peace in the face of religious conflict and religious violence. (shrink)

Violence may be productively understood as a secularized theological concept. Doing so challenges claims that secularism is necessary to prevent religious violence, and it also challenges claims for a Christian triumphalist alternative. William Cavanaugh’s embrace of such a triumphalism is called into question when his genealogical method is interrogated in light of the Foucaultian genealogical project.

A book review of Steve Clark's The Justification of Religious Violence.

How should Christians interact with historical violence in their own tradition? Faced with a barrage of arguments from the ‘New Atheists’ that this killing invalidates biblical truth claims, Christians might be tempted to ignore or excuse these darker episodes. This article argues that they should be willing to confess the failings of the past, place the violent acts in a careful reading of their historical context and re-examine these acts in light of scripture.

In this paper I argue that we need to analyze ‘religious violence’ in the ‘post-secular context’ in a twofold way: rather than simply viewing it in terms of mere irrationality, senselessness, atavism, or monstrosity – terms which, as we witness today on an immense scale, are strongly endorsed by the contemporary theater of cruelty committed in the name of religion – we also need to understand it in terms of an ‘originary supplement’ of ‘disengaged reason’. In order to (...) confront its specificity beyond traditional explanations of violence, I propose an integrated phenomenological account of religion that traces the phenomenality of religion in terms of a correlation between the originary givenness of transcendence and capable man’s creative capacities to respond to it. Following Ricœur, I discuss ‘religious violence’ in terms of a monopolizing appropriation of the originary source of givenness that conflates man’s freedom to poetically respond to the appeal of the foundational with the surreptitiously claimed sovereignty to make it happen in a practical transfiguration of the everyday. (shrink)

Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God. The Global Rise of Religious Violence University of California Press, Berkeley & L.A., 2001, 320 p.

This introductory essay discusses how the trope of “religious violence” is operative in contemporary discussions concerning the so-called “return of religion” and the “post-secular constellation.” The author argues that the development of a genuine phenomenology of “religious violence” calls on us to critically reconsider the modern discourses that all too unambiguously tie religion and violence together. In a first part, the paper fleshes out the fault lines of a secularist modernity spinning out of control. In (...) a second part, it demonstrates how the “liberal imaginary” revolves around individualist conceptions of freedom and sovereignty that, on their part, become parasitic upon imaginations of disorder, otherness and violence. In a third part, the author demonstrates how these insights call for developing a transformed phenomenological framework in order to give a more sensible account of “religious violence.” Finally, in presenting the articles gathered in this “special issue” of Continental Philosophy Review, some pathways into such a sensibilized phenomenology of “religious violence” are outlined. (shrink)

It can be unnerving to read and teach Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling in a world plagued by religious violence. The book’s praise of Abraham as the “father of faith” precisely for his willingness to kill his son Isaac, combined with its suggestion that through faith one could “suspend” ethics, seems to provide a defense and even an endorsement of religiously motivated violence. In order to see why this is a misreading of the text, we will need to (...) go beyond arguments based on the book’s pseudonymous or symbolic nature. Only by considering in detail what Fear and Trembling says about Abraham’s faith can we see that, far from endorsing religious violence, the book provides an insightful contrast between true Abrahamic faith and the orientation of hatred, bigotry, ideological blindness behind today’s religious violence. (shrink)

Modern comprehension of religion and violence, particularly modern attitudes toward religious violence, is the main topic of this paper. Mainstream secularization theory states that religion triggers conflict, tension, oppression, violence, and even war. As a continuation of this theory, the “myth of religious violence” assumes that religion is intrinsically connected with terror. These two narratives provide no sufficient proof for their claim about the irrelevance of religion; nonetheless, these narratives are expressions of the human (...) agent’s struggle in his/her search for meaning. Referring to Gianni Vattimo’s idea of weak thought, this writing proposes a narrative that treats religious and spiritual dimensions of human identity as essential for human life, as a source of remarkable consolation and hope in enduring the terror of violence, and as an opening to the new transcendental dimension of the ultimate meaning of human life. (shrink)

