8. The afterlife

Author(s):  
Tim Bayne

Speculation on the nature of the afterlife is as old as recorded history. Although the doctrine of an afterlife is not found in all religious traditions, where it does, it is typically central to the religious belief and practice. But is the idea of an afterlife intelligible? ‘The afterlife’ considers substance dualism, a concept popular throughout the history of religious thought, but no longer favoured by contemporary philosophers of religion. It also discusses three resurrection models: the reassembly, body-snatchers, and falling elevator models. In addition to asking whether life after death is a possible state for creatures like us, it also asks whether we should even want to live forever.

1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Harper

Fundamental changes occurred in chinese civilization between the fifth century B.C.E. and the second century C.E., roughly corresponding to the Warring States (which officially commences in 453 B.C.E.) and the Ch'in and Han empires (Han rule ends in 220 C.E.). The emergence and maturation of philosophical speculation and of new sociopolitical models have traditionally constituted the ground on which other elements of the contemporary civilization have been drawn. As a consequence, the nature of religious traditions during this period has been poorly understood and insufficiently studied; first, because the documentation preserved in received literature overwhelmingly reflects the politico-philosophical leanings of an elite social stratum and thus offers only a partial, biased view of the range of religious belief and practice; and second, because modern research on Warring States, Ch'in, and Han religion by and large relies on the viewpoints expressed in the received record. Whereas the study of Buddhism and, more recently, of religious Taoism and popular religion is thriving among an ever-growing number of scholars of the history of Chinese religion, the ancient period of Warring States, Ch'in, and Han is still dominated by scholars engaged in the study of the philosophical tradition. The idea that religious belief during the period was tempered by philosophical reason is a widely shared assumption.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danny Hsu

Is the Christian teaching on sin a ‘stumbling block’ to Chinese accepting Christianity? This paper critiques the notion that Chinese have difficulty comprehending ‘sin’ because of the culture's long-standing belief in the humanistic potential for self-perfection without any reference to the divine. This view of Chinese culture has been too narrow and does not account for the fact that Chinese religious traditions have always had at their disposal a wide variety of resources to comprehend the Christian concept of sin. Incorporating a history-of-practice perspective can contribute to a more productive balance between the representation of Chinese culture and its actual practice and avoid the current tendency to posit Western theology against a narrowly constructed and idealised version of Chinese culture that is severed from both historical and present-day realities.


Author(s):  
Greg Garrett

Hollywood films are perhaps the most powerful storytellers in American history, and their depiction of race and culture has helped to shape the way people around the world respond to race and prejudice. Over the past one hundred years, films have moved from the radically prejudiced views of people of color to the depiction of people of color by writers and filmmakers from within those cultures. In the process, we begin to see how films have depicted negative versions of people outside the white mainstream, and how film might become a vehicle for racial reconciliation. Religious traditions offer powerful correctives to our cultural narratives, and this work incorporates both narrative truth-telling and religious truth-telling as we consider race and film and work toward reconciliation. By exploring the hundred-year period from The Birth of a Nation to Get Out, this work acknowledges the racist history of America and offers the possibility of hope for the future.


Holiness is a challenge for contemporary Jewish thought. The concept of holiness is crucial to religious discourse in general and to Jewish discourse in particular. “Holiness” seems to express an important feature of religious thought and of religious ways of life. Yet the concept is ill defined. This collection explores what concepts of holiness were operative in different periods of Jewish history and bodies of Jewish literature. It offers preliminary reflections on their theological and philosophical import today. The contributors illumine some of the major episodes concerning holiness in the history of the development of the Jewish tradition. They think about the problems and potential implicit in Judaic concepts of holiness, to make them explicit, and to try to retrieve the concepts for contemporary theological and philosophical reflection. Holiness is elusive but it need not be opaque. This volume makes Jewish concepts of holiness lucid, accessible, and intellectually engaging.


1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-399
Author(s):  
Michael P. Levine

Through various applications of the ‘deep structure’ of moral and religious reasoning, I have sought to illustrate the value of a morally informed approach in helping us to understand the complexity of religious thought and practice…religions are primarily moved by rational moral concerns and…ethical theory provides the single most powerful methodology for understanding religious belief. Ronald Green, Religion and Moral Reason


