Events for November 2012

From November 22 - 24, 2012 (keynote speaker - Thursday Nov. 22, 2012 from 4:00 - 5:30pm)

Workshop Description:

The recent popularity of the ‘New Atheists’, a neologism denoting a group of bestselling atheist authors, and The Atheist Bus Campaign by atheist organizations to gain recognition, has contributed to atheism attracting significant popular media attention. Public policy debates surrounding the inclusion or removal of prayer from government and schools, and even the mention of God in the Canadian National Anthem, have also provided material for the national media. The study of atheism from a social scientific perspective, however, has only recently ...

University of Ottawa, Simard 125
4:00 - 6:30pm

Title: The Church on the Margins: Religion and Atheism in a Secular Age 

Abstract: While religion has not disappeared, as classical secularization theory predicted it would, the place of religion in society has changed dramatically over the past half-century. Christendom is over. Structural and cultural changes have moved the church from the centre to the margin of society. These changes, which Charles Taylor (2007) describes as a change in the modern social imaginary from “The Age of Mobilization” to “The Age of Authenticity,” describe the context for both religion and the ...