Liberalizing the Boundaries: Reconfiguration of Religious Beliefs and Practice amongst Sri Lankan Immigrants in Australia

2018 ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Jagath Bandara Pathirage
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Beliefs And Practice

Faith and Facebook in a Pluralistic Age

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 818-834 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. McClure
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
National Study ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Beliefs And Practice

The rapid adoption of social networking sites (SNS) has prompted educators, parents, and researchers to consider the role SNS play in social life. Few scholars, however, have examined the effects of SNS on the religious beliefs of emerging adults. Drawing from Peter Berger’s concept of “plausibility structures” and his theory of pluralism, I explore whether young adults who use SNS are more likely to condone religious pluralism and syncretism. Using panel data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, I find that emerging adults who use SNS are more likely to think it is acceptable to pick and choose their religious beliefs, and practice multiple religions independent of what their religious tradition teaches, but they are not more likely to believe all religions are true. These findings suggest that exposure to broader networks through social media leads to increased acceptance of syncretistic beliefs and practices.

scholarly journals Animals, Superman, Fairy and God: Children’s Attributions of Nonhuman Agent Beliefs in Madrid and London

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 66-87
Author(s):  
Virginia L. Lam ◽  
Silvia Guerrero
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
False Belief ◽  
God Concepts ◽  
The Past ◽  
Beliefs And Practice ◽  
Muslim Majority

Abstract There have been major developments in the understanding of children’s nonhuman concepts, particularly God concepts, within the past two decades, with a body of cross-cultural studies accumulating. Relatively less research has studied those of non-Christian faiths or children’s concepts of popular occult characters. This paper describes two studies, one in Spain and one in England, examining 5- to 10-year-olds’ human and nonhuman agent beliefs. Both settings were secular, but the latter comprised a Muslim majority. Children were given a false-belief (unexpected contents) task in which they were asked to infer about three humans (mother, classmate, teacher), three animals (dog, bear, bird) and three supernatural beings (Superman, fairy, God). Similar false beliefs about humans, with subtle differences in inferences about animals and supernatural beings, were found between the two locations. In London different patterns for God between participants with a family religion, in particular Muslims, and non-affiliates, were identified as well as an association between religious beliefs and practice and inferences about God. Findings are discussed in the light of theory and research on the role of sociocultural inputs in children’s theory of mind development and understanding of agency.

Agriculture

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oded Borowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Animal Husbandry ◽  
Beliefs And Practice ◽  
By Products

Agriculture is the cultivation of the soil for the production of food and other useful and valuable growth from the land, including products of fields, gardens, and orchards. Its practice includes all activities, installations, and tools used by the farmer in connection with the cultivation, caring for the land, and the plants, and the production of all foodstuffs and by-products. In biblical times, agriculture was the main source of livelihood, followed by animal husbandry. Practiced by villagers and to a certain extent by city dwellers as well, the influence of agriculture on many facets of daily life was very strong. Echoes can be discerned not only in the economy but also in religious beliefs and practice, customs and law, and social behavior as well.

American Catholicism in the Mid-Eighties: Pluralism and Conflict in a Changing Church

1985 ◽  
Vol 480 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICK H. McNAMARA
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
National Level ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
American Catholicism ◽  
Lay Participation ◽  
Personal Morality ◽  
Beliefs And Practice ◽  
Institutional Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
American Economy

The decade of the 1970s saw continuing changes in American Catholicism as Catholics' religious beliefs and practices persisted in a decline that began in the mid-1960s. In the 1980s, issues of personal morality are salient among indicators of declining belief, particularly such issues as birth control, divorce with remarriage, and premarital sex. Yet there are signs of vitality in other respects: Catholic schools have grown in enrollment, charismatic and pentecostal groups have increased, and lay participation in liturgical functions is now a familiar feature of Catholic worship. The institutional church, as represented by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has adopted a critical stance toward American nuclear war strategy and recently toward the American economy for its neglect of the poor and unemployed. These stances occasion conflict both within the church, as Catholic groups organize to oppose them, and between the church, as represented by the bishops, and policies at the national level. A pluralistic model of the church in the 1980s would predict continuing individualism in religious beliefs and practice, and conflict on the institutional level, with considerable cost to the authority of the Catholic hierarchy.

scholarly journals The Counterintuitiveness of Supernatural Dreams and Religiosity

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 309-330
Author(s):  
Andreas Nordin ◽  
Pär Bjälkebring
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Coding System ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Beliefs And Practice

Abstract One challenge for cognitive, evolutionary and anthropological studies of religion is to offer descriptions and explanatory models of the morphology and functions of supernatural dreaming, and of the religiosity, use of experience, and cultural transmission that are associated with these representations. The anthropological and religious studies literature demonstrates that dreaming, dream experience and narrative are connected with religious ideas and practices in traditional societies. Scholars have even proposed that dreaming is a primary source of religious beliefs and practice (here labelled DPSR theory). Using Barrett’s coding system, we measured a high frequency of minimally counterintuitive dream content among Hindu Nepalese, and we aim to quantify (1) the relation between counterintuitive imagery and reported likelihood to communicate dreams in general and to religious experts, (2) the relation between counterintuitive imagery and reported religiosity, and (3) the proclivity to communicate SA dreams among those who are more or less religious. These aims will then be related to the broader topic of (4) possible explanatory value of DPSR theory, or versions thereof, by framing the issue at the level of cultural transmission, religiosity and credibility of religious dream representations in relation to MCI theory. The article mainly draws upon data from ethnographic research among Hindu Nepalese.

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