Queen Elizabeth High School

Religion and Contemporary Society

Medical and Environmental Issues

Euthanasia – present legal position; voluntary/nonvoluntary; active/passive; the hospice movement; concepts of sanctity of life and quality of life; religious principles (e.g. compassion, respect and responsibility for the elderly, life a gift from God, ahimsa)

Animal rights – animals as food; use of animals for medical and non-medical experimentation; hunting; culling; animals as pets and entertainment; concepts of speciesism and stewardship

Religion and Ethics

Introduction to Christianity and Ethics

Key ethical terms – deontology, consequentialism, absolutism, relativism, legalism, antinomianism.

Central Christian beliefs, moral concepts and sources of authority – scripture, the Church, trinity, love, sin, the decalogue, the sermon on the mount, the kingdom of god, conservatism, literalism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism

Religion and Community

Secularisation:

Differing definitions of religion; participation in organised religion; religious influence in society; growth of rational and scientific thought; growth of religious pluralism; moral compromises and materialism of religious institutions; emergence of mass media. Candidates are expected to be aware of some evidence and basic arguments which challenge the concept of secularisation (such as the growth of spirituality in society and increasing popularity of RS as an examination subject in schools)

Fundamentalism

Causes – perceived threats to religious belief in the form of textual criticisms of sacred writings; secular authority; scientific explanations of phenomena M ain characteristics – inerrancy of sacred writings; conformity with traditional orthodox teachings; intolerance of religious diversity; moral absolutes, desire for certainty

Aquinas’ Natural Law

• Natural law as an absolutist/deontological moral theory. Aquinas’ four levels of law — eternal, divine, natural and human
• Aquinas’ idea that the highest good is the rational understanding and following of God’s final purpose
• The five primary precepts which are developed in the secondary precepts, created in order to establish a right relationship with God
• The three revealed virtues (faith, hope and charity), and four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance); interior/exterior acts and real/apparent goods.

Religion and the Individual

Freud’s view of religious belief as an illusion—wish-fulfilment; escape from finality of death; God-figure to replace inadequate father (the Oedipus complex); concepts of projection and regression – and as a neurosis – similarities between neurotic behaviour and ritual; religion engendering fear/guilt/ repression; concepts of negation and sublimation

Situation Ethics: Joseph Fletcher

• Situation Ethics as a relativistic and consequentialist/teleological theory.
• The reasons why Fletcher rejected antinomianism and legalism.
• The concept of ‘agape’ love; Fletcher’s four working principles and the six fundamental principles
• The biblical evidence used to support the relativistic approach taken by Situation Ethics—the teachings of Jesus and St Paul.

Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism

• Utilitarianism as a relativistic and consequentionalist/teleological theory.
• The principle of utility—the greatest happiness for the greatest number— based on the quantity of pleasure/happiness (maximise pleasure and minimise pain) and the seven criteria of the hedonic calculus (intensity, duration, certainty, remoteness, richness, purity and extent)

Religion and the Individual

Jung’s view that religious belief is a product of the ‘collective unconscious’ – concepts of individuation and archetypes; meeting human needs of psychic health and stability, of mystery and symbolism; prophetic meaning of dreams/visions

Mill’s Rule Utilitarianism

• Higher and lower pleasures, based on the quality of pleasure/happiness and not the quantity.
• Rule Utilitarianism: based on the fact that an act is right if it meets a set of rules which as a consequence of being followed maximise pleasure/happiness.
• The different forms of Rule Utilitarianism: weak and strong.

Applied Ethics

The ethical teaching of one major world religion on:

• Sexual orientation
• Sex outside marriage, including sex between unmarried partners, gay and lesbian sex, and adultery
• Marriage, including the purposes of marriage, sex within marriage, gay and lesbian marriage and civil partnerships

Revision programme

Revision programme