RELG 370 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Agnosticism, Utopia

• School: McGill University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELG 370
• Professor: Daniel Cere

Document Summary

Lerner: religious human rights under the united nations. The udhr was adopted on december 10, 1948. Freedom of thought is a broad category and includes two parts . The term belief had a particular meaning in the declaration: strictly connected with the term religion it is not connected with beliefs of another character. Belief was incorporated into the declaration in order to protect nonreligious convictions (atheism, agnosticism, and so on) Certain countries resisted the section on being able to change one"s religion. Ultimately this clause was accepted because it is a universal declaration. There were other issues with missionary activities, apostasy, coercion, etc. Article 18 also makes concessions for the rights of religious groups. This is somewhat vague because community doesn"t necessarily refer to religious institutions. The point is that religious beliefs are not strictly individual. Udhr is one of the most important single legal document of our time .