During a major part of modernity the concept of identity was something that in many ways was predetermined for the individual. People in general remained in the same social spheres as the generations before, shared common religions and beliefs and where more or less bound to a geographic area. Identity and lifestyle was something that was adapted quite unreflected from habit and tradition. Though, during the cultural modernisation process that took place in the twentieth century, previous shared patterns of interpretation vanished and became individual.  Finding references, constructing an identity and establishing a self became individual.

The first aim of this study is to discuss and try to understand the relationship between the holy andethics, and more specifically how it can be understood, which is the critical question that I haveformulated, in Giorgio Agamben?s and Emmanuel Levinas? philosophies. The second, moreconstructive aim is to discuss whether the holy can be understood as something good or problematicin relation to the society.Rooted in philosophy of religion and ethics, I have first tried to discuss how the holy has beenunderstood in the philosophy of phenomenology and in the texts of Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade andEspen Dahl. The holy has in the history been understood as something central in religions, and hasalso not been connected to the idea of ethics. Recently it has also been critized ? by Dahl ? for notbeing so pure as first thought of.In Levinas texts the holy has been understood as something differentiated through his distiction,in the Talmudic reading ?Desacralization and Disenchantment?, between the holy, which can beseen as something pure, and the sacred which can been seen as something impure and a form ofdegenerated holiness.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how Irish people on a rural location practice their faith in everyday life. The intention is also to find out what strategies my interviewees use to negotiate the abuse scandal and what their thoughts on the Catholic Church are. The material mainly consists of interviews with seven people part of a rural parish in Ireland. My research also entails smaller observations and conversations in the homes of the participants.The results indicate that they all consider themselves religious, however not all Catholic. All of the participants integrate their religion in everyday life.

In the context of world globalization, Sweden has today become a multicultural society, where many different cultures, religions, values and approaches are trying to co-exist. When the Swedish government's integration policy was put into effect, one sought to open the way for a more peaceful coexistence between majority and minority people. The intention was that everyone, through mutual interaction, would learn to come together and learn to respect each other's differences. It was suggested that an intercultural approach should permeate all education, including preschool activity. There are particular guidelines for a culture and tradition promotion work within the preschool in the new revised curriculum (Lpfö 98, rev.

Freedom of religion or belief is indisputable in Human rights discourse, more discussed is exactly what it is that is included in the concept of freedom of religion or belief (in Swedish: religionsfrihet). This thesis focuses on the freedom of religion or belief in a European context, in particular on the European court of human rights and article 9 in the European convention for human rights. Some criticism has been directed against the Court to the effect that its practice and verdicts don't answer to the pronounced desire to develop a pluralistic and inclusive form of freedom of religion or belief.My aim is to examine, analyse and test three different theories, which all try to develop alternatives to the expression freedom of religion or belief, in relation to six verdicts from article 9 in Europe convention. My basic purpose is to try to find new ways of talking about freedom of religion or belief that might lead to a more inclusive, pluralistic and equal interpretation of that concept.The three theories wich I use are elaborated by Richard Amesbury (associate professor at Claremont school of Theology); Hugo Strandberg (TD at Åbo Akademi) and Eberhard Herrmann (professor in philosophy of religion at Uppsala University); and Martha Nussbaum (professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago). The six cases from the European court are: X v.

Denna studie handlar om debatten om den statliga myndigheten Försvarets radioanstalt och den lag, kallad FRA-lagen som denna myndighet måste följa vid övervakning. Studien har gjorts utifrån ett kvalitativt arbetssätt.Syftet med studien är att undersöka om de teorier om makt och övervakning som Michel Foucault presenterade under 18- och 1900-talet är aktuella än idag. För att vi ska kunna göra detta har vi använt oss av nyhets- och debattartiklar från dagstidningarna Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet samt två videoklipp från Sveriges Television, innehållande intervjuer med FRA:s generaldirektör Dag Hartelius och brittiske frilansjournalisten Duncan Campbell. De frågeställningar vi använder oss av i studien riktar sig mot att hjälpa oss att undersöka om Foucaults och Benthams teorier kan användas idag och dessa är följande: Hur tar sig Foucaults teorier om övervakning och makt uttryck i dagens samhälle?På vilket sätt visar sig dessa teorier i debatten om FRA och FRA-lagen?Vår teoretiska utgångspunkt grundar sig i Michel Foucaults teori om makt.Resultatet som vi kommit fram till grundar sig i de teman som vi har utarbetat i de artiklar som vi använder oss av i studien som är: Skydd, personlig integritet, lagstiftning och samarbete och Foucaults begrepp som han använder i sin maktteori som är följande: Disciplinär makt, foglighet, och institutioner.

The aim of this study is to examine the media coverage of gender-neutral marriage from an intersectional perspective ? with particular regard to gender, sexual orientation and religion. By focusing on the spokespeople who appears in the articles we have made an attempt to answer questions regarding who was heard in the debate on gender-neutral marriage and how the homosexual couples are portrayed in relation to the above criteria.The collected material consists of 89 articles, published in 2009, in Swedish newspapers which have been analysed by using quantitative content analysis. Ten articles have also been selected for a critical discourse analysis based on Norman Fairclough?s approach.

