Ninth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

It took the enlightenment and the intrusion and influence of science and scientific methodology, in addition to strong intellectual involvement in Europe and the US to use “reason” as an alternative to religion. For this to flourish into the idea of separation of church and state took hundreds of years. In the Middle East however, a secular thinking that proposes this same separation has taken not more than a few decades. Here, the masses of people, who are at the same time quite pious in their belief, are imposing a separation not so much due to scientific explanation of social phenomena and scientific methodology and the use of reason, but rather the direct repression of the state. Such heavy-handed presence of the state in every aspect of human life has caused a backlash. The result is the rejection of an Islamic republic of sorts; much like the evangelicals that rejected the role of the state in religion because they believed in a voluntary submission to God.