Projecting a global interdisciplinary vision, this insightful book develops a peer-to-peer learning methodology to facilitate reconciling religion and human rights, both in multilateral contexts and at the national level. Written by leading human rights practitioners, the book illuminates the tension zones between religion and rights, exploring how the ‘faith’ elements in both disciplines can create synergies for protecting equal human dignity.

Dear All, There is a currently an attempt by humanity to ascend to a New Age of Peace and Prosperity - to transcend military conflict, cultural clashes and primitive imperialism - and finally live in a Global Village of Peace. However, from a metaphysical perspective, we're still living in quite a primitive state - a bit like an Amoeba - a primitive single-celled organism, which is unable to evolve into a civilized life form. Just like three thousand years ago - during the time of Moses - nations, evil rulers and individuals still clobber each other over the head, aiming to exert dominance and slavery over each other; in particular guys like Vladimir Putin, which is very disappointing: ( So it's basically humanity's choice, if we want to transcend beyond that primitive state, and that we all learn to live in peace with each other. At the end of the day, each and every individual has to make the choice himself, whether he or wants to remain in a primitive state, who only cares about himself, or wishes to manifest peace and prosperity in our world. In short, we need to have the visionary strength, to discover a new country of peace and harmony, and manifest a mind-set of mutual caring and co-existence in the International Community. But of course, those who want to remain behind in a primitive, selfish and destructive mind-set, can do so. Nobody is forced to go with us, into a golden age of Peace and Prosperity. This applies in particular to individuals who are enslaved by emotions of hatred, intolerance and imperialistic conquest. RESTORING PEACE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE: The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought considerable destruction to the world. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides and caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II, with an estimated 8 million people being displaced within the country, as well as 7.8 million Ukrainians fleeing the country as of 8 November 2022. Within five weeks of the invasion, Russia experienced its greatest emigration since the 1917 October Revolution. So I expect my colleagues in the Government of Russia to make Peace with Ukraine - and uphold the Legacy of Peace by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin - by working together with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to restore basic Human Rights and International Law in the International Community. In short, we encourage all Russian troops to come back home to their loved ones in Mother Russia: )

This volume examines the relationship between religion and human rights in seven major religious traditions, as well as key legal concepts, contemporary issues, and relationships among religion, state, and society in the areas of human rights and religious freedom.

Combining Jewish, Greek, and Roman teachings with the radical new teachings of Christ and St. Paul, Christianity helped to cultivate the cardinal ideas of dignity, equality, liberty and democracy that ground the modern human rights paradigm. Christianity also helped shape the law of public, private, penal, and procedural rights that anchor modern legal systems in the West and beyond. This collection of essays explores these Christian contributions to human rights through the perspectives of jurisprudence, theology, philosophy and history, and Christian contributions to the special rights claims of women, children, nature and the environment. The authors also address the church's own problems and failings with maintaining human rights ideals. With contributions from leading scholars, including a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, this book provides an authoritative treatment of how Christianity shaped human rights in the past, and how Christianity and human rights continue to challenge each other in modern times.

Although much has been written about the vigorous debates over science and religion in the Victorian era, little attention has been paid to their continuing importance in early twentieth-century Britain. Reconciling Science and Religion provides a comprehensive survey of the interplay between British science and religion from the late nineteenth century to World War II. Peter J. Bowler argues that unlike the United States, where a strong fundamentalist opposition to evolutionism developed in the 1920s (most famously expressed in the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925), in Britain there was a concerted effort to reconcile science and religion. Intellectually conservative scientists championed the reconciliation and were supported by liberal theologians in the Free Churches and the Church of England, especially the Anglican "Modernists." Popular writers such as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw sought to create a non-Christian religion similar in some respects to the Modernist position. Younger scientists and secularists—including Rationalists such as H. G. Wells and the Marxists—tended to oppose these efforts, as did conservative Christians, who saw the liberal position as a betrayal of the true spirit of their religion. With the increased social tensions of the 1930s, as the churches moved toward a neo-orthodoxy unfriendly to natural theology and biologists adopted the "Modern Synthesis" of genetics and evolutionary theory, the proposed reconciliation fell apart. Because the tensions between science and religion—and efforts at reconciling the two—are still very much with us today, Bowler's book will be important for everyone interested in these issues.

This text explains what religious terrorists and religious peacemakers share in common and what causes them to take different paths in fighting injustice.

Using the metaphor of ‘constitutional space’, this thought-provoking book describes the confluence and convergence of powers in a constitutional system, comprised of the principled exercise of the legislative, executive and judicial powers of constitutional government. Addressing the issues surrounding the freedom of religion or belief, the book explores the dimensions of constitutional space and the content of this freedom, as well as comparative approaches to defining and protecting this freedom.

LGBT, faith, and academic thought-leaders explore prospects for laws protecting each community's core interests and possible resolutions for culture-war conflicts.

Debate on freedom of religion as a human right takes place not only in the Western world but also in Muslim communities throughout the world. For Muslims concerned for this freedom, one of the major difficulties is the 'punishment for apostasy' - death for those who desert Islam. This book argues that the law of apostasy and its punishment by death in Islamic law are untenable in the modern period. The law of apostasy conflicts with a variety of foundation texts of Islam and with the current ethos of human rights, in particular the freedom to choose one's religion. In examining the significant challenges the punishment of apostasy faces in the modern period inside and outside Muslim communities - exploring in particular how the issue is dealt with in a multi-religious Muslim majority country, Malaysia - the authors discuss arguments by prominent Muslims today for an absolute freedom of religion and for discarding the death penalty for apostasy.

This volume contains four theoretical and four empirical articles that aim at conceptual clarification and descriptive and causal exploration on data from 14 countries about historical and current tensions within and between religions, Christiantity and Islam, and human rights in various contexts.