Author(s):  
Александра Васильевна Сангадиева

Введение. Исследуется метафорическая концептуализация Брексита в новостном дискурсе. Материал и методы. Материалом послужили новостные тексты британских интернет-изданий (The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph и британского интернет-портала BBC News), освещающих тему Брексита; методами исследования – дефиниционный анализ, компонентный анализ, метод сплошной выборки, метод интерпретационного и концептуального анализа, метод метафорической концептуализации. Результаты и обсуждение. Проведен анализ и осуществлена интерпретация метафорической репрезентации социально-политического явления Брексита через религиозные концепты. Религия пронизывала историю всех народов, все сферы человеческого бытия, проникая в сознание и подсознание людей. Значимость религии в современном обществе обусловливает интенцию авторов новостей задать необходимые ценностные ориентации для реципиента в имплицитной форме. Выявлена метафорическая субмодель BREXIT – RELIGIOUS BELIEF (БРЕКСИТ – РЕЛИГИОЗНОЕ УБЕЖДЕНИЕ), в терминах которой Брексит интерпретируется как религиозное убеждение, что значительно увеличивает его воздействующий потенциал. Один из результатов исследования – выявление в рамках религиозной модели субмодели BREXIT – CULT (БРЕКСИТ – КУЛЬТ), которая имеет негативную коннотацию, обозначая псевдорелигиозную организацию. Анализируется когнитивная метафорическая модель Брексита, в которой идеология Брексита как священной войны за возвращение национального суверенитета трансформируется в идеологию «зомбированного» тоталитарного культа как стремления к псевдоценностям. Выявлена метафорическая субмодель BREXIT – SECT (БРЕКСИТ – СЕКТА), посредством которой устанавливаются концептуальные связи между политикой Б. Джонсона в отношении Брексита и террористической организацией Аль-Каида, чьи приверженцы готовы умирать сами и убивать других за свою идеологию. Аргументируется реализация интерпретирующего потенциала религиозной концептуальной метафоры в формировании отрицательного образа Брексита в новостном дискурсе. Заключение. В рамках религиозной метафорической модели БРЕКСИТ – РЕЛИГИЯ выявлены субмодели БРЕКСИТ – РЕЛИГИОЗНОЕ УБЕЖДЕНИЕ, БРЕКСИТ – КУЛЬТ, БРЕКСИТ – СЕКТА. Интерпретирующий потенциал религиозной метафоры реализован. Introduction. The socio-political event of the UK’s exit from the European Union has attracted widespread attention in the mass media since 2016. The article focuses on the metaphorical conceptualization of Brexit in news discourse. Material and methods. The research is based on the news texts on Brexit from the British internet-editions such as The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and BBC News. The research methods used in the paper are the definitional analysis, componential analysis, complete enumeration method, interpretation analysis, content analysis, metaphorical conceptualization method. Results and discussion. The paper gives a detailed analysis and interpretation of Brexit metaphorical representation from a religious perspective. The religion has always played an essential role in the history of human society. It is considered not only to permeate all the spheres of human activity but also consciousness and subconsciousness. Therefore, journalists implicitly try to influence the values of recipients. The metaphorical submodel BREXIT – RELIGIOUS BELIEF revealed in the paper describes Brexit primarily as a religious belief to add more value for the British society. The metaphorical submodel BREXIT – RELIGIOUS BELIEF is transformed into the submodel BREXIT – CULT with a negative connotation as a pseudo-religious organization. The metaphorical submodel BREXIT – SECT considered in the paper has a destructive nature and it compares B. Johnson and his supporters with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda that is ready to murder and die for its ideology. Conclusion. Productive religious metaphorical submodels interpret Brexit as a negative process. The interpretive potential of conceptual religious metaphor is realized.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. p11
Author(s):  
Kaikai Liu ◽  
Xinyi Wang ◽  
Jingjing Liang

Religious belief can affect individual’s behavior. It usually induces managers to be more risk averse, thereby mitigating the agency problem and positively influencing governance. This paper conducts an empirical study to analysis the effect of religious atmosphere on corporate governance. It could be figured out that strong religious atmosphere plays an active role in corporate governance. The stronger the influence of religious tradition on listed companies, the less likely the managers are to violate the rules. Through precepts and deeds, these religious traditions are passed on from generation to generation and have become a significant factor affecting human economic behavior.


1998 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Lewisohn

Following the political upheavals of 1978, the history and development of Shiite religious thought in modern-day Persia has been the subject of detailed scholarly studies, but the modern development of Sufism—the mystical tradition that lies at the heart of traditional Persian culture, literature and philosophy, which is, from the cultural and literary point of view at least, the most fascinating aspect of the Perso-Islamic religious tradition—remains almost completely uncharted. In contrast to the classical and medieval periods of Persian Sufism which have undergone much scholarly investigation in recent years, the study of the modern period of Iranian tasawwuf, though far better known and documented, has been seriously neglected by scholars.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document