JCR's updates

JCR's updates http://www.goodreads.com/user/updates_rss/722092 en-US Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:51:24 -0700 60 JCR's updates http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 28353754 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:51:24 -0700 Rating537548 <![CDATA[JCR voted on a review]]> http://www.goodreads.com/

JCR read and liked Ginnie's review of Liberty of Conscience: The Attack on America's Tradition of Religious Equality:

" Full disclosure statement Roger Williams is one of my greatest heroes and obviously one of law professor Nussbaum's as well since she uses him as her exemplar here.. Somehow it seems appropriate rather than ironic that I am writing this in ...more Full disclosure statement Roger Williams is one of my greatest heroes and obviously one of law professor Nussbaum's as well since she uses him as her exemplar here.. Somehow it seems appropriate rather than ironic that I am writing this in the same week that the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was a civil rights rather than a religious issue. It has taken me a while to sort out the many things here - not all of them written in as orderly a fashion as I might have wished. Still this is an important book that I earnestly recommend in this political time.

As the United States moves into the 21st century, it is clear that the American population now represents an ethnic and religious diversity far beyond anything the framers of the Constitution ever could have imagined. Given this reality, what is the best way to define the extent of the constitutional right to religious freedom and the accompanying prohibition against religious establishment, while maintaining respect for the nation’s growing diversity of religious belief and unbelief?

In her new book, Liberty of Conscience, the legal scholar Martha Nussbaum seeks to answer this question by mounting a defense of the American tradition of religious equality. Nussbaum makes a good argument for John Rawls' "overlapping consensus" in discussing equality between the religion clauses in the First Amendment She argues this tradition is threatened, on the one hand, by attempts on the religious right to “push to institutionalize Christian evangelical fundamentalism and its near relatives as our state religion,” suggesting that those who do not share the religious values they champion are “less than fully American and less than fully equal.” On the other hand, the tradition also is being undermined by those on the left who are motivated by an “arrogant secularism,” which demonstrates a contempt for religious faith and religious believers by insisting on a vision of the “neutral” public square that essentially favors non-religion over religion.

In Nussbaum’s view, the appropriate way to understand the religion clauses of the First Amendment is to see them as underlying a tradition rooted in principles of liberty and equality. Citizens must be provided a space in which they are free to act or refrain from acting based on their most deeply held beliefs. Indeed, respecting freedom of conscience is integral to demonstrating real respect for others as human beings.

Contents: A tradition under threat -- Living together : the roots of respect -- Proclaiming equality : religion in the new nation -- The struggle over accommodation -- Fearing strangers -- The establishment clause : school prayer, public displays -- Aid to sectarian schools : the search for fairness -- Contemporary controversies : the pledge, evolution, imagination, gay marriage, fear of Muslims....less "

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]]> 21927289 Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:21:43 -0700 Rating279604 <![CDATA[JCR voted on a quote]]> http://www.goodreads.com/

JCR added a quote:
"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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]]> 20533643 Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:32:49 -0700 Rating240376 <![CDATA[JCR voted on a quote]]> http://www.goodreads.com/

JCR added a quote:
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." — Dr. Seuss

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]]> 20533623 Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:32:42 -0700 Rating240374 <![CDATA[JCR voted on a quote]]> http://www.goodreads.com/

JCR added a quote:
"And we forget because we must and not because we will." — Matthew Arnold

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]]> 14430129 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:23:05 -0800 Review13945230 <![CDATA[JCR added 'The Mountain Meadows Massacre']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13945230 The Mountain Meadows Massacre (Paperback) by Juanita Brooks
bookshelves: mormonia
]]> 14430070 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:22:42 -0800 Review13945190 <![CDATA[JCR added 'J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13945190 J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years (Hardcover) by Frank W. Fox
bookshelves: mormonia
]]> 14429973 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:21:59 -0800 Review13945117 <![CDATA[JCR added 'Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13945117 Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Paperback) by Richard Lyman Bushman
bookshelves: mormonia
]]> 14429942 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:21:41 -0800 Review13945092 <![CDATA[JCR added 'David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13945092 David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Hardcover) by Gregory A Prince
bookshelves: mormonia
]]> 14208753 Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:00:58 -0800 Review13769958 <![CDATA[JCR added 'The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13769958 The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Hardcover) by Jeffrey Toobin
bookshelves: 2008-reads
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