This article aims at showing the potentiality of Transcendent Theosophy in the creation of peace and denial of religious violence. Belief in Necessary Being that is identical to beauty and perfection is one of the central issues in Islamic philosophy, particularly Mulla Sadra’s Transcendent Theosophy. This belief has different stages, the highest one of which is a love-based sense of humbleness before God who is the source of beauty. Thus, faith in the thought of Mulla Sadra is one (...) of the aesthetic categories. Surrender to such a Being leads to love in him and his effects. Thus, in Transcendent Theosophy, love in God is followed by the love in people. This love is associated with the sense of responsibility and the effort for the realisation of people’s rights. In the final part of the article under the title ‘Mulla Sadra and Confrontation of Two Types of Religious Understanding’, through the analysis of Mulla Sadra’s dialogue with a religious radical, we have criticised the discourse of religious violence and concluded that Transcendent Theosophy is a defender of human rights and a pioneer of peace and a despiser of religious violence. The most important finding of this study is that according to Mulla Sadra, religious radical interpretations are the source of the emergence of religious violence, and the solution to this problem is the promotion of rational and conscious religiosity. The method used in this research is of descriptive-analytic type.Contribution: The article brought to fore the potentiality of Islamic philosophy for the realisation of peace and the denial of religious violence. The authors analytically studied Mulla Sadra’s pacifist foundations in order to ascertain its relation with non-violence towards humans. The main contribution of this article is that the teachings of Transcendent Theosophy are very useful for creating peaceful coexistence between human beings. (shrink)

Examples of scriptural and historic militancy in Christianity and Islam are frequently compared today without sufficient attention to the complexity of the subject within each tradition. Through an examination of relevant biblical and Qur’anic materials, and of episodes in later history, this article attempts a fresh examination of violence in the two traditions. It argues that the tensions in each tradition related to violence, while similar in some ways, are quite distinct in others. In light of this, thoughts (...) are suggested on how each community may engage its respective tensions in order to work toward peace today. (shrink)

This book is hoped to be only the beginning of explorations of the ancient Egyptian notion of upholding Order (Ma'at) through violence. Because of the scope of the topic, this study is limited to the most extreme measure of violence perpetrated in the service of Order: sanctioned killing. This study explores texts that affirm the proper occasions for such killings, and the religious framework behind these actions."--Publisher's website.

This contribution explores the question to what extent religious narratives can move the adherents of religious communities to violence or teach wisdom and compassion, drawing on Ricoeur’s work on narrative, ethics, and biblical interpretation. It lays out Ricoeur’s account of narrative identity, urging him to connect his account of phronesis more fully with his analysis of threefold mimesis in his earlier work. It considers his biblical hermeneutics in light of this work on identity and moral action and (...) suggests that bringing these various dimensions of his work together more fully than he himself does would provide a more substantive account of how identity is shaped in religious contexts. It might on the one hand help us to understand more fully a turn to fundamentalism or religious violence and on the other hand draw more clearly on the phronetic resources within religious traditions, especially as they are expressed in ritual behavior, to combat violence and teach wisdom and compassion. (shrink)

