{"id":9906,"date":"2019-02-15T10:11:32","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T10:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/?p=9906"},"modified":"2019-02-15T10:11:32","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T10:11:32","slug":"kent-and-the-vatican-to-host-atheism-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/2019\/02\/15\/kent-and-the-vatican-to-host-atheism-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent and the Vatican to host atheism conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An event co-hosted by the University of Kent\u2019s \u2018Understanding Unbelief\u2019 project, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultura.va\/content\/cultura\/en.html\">Pontifical Council for Culture<\/a> (the Vatican department responsible for dialogue with non-believers), and the <a href=\"https:\/\/nsrn.net\/\">Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network<\/a>, will explore ground-breaking new research advancing the scientific understanding of atheism and nonreligion.<\/p>\n<p>Taking place at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from 28-30 May 2019, the \u2018Cultures of Unbelief\u2019 conference presents findings from the multidisciplinary research programme, aiming to map the nature and diversity of \u2018unbelief\u2019 across the world.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/secl\/thrs\/staff\/lynch.html\">Gordon Lynch<\/a>, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/secl\/thrs\/index.html\">Department of Religious Studies<\/a> at the University of Kent, said: &#8216;The growth of different forms of non-religion has been a significant development in many societies across the world in recent decades. This conference, drawing together findings from the most substantial international programme of research in this field, promises to be a genuinely landmark event in taking forward both our understanding of the varieties of non-religion and the social implications of these.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/secl\/thrs\/staff\/lee.html\">Dr Lois Lee<\/a>, Senior Research Fellow in Religious Studies in SECL, is Principal Investigator for <a href=\"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/understandingunbelief\/\">Understanding Unbelief<\/a>. The project, which is supported by a \u00a32.3 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation is co-led by psychologist <a href=\"https:\/\/pureportal.coventry.ac.uk\/en\/persons\/miguel-farias\">Dr Miguel Farias<\/a> (Coventry University), anthropologist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qub.ac.uk\/schools\/happ\/Research\/find-a-PhD-supervisor\/Dr-Jonathan-A-Lanman\/\">Dr Jonathan Lanman<\/a> (Queen\u2019s University Belfast), and sociologist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stmarys.ac.uk\/staff-directory\/stephen-bullivant\">Professor Stephen Bullivant<\/a> (St Mary\u2019s University).<\/p>\n<p>Recent popes have repeatedly voiced a desire for greater understanding between \u2018those to whom religion is something foreign, to whom God is unknown\u2019 as Pope Benedict XVI put it in 2009 when he announced his new initiative for Christian-atheist dialogue known as the Court of Gentiles. More recently, Pope Francis has written of \u2018a sincere and rigorous dialogue\u2019 with nonbelievers as being \u2018nothing other than positive, not only for us individually but also for the society in which we live\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The current collaboration comes at a time when rates of unbelief and non-religion appear to be rapidly rising across the world, with potentially significant social, cultural, and political implications. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/may\/13\/uk-losing-faith-religion-young-reject-parents-beliefs\">New figures published last year<\/a> by Understanding Unbelief researcher Stephen Bullivant revealed that 70% of UK 18-29 year-olds identify as having \u2018no religion\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An event co-hosted by the University of Kent\u2019s \u2018Understanding Unbelief\u2019 project, the Pontifical Council for Culture (the Vatican department responsible for dialogue with non-believers), and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/2019\/02\/15\/kent-and-the-vatican-to-host-atheism-conference\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52167,"featured_media":9909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124,18581],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9906"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9910,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906\/revisions\/9910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}