The Crisis of Secularism: How Democracy Fuels Moral Panics and Religious Fundamentalism

While identifying humanity’s most cherished ideals, there is one notion that ultimately supplants all others: the notion of freedom. The concept itself and its encompassing rhetoric have been utilized ad nauseam by virtually all contemporary social orders to validate the levels of civilizational maturity and, perhaps more importantly, to set goals to which the same should strive. However, irrespective of its categorical position at the very summit of conscious human existence, its interpretational elasticity allows for a diminishing number of concessions. This paper offers critique and examines interactions between multiculturalism, cultural relativism, religion, and secularism within contemporary Western societies. It utilizes historical examples of overt and latent free speech and human rights violations to demonstrate futility and incompatibility of the conventional and fundamentalist religious ideologies with the concepts of egalitarianism and secularism. The Abrahamic religion of Islam serves as a centerpiece example of instances discussed. The paper further describes and employs sociologist Stanley Cohen’s concept of moral panic in an attempt to anatomize the problem and the reactions stemming from it. The conclusion reiterates exigency of the matter and offers a glimpse into the perplexity, danger, and evolution of the soi-disant progressive Western democracies in relation to palpable prosperity of the human enterprise. Research materials comprise various internet-based and traditional print sources

On the extremal properties of the average eccentricity

The eccentricity of a vertex is the maximum distance from it to another vertex and the average eccentricity $ecc (G)$ of a graph $G$ is the mean value of eccentricities of all vertices of $G$. The average eccentricity is deeply connected with a topological descriptor called the eccentric connectivity index, defined as a sum of products of vertex degrees and eccentricities. In this paper we analyze extremal properties of the average eccentricity, introducing two graph transformations that increase or decrease $ecc (G)$. Furthermore, we resolve four conjectures, obtained by the system AutoGraphiX, about the average eccentricity and other graph parameters (the clique number, the Randi\' c index and the independence number), refute one AutoGraphiX conjecture about the average eccentricity and the minimum vertex degree and correct one AutoGraphiX conjecture about the domination number.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Time, Ethics and Experience: Review of David O. Brink\u27s Prospects for Temporal Neutrality

Are temporal locations of harms and benefits important to human existence? Conventional wisdom unambiguously suggests so, albeit interpretations of various dogmatic texts and beliefs. Discussions about pain, grief, and suffering are commonly favored within past temporal settings, unlike those of happiness, comfort, and wellbeing that permeate conversations with future temporal locales. Past pain is preferred to future pain, even when this choice includes more total pain (Callender, 2011). Should these positive and negative qualifiers that constitute conscious existence have privileged temporal locations? This ethical question, like many others surrounding temporality, inherits both theoretical and pragmatic inquiries - becoming indispensable within moral and juridical dispositions. The concept of temporal neutrality, which posits that agents should not attach normative significance to temporal locations of benefits and harms, all else being equal, is central to the present philosophical investigation. In his Prospects for Moral Neutrality chapter of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time (2011), David O. Brink articulates what exactly temporal neutrality requires and why we ought to care about its precepts. As they are assessed by how they distribute benefits and harms across people’s lives through interpersonal distributive justice, actions and policies can also be assessed by their distribution of benefits and harms across time. This concept of intertemporal distribution is a normative demand of temporal neutrality, and according to some philosophers it makes temporal neutrality an essential part of rationality (Brink, 2011). However, establishing an impartial foundation for temporal neutrality often appears controversial and counterintuitive

Honor Killing Attitudes Among San Jose State University Students

This study examines honor killing attitudes amongst a sample of sixty graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Justice Studies at San Jose State University and offers a systematic review of published academic literature on honor killings. It hypothesizes that students who strongly adhere to patriarchal traditionalism are more likely to endorse legitimacy of honor killings, controlling for gender, education, family size, religion, religiosity/religious conviction, and female chastity expectations. Descriptive findings suggest that the majority of respondents disagree that honor murders are justified, regardless of circumstances, dependent variable honor killing attitudes. Respondents also report negative attitudes toward authority and obedience, resistance to change, and patriarchal entitlements, independent variable patriarchal traditionalism. Female respondents report stronger opposition to honor killings and patriarchal traditionalism than males, which is in agreement with results of existing research; respondents’ gender explains some of the variance in attitudes toward honor killings. The study’s limited sampling parameters do not allow for generalization of calculated statistical data and results. Implications and further research suggestions are discussed