语言——自然选择的一种适应

该文认为人类的语言能力是一种生物学意义上的适应,是自然选择的产物。人类的语言与自然界中其它复杂的生物学适应相类似,也具有特定的机能。语言的特定机能在于编码叙事性信息并与他人分享,这与人类认知活动中因果推理所具有的高度社会性特点相一致。两个新的研究领域,进化博弈理论和分子进化选择理论,都证实了语言是一种受到自然选择的进化适应     

论醮联及其宗教文学意义

醮联是道教举办醮仪布置坛场所用的对联,在道教世俗化的明清时期曾广泛应用,至今存有《九阳醮联》一类的仪式文本。作为一种典型的宗教文学,醮联具有重要的仪式功能和浓厚的宗教色彩,但不失古雅、精巧、华丽的一面。通过对醮联的分析,可以透视宗教与文学之间微妙的互渗关系。     

当代全球的宗教复兴与宗教冲突的加剧

当代全球的宗教复兴与宗教冲突的加剧,已成为国际舞台上重要的热点问题。根据历史唯物主义     

宗教幻想与社会冲突——宗教社会学视域下的解读

宗教幻想是一种心理真实,社会冲突是一种社会事实。宗教幻想形成了以神圣教义为核心的社会行为规则体系,而这种观念体系常常影响甚至在某种条件下支配着人的社会行为。宗教幻想和社会冲突分属于精神范畴和物质范畴,不仅可以相互转化,甚至可以因这种互动形成新的社会事实及社会和谐。     

宗教宽容与北爱社会冲突的化解

耗费了无数人心血的《北爱尔兰和平协议》终于达成,但是北爱人民并没有享受到随之而来的和平。本文从分析北爱宗教分裂和宗教歧视的现状入手,通过对冲突化解理论的剖析,指出在北爱这样一个宗教严重分裂的社会,没有宗教的宽容精神,就难以实现社会的真正和解以及和谐。     

论宗教对话的可行性及其在当代的意义

通过对话来消除因宗教信仰不同而引发的社会矛盾和意见分歧,维护社会和谐,已成为当今社会各界的普遍共识.肯定以往学者探寻各宗教间共性方面所取得的积极成果的同时,人们更应该看到作为宗教对话主体的人所具备的生存智慧在宗教对话中可以起到的重要作用,只有这样才能使宗教对话不至于流于形式,而显得积极富有成效.     

论亚当·斯密的宗教市场理论——兼论宗教管制的经济基础

亚当·斯密的宗教市场理论主要包括宗教理性选择理论、宗教自由放任理论和国际宗教管制理论。亚当·斯密的国际宗教管制理论至今仍不失其科学性与合理性。宗教人对来世的追求表明宗教经济人理性选择理论偏离了人的实际;缺乏道德感宗教的客观存在表明宗教并不当然具有道德教化功能;宗教市场的自律调节功能具有有限性,产品市场自身无法克服的诸多弊端同样存在于宗教市场,取消一切宗教管制的宗教自由放任理论不成立,宗教管制因此具有深刻的经济基础,亚当·斯密的宗教市场理论为宗教管制提供了必要的理论基础。     

宗教哲学——俄罗斯哲学的一个新领域

宗教哲学这个极其古老而应受到敬重的哲学领域,尽管一系列毋庸置疑的信号使人相信它方兴未艾,趋于鼎盛,却被归人俄罗斯哲学最遭忽视的“处女地”之列,其原因何在？最重要的原因看来在于意识形态因素。如果说在沙俄时代,是为了保护宗教免受哲学的觊觎,那么在苏联时代则相反,旨在防止哲学受到宗教的任何影响。     

试论宗教与哲学的关系

宗教与哲学在内容和形式上是最具普遍性的观念形态,都具有世界观和人生观的性质,同属精神性的文化。从本质上讲,它们都是人对自然、社会和人生的一种认识、领悟和理解,试图解决的往往都是人们最为关注的人生中的根本性问题,如:生与死,祸与福,善与恶,今生与来世,现世与彼岸,世界上各种事物以至世界本身究竟如何形成,个人以至社会历史的命运为何种力量所支配和主宰等等,宗教和哲学都曾对此做出了自己的答案。正是由于关注的问题有着这种一致和重合的关系,宗教和哲学便在人类历史上结下了不解之缘。宗教里有哲学,哲学里也有宗教。宗教常使用哲学思维的方式和哲学的语言来论证其教义、确立其信仰;哲学则常把宗教视为神圣的教义信仰和哲学思考的对象,把它们放在理性审视台前进行考察和批判。     

从宗教社会学的视角看宗教与社会相适应

本文结合当前宗教的客观性、重要性、排他性等特性,并援引联合国的有关材料和国外一些神学家的看法,说明中国共产党积极引导宗教与社会主义社会相适应是尊重事实的做法;同时对照欧美的宗教实际情况以及欧洲的政策转型倾向,说明中国共产党在积极引导宗教与社会主义相适应方面的实践也足以为其他国家提供有益的借鉴.     

Religion and Suicide

Religion impacts suicidality. One’s degree of religiosity can potentially serve as a protective factor against suicidal behavior. To accurately assess risk of suicide, it is imperative to understand the role of religion in suicidality. PsycINFO and MEDLINE databases were searched for published articles on religion and suicide between 1980 and 2008. Epidemiological data on suicidality across four religions, and the influence of religion on suicidality are presented. Practice guidelines are presented for incorporating religiosity into suicide risk assessment. Suicide rates and risk and protective factors for suicide vary across religions. It is essential to assess for degree of religious commitment and involvement to accurately identify suicide risk.     