Clergy sexual abuse is both sexual and psychological violence, but it is also a paradigmatic case of spiritual violence that rises to the level of religious trauma. In this paper I argue that the spiritual violence of clergy sexual abuse diminishes, and in some cases may even destroy, a survivor’s capacities for religious faith or other forms of spiritual engagement. I use and illustrate the value of feminist methodology, as developed and advanced by Alison Jaggar, (...) for generating and pursuing philosophical questions about religious experience. Feminist methodology’s sensitivity to theorizing situated subjects who stand to each other in relations of racialized male dominance helps us see the ways in which clergy sexual abuse is gender-based violence in both its causes and effects. It also helps us both ask and answer questions about religious faith in the unjust meantime from the perspective of those who endure spiritually violent faith communities. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSocial science seldom takes religion seriously. Graeme Wood shows the folly of this neglect in The Way of the Strangers, his portrayal of the apocalyptic religious ideas held by some of the most ardent ISIS followers. The actions and devotion of members of the Islamic State cannot be understood without grasping what Wood is telling us. Still, a central question remains: Do these religious ideas inevitably lead to violence? Here the jury is still out, since a focus (...) solely on religion, without the socio-political context, can give a skewed perspective on the motives of this violent politico-religious movement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:VIOLENCE AND NONVIOLENCE IN HINDU RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS Francis X. Clooney, SJ. Boston College Outline I.Violence, Sacrifice and Ritual 1. Some basic attitudes toward the killing of animals 2.Resolving the problem of sacrificial violence by internalization 3.Substitutions 4.Renunciation and nonviolence: an elite pathway 5.Violence andnonviolenceinrelation to vegetarianism: Hans Schmidt's theses?. Traditional Hindu Theorizations of Violence in Mimamsa Ritual Theory and Vedanta Theology 1. The (...) ritual analysis (at Mimamsa Sutra 1.1.2) of the Shyena rite which is performed in order to harm enemies 2.The Vedanta analysis (at Uttara Mimamsa Sutra 3.1.25) of ritual violence in relation to the prohibition of violence??. Violence in the Life of the State HOFrancis X. Clooney, S.J. 1. The royal power to punish (danda) 2.The synthesis of the ideals of brahmin and king a..The distribution and management of violence in the Laws ofManu (1st century CE) b. Policy toward warfare in the Arthashastra of Kautilya 3.The collapse of the brahmanical synthesis—and the emergence of a (seemingly) more nonviolent Hinduism 4.A comment on Gandhi (1 869-1948) and the contemporary emergence of post-Gandhian Hindu perspectives IV.Alternate Views from Outside the Sanskritic Tradition 1. Tamil Wisdom on Violence and Nonviolence: a.Tirukkural (c. 2nd century CE) b.Cilappatikaram (5th century CE) 2.Blood and Goddesses 3.From a Village Perspective a. Some Trouble with Cows b.Mahasweta Devi and the Literary Exposure of Violence V.The Question of a Christian Perspective on the Hindu Treatment of Violence and Religion: Are Victims Necessary? Some Presuppositions: • The following reflections, complex as they are, are governed by a reluctance to simplify Hindu teaching. I seek to avoid the view that the Hindu traditions had only one view of violence and nonviolence. • I use the term "Hindu" loosely and as a shorthand, without claiming that there is a single Hindu tradition, or a single creed shared by all Hindus, or a single attitude toward violence. But neither do I claim that there are simply many traditions without any common elements which justify the appellation "Hindu." • I am reluctant to idealize the Hindu traditions as if nonviolence must necessarily be taken as the epitome ofHindu thought. India's traditions are complex, and require complex treatment. • A serious artificiality of this paper is that I treat Hinduism without simultaneously lookinginto Buddhist andJain materials, though both were traditions with important and enduring commitments to nonviolence. Particularly with respect to the renunciant, marginal components of traditions, one ought not to make overly neat or decisive distinctions Violence and Nonviolence in Hindu Religious Traditions 1 1 1 between the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain theories and practices related to violence and nonviolence. • I attempt to give preference to indigenous discussions ofissues related to violence and nonviolence; the context and mode of thinking are important, notjust the conclusions drawn. I therefore avoid simply mining Hindu texts for an answer to a contemporary question, "What is the Hindu attitude toward violence and nonviolence?" • In most ofwhat follows we must distinguish contexts where "violence" indicates "physical action which causes pain to some living being," from contexts where "violence" indicates "an intention, rooted in anger or malice, to hurt someone." I use the word "violence" for both in order to highlight the complex issues of distinction involved. In considering the Sanskrit formulations, one likewise has to distinguish himsa as "causing pain" from himsa as "intending to harm." • It is often difficult to date ancient texts, and even when one narrows down a date—within 200-300 years—its significance still depends on other, often equally broadly stated dates. Nevertheless, I do offer dates throughout, as summarized here: •ancient Vedic sacrificial practices, from before 1200 BCE •Vedic ritual analyses and reformulations of sacrifices as ritualized acts, in the Brahmanas, from after 1000 BCE •the Upanishadic exploration of the deeper meanings of ritual and interiorized alternatives to ritual, from after 900 BCE •the Buddha, c. 500 BCE •key texts in the theorization of royal power, The Laws of Manu (beginning of Common Era) and Arthashastra (c. 150 CE) •the Tamil wisdom text Tirukkural (100 CE) •Goddess texts as evidenced in Sanskrit formulations, from after 500 CE... (shrink)

René Girard speaks of the return of the religious as a “return of the sacred… in the form of violence.” This violence was inherent in the original “sacrificial system,” which deflected communal violence onto the victim. In this article, I argue that there is a double return of the sacred. With the collapse of the original sacrificial system, the sacred first reappears in the legal order. When this loses its binding claim, it reappears in the political (...) order. Here, my claim will be that Carl Schmitt’s conception of the political is not simply structurally similar to Girard’s conception of the sacrificial system. It is actually a manifestation of this. In this political return of the religious, the religious and the political systems are conflated. What prevents us from seeing this is the self-concealment that is essential to the sacrificial act, a self-concealment that also characterizes its twofold return. (shrink)

The UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights obliges state parties to prohibit any advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination or violence. This book traces the origins of this provision and proposes an actus reus for this offence. The question of whether hateful incitement is a prohibition per se or also encapsulates a fundamental 'right to be protected against incitement' is extensively debated. Also addressed is the question of how to judge incitement. Is mens (...) rea required to convict someone of advocating hatred, and if so, for what degree of intent? This analysis also includes the paramount question if and to what extent content and/or context factors ought to be decisive. The author extensively engages with comparative domestic law and compares the workings of the UN Human Rights Committee with those of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the European Court of Human Rights. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:VIOLENCE AS INSTITUTION IN AFRICAN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: A CASE STUDY OF RWANDA Malachie Munyaneza UnitedReform Church, London I. Introduction Violence is a phenomenon. It is multidimensional and multifarious. It is physical, geographical, spiritual, psychological, sudden or latent. It is metaphysical, because for some religious beliefs, it involves the deed-consequences scheme in terms of rewards and punishments, even beyond this world into the otherworldly life. It (...) is an instrument used in one's own life (suicide), in the simple family, in the small-scale societies, as well as in the multi-ethnic social settings. It can be a national, multinational and universal phenomenon. It presents some contradictions, because, though it is abhorred in general, some individuals or states use it as a means to achieve ultimate good or misuse it for their own selfish interests. It becomes more of a repulsive mystery when it is seen as institutional and integral partofreligionwhich fundamentallyshould avoid it. Between April and July 1994, the media ofthe world brought images ofthe mostviolent episode ofRwandan history into the living rooms ofthis planet's population. The magnitude ofthe genocide of 1994 was unprecedented in this century. Up to one million of people are estimated to have been killed within only one hundred days. It is difficult to understand the magnitude ofthis violence. Tribal conflicts in Rwanda, colonial powers, political manipulations and economic problems alone are not enough to explain whathas happened. Political analysts, sociologists, anthropologists have tried to understand whetherthe political instability ofthe late 80s, the malfunction of political institutions, the October War (1990-94) and the 40Malachie Munyaneza consequent war atrocities could have necessarily culminated in the genocide the world witnessed. Fundamental questions about the whole philosophy oflife and religion in the history ofRwandaand its relationship to violence are to be addressed too, because they touch the inner being of the outward physical person. People have the right to know what has gone wrong all along in all areas of their life. This paper will try to look at religious beliefs and violence as institution in ancient and modern Rwanda in its magico-religious context and its implications in the social structure. As I am only a debutante Girardian, I will discuss only the key terms ofhis theory—mimesis, desire and scapegoating—as they guide my reflections.?. Religious beliefs and violence Generally, Rwanda is viewed as a monotheistic country. All Rwandan ethnic groups believed in the only one heavenly Superior Being called Imana. Though Rwandansrecognized Imanaasthe SupremeBeing, Creator and Sustainer ofall life, they did not have a special service ofworship to him at a central place. They thought it was temerity to try and please or influence God because ifyou try you would not find enough to match his greatness and his merits. A Rwandan saying tells that you cannot handle God because ifyoutryyou would paydearly.1 Imana is the Ancientofdays as it is expressed in the name "Habiyakare"(He is before the first dawn). He is all-knowing as in the name "Bizimana" (they [all things] are known by God). He rules over everything as King, Judge and Master as expressed in the name "Hategekimana" (everywhere it is God who rules). Unfortunately Rwandans believedthatwhatever befell them was pre-ordained by God and most ofthe time fatalism dominated their lives. They confronted violence or fate with resignation thinking that the origin is in God's will or from angry spirits they did not control. Rwandans also believe in the existence ofa spiritual realm. The spirits of the dead lived further and roamed about. They would come back to trouble their relatives, especially when they felt some duties due to them were neglected. They could even kill through sickness, insanity or provoke infertility. They hold people under the siege ofconstant mental terror. The spirits most feared were the ones from those who had died in unfortunate 1St Paul expressed the same idea in his discourse at Athens and said: "The god who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by the human hands, as ifhe need anything..." (Acts 1 7, 24-25). Violence as Institution in... (shrink)

Religion and violence are related in an ambivalent, paradoxical way, for the systems of religious knowledge tend to prohibit violence and to motivate it at the same time. This paper looks for the roots of that ambivalence and reveals particular mechanisms that generate violence within religious systems and their associated practices. It argues that violence in religious systems is present in at least three forms: It is inherent to communication with the “sacred,” it (...) is generated by processes of inclusion and exclusion, shaping religiously interpreted lifeworlds, and it is motivated or moderated by the respective semantics of religious narratives. The paper concludes that violence as a moment of hierophany is constitutive for the living experience in religious systems and cannot be eliminated entirely by moderating semantics. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Setting the Task Devoted to Destruction: Sanctified Violence and Judaism The Blood of the Lamb A Case Study in the Evolved Psychology of Religious Violence: 9/11.

Religion is one of the most powerful forces running through human history, and although often presented as a force for good, its impact is frequently violent and divisive. This provocative work brings together cutting-edge research from both evolutionary and cognitive psychology to help readers understand the psychological structure of religious morality and the origins of religious violence. Introduces a fundamentally new approach to the analysis of religion in a style accessible to the general reader Applies insights from (...) evolutionary and cognitive psychology to both Judaism and Christianity, and their texts, to help understand the origins of religious violence Argues that religious violence is grounded in the moral psychology of religion Illustrates its controversial argument with reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the response to the attacks from both the terrorists and the President. Suggests strategies for beginning to counter the divisive aspects of religion Discusses the role of religion and religious criticism in the contemporary world. Argues for a position sceptical of the moral authority of religion, while also critiquing the excesses of the “new atheists” for failing to appreciate the moral contributions of religion Awarded Honourable Mention, 2010 Prose Awards. (shrink)