In the prison of Kumla, Sweden`s highest security classified institution, spiritual retreats are pursued since 2001. The aim is to offer the inmates a possibility to enter deeply into spiritual contemplation. This spiritual contemplation is made possible through the fact that the prisoners carry out a retreat designed after guidelines written by Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. The purpose of this examination is to study how ordinary institutional life in comparison to monastic life defines and creates different attitudes and roles amongst the inmates. A secondary aim is to describe the consequences of the retreat on individual basis.

The aim of this study is to analyse how female neopagan practitioners form their identitiesindividually as well as collectively. Using Ernesto Laclau?s and Chantal Mouffe?s discourse theory and Anthony Giddens? descriptions of late modernity and self-identity, I intend toinvestigate my informants? construction and upholding of a meaningful identity and sense ofself. I will also look at how the neopagan movement can be viewed as a phenomenon closely interwoven with the overriding tendencies in our contemporary society. Neopaganism is an umbrella term that is used to describe a number of modern nature religions that take their inspiration from pre-Christian traditions.

Denna uppsats består av en jämförande studie av två ärkebiskopar ? KG Hammar (Svenska kyrkan) och Rowan Williams (Church of England) - ur ett postmodernt teologiskt perspektiv. Syftet var att söka finna postmoderna influenser hos de båda ärkebiskoparna i såväl teori som praktik och undersöka konsekvenserna av ett postmodernt teologiskt agerande.  Undersökningen visade att båda ärkebiskoparna influerades av postmodern teologi i teorin. Hammar förde också som ärkebiskop fram sina personliga postmoderna insikter, medan Williams av olika anledningar generellt valde att endast föra fram kyrkans åsikt. Båda handlingsalternativen medförde såväl kritik som uppskattning.

The object of this thesis is the foundation of ethics. The question is whether there exists a universal core to ethics consisting of a fundamental ethical principle across cultures. This principle could for example be the so-called Golden Rule, which goes as follows: ?You should do to others what you want them to do to you?. The Golden Rule is to be found in many of the world?s religions and is also reflected in secular society.

Since the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was discovered in the 1980s, the condom has scientifically proven to be the only technological device that can prevent transmission of the virus during sexual intercourse. This technical approach to the HIV has strongly emphasized that prevention is only possible if the condom is properly used. However, as a technological artifact the condom has shown that its use is laden with values. The question of values on condoms has brought in a heated debate on the moral justifications of its use. In Malawi, just as in other African countries, the Faith Community has rejected the Governmentsplea to promote condoms as the preventive measure against the virus.The Faith Community has emphasized on abstinence and mutual faithfulness as the only reliable means to the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

This study aims to analyse how sex and sexuality are presented in the Buddhism and Hinduism chapters of religious studies textbooks for upper secondary school. The chosen textbooks are all linked to the new curriculum Lgr 11 which was implemented in the Swedish school system in the spring of 2012. The textbooks were analysed by using two methods; content analysis and discourse analysis. Content analysis was used to examine with which frequency sexes and sexualities appear in the textbooks, while discourse analysis was used to find what discourses surround the two concepts. The discourse analysis used two theories in order to contextualize the several discourses about sex and sexuality.

The thesis explores how the category religion is used discursively in Swedish public debates and in what way the discourses can be related to debate-positions. The thesis also exploresquestions of power and how social identities are negotiated: which identities are madepossible ? and encouraged ? by the discourse, and which are being excluded?The specific cases chosen are: (i) the election of Omar Mustafa as a substitute member of the governing board of the Social Democratic party in April 2013, (ii) the appointment of Elisabeth Svantesson as Minister of employment in September 2013, (iii) the debate concerning male circumcision (2011-2013), and, (iv) the debate about Jewish home education(2012-2013).The theoretical and methodological perspectives used in the thesis are discourse analysis and Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of social fields, usually interwoven together. Discourse analysis is mainly used to explore how the category of religion is attached to central binaries in the debates such as faith/politics, private/public, secularism/fundamentalism, etc., and also how chains of equivalences are established. Bourdieu?s theory of social fields is used tocontextualize the discourses in the specific debates and relate them to orthodox and heterodox debate-positions.

The Purpose of this essay is to seek an answer to whether or not a conflict exists between priests of the Assyrian Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church in contemporary Swedish society, as well as to examine the environment between the three. The theological dissimilarities will be studied (from a historical standpoint), along with the interviewed participants views on the division in Christianity which will be presented also. I choose to interview six priests/chorbishops who live and work in Sweden, and the result was analyzed according to the senior professor of peace- and conflict, Peter Wallensteen?s theories on conflict and conflict resolution, where important issues are laid out to identify the core problem, and theological differences are discussed and compared from a union perspective.The result of the interviews illustrate a clear response that the participants experience a lack of functioning collaborations (from the Assyrians Church view, a collaboration is absent from the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church, and vice versa) and most of the participants experience negative consequences from the divide in churches, as they strive for unity in Christianity as a whole. The theological differences between the churches proves not to be as significant as expected, the actual predicament lies partly in language-and phrase division along with a general rejection of each other?s interpretations.