2016 - 2017

0641-5006-01
  Religion, secularization and economics in the history of the West                                    
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
Yaron Cohen- TzemachGilman-humanities277Tue1600-1800 Sem  2
 
 
University credit hours:  2.0

Course description
Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and Give to God what belongs to God – this call echoes for the past 2000 years throughout the Western world and still regulates the ways in which the humanity separates the life to 2 spheres: Religion and Economics - the next world and this world, the spiritual world and the material world.

But the relationship between Religion and Economy are more complex. Sometimes indeed economic thought and theology seek to implement this separation, but in life we discover that there is a mutual influence on each other: Religion creates economic behaviors and Economy creates religious beliefs and rituals. And sometimes we see (as with the monks on one side or the naive conception of secularism in the other side) the rejection of one world in favor of the other world.

The course "Religion and Economics" looks at the issue in terms of its analytical aspects - the interplay between religion and economics - but also looks at how this dichotomy between the worlds and at the interplay between them is reflected in the different periods and cultures of the past and of today.

The first part of the course will focus on basic questions about these two human phenomena:
• What is religion – some theories about the essence of religion (sociological, psychological, essentialist, etc(.
• What is the economy - Fundamentals of economic thought in the past and the present - capitalism, socialism and more.

Part II will examine how these relationships were reflected in history and how they are reflected in our days:

• Religion and Economy in the ancient world:

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