Why Secularism?

In this talk, Paul Cliteur will highlight some of the features of his forthcoming book The Secular Outlook: A Defense of Moral and Political Secularism. Cliteur contends that free-thought and secularism are important institutions and traditions in a time of religious fanaticism and even religious terrorism. He advocates the separation of morals and religion and the separation of politics and religion as important ideals in a time when religiously motivated violence is a threat to contemporary multicultural and multireligious societies.

The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism shows how people can live together and overcome the challenge of religious terrorism by adopting a “secular outlook” on life and politics, attempting to show how secularism can answer the problem of religious terrorism, provides new perspectives on how religious minorities can be integrated into liberal democracies, reveals how secularism has gained a new political and moral significance and also more widely examines relevant topics including atheism, religious criticism and free speech.

PAUL CLITEUR is a former lawyer and now Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Leiden, Netherlands. He was president of the Dutch Humanist Association from 1993-1995, and was curator of the Teldersstichting, a liberal-scientific thinktank closely aligned with the Dutch VVD party.

SPES Sunday lectures are free and open to all – no bookings are required. For more info please contact programme@ethicalsoc.org.uk

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY, CONWAY HALL, 25 RED LION SQUARE, WC1R 4RL

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