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Full-Text Articles in Law

Panel Discussion At "Signs Of The Times: The First Amendment And Religious Symbolism", Carl H. Esbeck Oct 2010

Panel Discussion At "Signs Of The Times: The First Amendment And Religious Symbolism", Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Neuroscience And The Free Exercise Of Religion, Steven Goldberg Jan 2010

Neuroscience And The Free Exercise Of Religion, Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Recent developments in neuroscience that purport to reduce religious experience to specific parts of the brain will not diminish the fundamental cultural or legal standing of religion. William James debunked this possibility in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) when he noted that “the organic causation of a religious state of mind” no more refutes religion than the argument that scientific theories are so caused refutes science. But there will be incremental legal change in areas like civil commitment where judges must sometimes distinguish between mental disorder and religious belief. The paradox is that the ecstatic religious experience of unorthodox …