Why We Walk the Way We Do

By using inverse dynamics and forceplate recordings, this study established the principle of oscillating systems and the influence of gravity and body parameters on the programming of the gait parameters, step frequency and length. Calculation of the ratio of the amplitude of the center of mass (CM) and the center of foot pressure (CP) oscillations yielded an equation and established a biomechanical constant, the natural body frequency (NBF). NBF appears to be an absolute invariant parameter, specific to human standing posture and gait in terrestrial gravity, which influences the relative positions of CM and CP and whose value separates the frequency bands of standing posture from those for gait. This equation was tested by using the experimental paradigm of stepping in place and then used in calculating the magnitude of CM oscillations during gait. The biomechanical analysis of the experimental observations allows one to establish the relationships between body parameters and gravity and the central programming of locomotor parameters.     

An Eliminativist Theory of Religion

A philosophical theory of religion ought to meet four criteria: it should be extensionally accurate, neutral, phenomenological, and non-circular. I argue that none of the popular theories of religion meet all these criteria, and that, in particular, the extensional accuracy criterion and the non-circularity criterion can’t be met without sacrificing extensional accuracy. I conclude that, therefore, religions do not form a kind, and so, there is no such thing as religion.

宗教与全球发展:一种对话路径

宗教与全球发展成为当代社会的一个重要议题,一个标志在于联合国千禧年发展目标的提出及世界宗教和精神领袖千禧年和平高峰会议。其中,由前世界银行行长及当时的坎特伯雷大主教联合发起的世界信仰发展对话,即为推动类似目标的一个重要机构。发展的目的在于人。贫困不仅包括物质的层面,也包括精神的层面。全球经济的发展需要一种伦理和价值的支撑。文化应该作为一种创新机制,参与并影响全球发展的过程。在中国,宗教是建设社会主义和谐社会的重要因素。中共十七大明确指出,要发挥宗教在社会经济发展中的重要作用。十七届六中全会则明确提出文化体制改革的目标。随着中国改革开放的进一步深入,中国对世界的影响日益加强,文化和精神的维度在社会发展和国家建设方面将扮演更重要的作用。中国模式也将对世界论坛的讨论产生一定影响。     

Conflict and Compatibility: Some Thoughts on the Relationship between Science and Religion

Scholarly studies of the science and religion question tend to take their cue from the subjective attitudes of individual writers. A potentially more useful approach focuses instead on the logical relationship between scientific and religious statements. Such a strategy generates two main types: a compatibilist model concerned only to show that religious and scientific claims are mutually consistent and an integrationist model that posits a strong correlation between theological and scientific language. Investigation of the two models' strengths and weaknesses suggests that a compatibilist approach is more consistent with the way in which Christian language is deployed on the ground.     

An Antiseptic Religion: Discovering A Hybridity on the Flux of Hygiene and Christianity

An antiseptic religion is a form of Protestant Christianity that was shaped in the context of colonization in Korea. This term was coined to explain a religious hybrid that was produced by the intermingling of American Evangelical Protestant Christianity, the concept of hygiene (germ theory) and indigenous Korean religiosity. This research deals with a historical process of making ‘a medicalized religion’ in Asia from a perspective of postcolonialism. Most of the early American Protestant missionaries in Korea were medical doctors who were influenced by the Germ theory of illness and considered Western medicine as an efficient tool to evangelize the country. As a result of their mission, a religious culture which emphasized washing away sins from the soul as analogous to washing away germs from the body was born. In addition, the Korean people developed a very unique form of public bathing ritual centered in the development of public baths to alleviate anxiety and to destabilize the solid strategies of the Japanese and the Americans, the two major colonial powers in Korea’s history in the late 19th century.

Religion and Armed Conflict: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

This article examines the effectiveness of religion as a solution to ethno-nationalist conflicts, drawing on the case of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan [PKK]) in Turkey. We utilize an original data set that contains data on Turkey's state-sponsored mosques between 1980 and 2016 to test for the purported peacemaking potential of religion. Results from this data set, coupled with an alternative measure of the state's involvement in religion, show that increased Islamization has no discernible impact on lowering support for the ethno-nationalist Kurdish political parties or insurgency.     

The First Sense: A Philosophical Study of the Sense of Touch

In this essay, I review Matthew Fulkerson's The First Sense: A Philosophical Study of the Sense of Touch. In this first philosophical book on the sense of touch, Fulkerson provides an account of the nature and content of tactual experience. Central to Fulkerson's view is the claim that exploratory action plays a fundamental role in touch. In this review, I put pressure on two of his arguments: (1) the argument that tactual experience is unisensory and (2) the argument that tactual experience does not depend on explicit bodily awareness.     

Religion and coping with health-related stress

Abstract

The empirical evidence concerning the association between various aspects of religion and adjustment to health-related stressors is reviewed, including examination of whether religion acts as a stress buffer or deterrent. Considerable literature suggests that some aspects of religion are consistently associated with adjustment to illness, and evidence for religion as a stress buffer and as a stress deterrent were found. Potential pathways by which religion may influence adjustment to illness were also delineated, including: (1) providing an interpretive framework or cognitive schema; (2) enhancing coping resources; and (3) facilitating access to social support and promoting social integration. Design, methodological and measurement limitations in the extant literature were noted. Further research is needed to elucidate how religion functions as a natural resource during health-related crises.