Taking Rites Seriously Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith [Hardcover]

This book is a critical look at how courts, legal scholars, and the academic culture mischaracterize and misunderstand religious beliefs.Taking Rites Seriously is about how religious beliefs and religious believers are assessed by judges and legal scholars and are sometimes mischaracterized and misunderstood by those who are critical of the influence of religion in politics or the formation of law.Taking Rites Seriously is about how religious beliefs and religious believers are assessed by judges and legal scholars and are sometimes mischaracterized and misunderstood by those who are critical of the influence of religion in politics or the formation of law.Taking Rites Seriously is about how religious beliefs and religious believers are assessed by judges and legal scholars and are sometimes mischaracterized and misunderstood by those who are critical of the influence of religion in politics or in the formation of law. Covering three general topics  reason and motive, dignity and personhood, nature and sex  philosopher and legal theorist Francis J. Beckwith carefully addresses several contentious legal and cultural questions over which religious and non-religious citizens often disagree: the rationality of religious belief, religiously motivated legislation, human dignity in bioethics, abortion and embryonic stem cell research, reproductive rights and religious liberty, evolutionary theory, and the nature of marriage. In the process, he responds to some well-known critics of public faith  including Brian Leiter, Steven Pinker, Suzanna Sherry, Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, and Richard Dawkins  as well as to some religiously conservative critics of secularism such as the advocates for intelligent design1. Introduction: faith seeking understanding; Part I. Reason and Motive: 2. Fides, ratio et juris: how some courts and some legal theorists misrepresent the rational status of religious beliefs; 3. Theological exclusionary rule: the judicial misuse of religious motivelC>