Conflicts in Crisis: Effects of Religious Belief Systems on Sexual Health

1992 ◽  
pp. 203-218
Author(s):  
William R. Stayton
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Health ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Belief Systems

Doro Rekufa and Tsvitsa: Beer, Animals and Death Rituals among the Ndau of South Eastern Zimbabwe

Utafiti ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Plan Shenjere-Nyabezi
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Death Rituals ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Attitudes Towards Death ◽  
Death Signals

Despite Westernization and particularly the advent of Christianity and its widespread entrenchment on the African continent, traditional indigenous rituals continue to constitute an integral part of African religious belief systems and practices. This article presents the results of an ethnoarchaeological study of two death rituals that are conducted by the Ndau people of south eastern Zimbabwe. The rituals are a demonstration of attitudes towards death and beliefs about the role of the dead among the living. The Ndau do not believe that death signals and represents the end of life. In the same vein and perhaps more importantly, the Ndau do not believe that death just happens. It is caused by human agency out of jealousies, hatred and conflict among the living. These beliefs are central to the two rituals presented and discussed here: the first ritual is conducted to ascertain cause of death and the second to bring back the spirit of the deceased from a temporary state of limbo immediately after death. Meat and beer are central to these rituals, firstly as offerings to the deceased and secondly as an important part of the living celebration of the rituals. The paper then explores some interpretive implications of the rituals from an archaeological perspective.

Can spirituality be a scientific topic and how?: A rigorous but open-minded scientific approach of studies on religion, spirituality, and mental health

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Harald Walach
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Scientific Process ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Spirituality And Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Topic ◽  
Human Inquiry

Science and spirituality are at odds, due to the history of enlightenment. This led to freeing human inquiry from dogmatic and clerical bondage by religion. And because religion has been left behind by the new scientific narrative of a self-evolving world, driven by random accidents and mutations and natural laws, there seems to be no place for spirituality either. This contribution disentangles those conceptual problems. It first points out the history of this separation and its consequences. It is important to realize that spirituality and religion are two different things. While religion is a conceptual, ethical, ritual, and at times also a political framework, spirituality is the experiential core of all religions. As a human experience, it is universal and independent of religious belief systems. Spirituality, as a form of inner experiential access to reality, is also at the bottom of the scientific process—for instance, in important theoretical insights. 150 words

scholarly journals The fading affect bias (FAB) is strongest for Jews and Buddhists and weakest for participants without religious affiliations: An exploratory analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 09 (03) ◽  
pp. 350-362
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Gibbons ◽  
Sherman A. Lee ◽  
Luke P. Fernandez ◽  
Emma D. Friedmann ◽  
Kaylee D. Harris ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Exploratory Analysis ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Coping Mechanism ◽  
The Face

The fading affect bias (FAB) is a robust phenomenon where unpleasant affect fades faster than pleasant affect. The FAB is believed to be coping mechanism designed to make life appear pleasant in the face of hardships and adversities. The FAB persists across several cultures and many event types (e.g., alcohol, religious, and death), even though low FAB has been demonstrated for social media events, videogame events, and events labeled as religious, but not spiritual. Although religion is also believed to make life more satisfying by providing existential meaning and social connectedness for their followers, research to date, has not examined religious differences in the FAB. Therefore, we examined the FAB using 2 measures of fading affect across participants’ self-reported religious affiliations and we found robust FAB effects for all categories except for an extremely small sample of Islamic followers. The FAB effects were strongest for Jewish and Buddhist affiliations and they were weakest for participants who did not report a well-known religious affiliation. The findings extend the literature on the FAB to religious belief systems. Future research should replicate the current study, examine the FAB for larger samples of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews, and test explanations for differential FAB effects across religious affiliations.

scholarly journals Implementing government strategies for complex social problems

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Herbert
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Family Violence ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Contributing Factors

Addressing complex social problems that are rooted in multiple causes is difficult. These issues often interact in unpredictable ways with numerous contributing factors, and they do not run along traditional departmental boundaries. For example, family violence is one of the most complex, multifaceted and poorly understood issues in Western society. Addressing family violence requires major social change in individual attitudes and relationships, cultural and religious belief systems and society's opinions, as well as comprehensive government strategies and a comprehensive range of services to support families and individuals affected by family violence. In this respect, it provided a useful case study through which to examine the implementation of complex social policy in New Zealand.

Personality Correlates to Religious Belief Systems

1968 ◽  
Vol 23 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1039-1042 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald M. Meredith
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Multiple Relationships ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
Personality Correlates

The study investigated the multiple relationships among 39 personality and attitudinal variables with 2 clusters of religious attitudes. The findings suggest that conservatism plays a pervasive role in the prediction of religious belief for both male and female Ss.

Coding and Quantifying Counterintuitiveness in Religious Concepts: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 308-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Knowledge Structures ◽  
Intuitive Knowledge ◽  
Conceptual Coherence ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
Counterintuitive Concepts ◽  
Cultural Concept

AbstractBoyer's theory of counterintuitive cultural concept transmission claims that concepts that ideas that violate naturally occurring intuitive knowledge structures enough to be attention-demanding but not so much to undermine conceptual coherence have a transmission advantage over other concepts (Boyer et al. 2001: 535-64). Because of the prominence of these counterintuitive concepts in religious belief systems, Boyer's theory features prominently in many cognitive treatments of religion. Difficulties in identifying what are and are not counterintuitive concepts in this technical sense, however, has made empirical treatment of Boyer's theory irregular and difficult to evaluate. Further, inability to quantify just how counterintuitive a given concept is has made ambiguous specifying where the alleged cognitive optimum lies. The present project attempts to clarify Boyer's theory and presents a formal system for coding and quantifying the "counterintuitiveness" of a concept, and hence, facilitates empirical scrutiny of the theory.

scholarly journals Religious Pluralism and International Sufi Movement : An Analysis of Inayat Khan’s (1882-1927) Mystical Thoughts

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Mohamed Mihlar Abdul Muthaliff
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Religious Ideals ◽  
Sufi Order ◽  
Key Aspects

The article presents an introduction to the evolution of the perennial and ideological encounter between Inayat Khan’s (1882-1927) International Sufi Movement and the diversity of religious belief systems. It analyses the teachings and thoughts of Inayatian Sufi Movement which claim that all religions are equally true, or that one religion can be true for some and another for others. It begins with an introduction of Inayat Khan and his mystical message and then, explicates his religious and philosophical thoughts that include unity of religious ideals. Finally the paper concludes with a reflection on the key aspects of Inayatian Sufi order and their policy of Religious Pluralism in view of Islam.

Attribution to Supernatural Causation: An Important Component of Religious Commitment?

1979 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 286-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Ritzema
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Rating Scales ◽  
Religious Commitment ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Christian College ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Attributional Processes ◽  
Supernatural Explanations

Most religious belief systems maintain that some natural events are caused by divine intervention. Exploration of the manner in which believers attribute events to supernatural causes is thus one fruitful way of studying the psychology of religion. The attributional processes of evangelical Christian college students were explored by means of a questionnaire containing several brief descriptions of incidents, each followed by rating scales on which subjects attributed causality for that event. Individual differences in the tendency to invoke supernatural explanations were found, and the tendency to invoke such explanations was positively correlated with other measures of religious belief and practice. Attribution to God was unrelated to locus of control. Differences in the nature of the incidents to be explained affected attribution to God.

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