The
removal of religious symbols from the small classroom meant the return of public school teachers to deliver federally financed remedial education services.
The specificity and culturally shaped
character of religious symbols is necessary if a saving mystery is to be communicated in a rich way to a particular people at a particular time.
An older
conception of religious symbols understood them as both concrete, historical realities in their own right and signs referring to an invisible reality.
What we will do is that if it turns out that the law has the intention (of banning the display
of religious symbols in the workplace), as has come out in this case, then we will change the law and make clear that people can wear religious symbols at work.
Wanda, The religious right want to mix religion with politics to further their agenda — creationism taught as science, public displays
of their religious symbols on civil buildings, civil law based upon their interpretation of the bible, etc. etc..
How would you advise artists (and musicians, writers, etc.) to create works that reflect Christianity without restricting their vocabulary to that overly - familiar
set of religious symbols?
Such interactions with other people teach you things that you would never have expected to learn, such as economic perspectives on the cap and trade system, the
role of religious symbols in psychedelic rock, or simply that most Ph.D. students share the same fears and doubts.
It's unfortunate that current doctrine favors the trivialization
of a religious symbol as evidence of its constitutionality, but that's where we are.
As much, perhaps, as any other church - state question, the
issue of religious symbols on public property has generated increasing concern and debate within the American Jewish community in recent years.
Some years ago, when the question
of religious symbols at Auschwitz had flared once again, an Israeli Prime Minister remarked that Poles «imbibed anti-Semitism with their mothers» milk.»
This was certainly reflected in the response to the Achibta judgment, which was welcomed (rightly or wrongly) by right of centre parties such as Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, as representing the ECJ giving blanket approval to the
banning of religious symbols in the workplace.
I will give a brief translation of the gist of the article... She said in an interview with Le Devoir: «Bill 60 — including banning the wearing
of religious symbols for state employees — does not infringe on the freedom of religion.»
2) Religious Symbols on Employees: «Do you agree or disagree that there are circumstances where an employer could restrict the wearing
of religious symbols by employees?»
Their
distrust of religious symbols, myths and teleological hypotheses is bound up with a failure to consider the possibility of a primary kind of perception in which beauty, value, significance and purpose constitute ontologically «real» data of experience rather than products of wishful thinking.
Starting with a hypothetical individual who experiences a requirement for some form of all - embracing meaning, Berger imagines the
emergence of a religious symbol system as a result of this individual interacting with others in similar circumstances.
Actually, many ideas and practices that purport to be religious contradict the fundamental
requirement of every religious symbol that it at one and the same time reflect the ultimate and affirm its own finitude.
Within this complex, global pot -
pourri of religious symbols and interchange of ideas, concepts and values, individuals will easily feel lost and bewildered.
Under current Supreme Court precedent, official display
of a religious symbol violates the Establishment Clause if a reasonable observer would think that the government is endorsing a religious message.
Nor does it fit that land paid for by everyone should either be
inclusive of every religious symbol (impractical), or allow none (remaining neutral) to be fair and constitutional.
A splintered Supreme Court displayed its deep divisions over the separation of church and state Wednesday, with the court's prevailing conservatives signaling a broader openness to the idea that the Const - itution does not require the removal
of religious symbols from public land.
the «fantastical» — may well be that they are trying to shield themselves from the devastating criticism of sociologists and political philosophers, who point out the sociocultural rootage and relativity of
many of our religious symbols.
Speaking of religious symbols, are you CNN posters aware that the flag of the European Union (ring of twelve stars on a blue field) is a Marian symbol?
Finally, growing awareness about the situational
relativity of religious symbols, while reducing their absolute plausibility, has perhaps enhanced their role as objects and facilitators of communication about social values.
Nevertheless, he maintains that by creating awareness of the social
constructedness of religious symbols, the social sciences have made it impossible to rely on absolute religious claims for social integration.
Like the church that grew up around me, Trinity was an instance of a congregation working its way through a spontaneous and uncertain period of its life; yet it, like my own congregation, used structures of behavior and interpretation derived from the world's
treasury of religious symbols.
Instead of fighting for the
elimination of religious symbols in the public arena, more Jewish leaders ought to be fighting (as some already have) for «equal time» for Jewish symbols, for the «free exercise» of religion through laws and judicial rulings designed to make it easier for observant Jews to uphold the tenets of their faith.