Health and salvation as the ethical ideal

Health and salvation are related terms, because each seeks the well-being of the whole person. When placed within the Judeo-Christian context, health as salvation can be defined as the highest good for the total human community. This good is denied to humanity through the unequal use of the world's resources, a fact underscored by the current energy crisis. Two questions must be answered: 1) Do we possess the scientific means to rectify this ethically unacceptable situation? 2) Do we desire to implement the necessary steps to change, should they be found?     

Sin, sickness, and salvation.

This article seeks to provide commentary and rationale for Orthodox Christian rites and prayers for the sick as found in the Euchologion, or Book of Needs. The reader needs to understand that the prayers of the Orthodox Church prayed at times of sickness and suffering will often strike the non-Orthodox as harsh and even unjust. References to God willing suffering do not sit well with most Western Christians. However, this is the Orthodox Christian belief, and it is expressed in the prayers of the Orthodox Church. Sickness and suffering are understood to be avenues of salvation and a participation in the glory and joys of the resurrection of Christ and life in the Kingdom of God. This is why the Orthodox Church teaches her faithful to accept suffering as something that has the potential to bring them further along in the process of theosis.     

Marketing the goods of salvation: Bourdieu on religion

Pierre Bourdieu's work has had a resounding impact on disciplines ranging from linguistics to anthropology to art history to literary criticism. Scholars of religion have, however, been relatively slow to catch on to the theoretical gold mine that academics in other fields have discovered in Bourdieu's work, doubtless in part because Bourdieu himself pays only limited attention to religion. The present article is intended to serve as an introduction to Bourdieu's theory of practice as it applies to his sociological theory of religion, which is especially serviceable for the analysis of the relationship among religion, class and power. Haitian religion and culture are used as a case study in the spirit of Bourdieu's own insistence that theory always be confronted with the substantive and never be exercised in a vacuum.     

A whisper of salvation. American psychologists and religion in the popular press, 1884-1908

The advocates of the new psychology that emerged at the end of the 19th century were faced with a need to gain support from a public that was searching for a new basis for social and political order, yet was chary of any science identified with godless materialism. The first generation of American psychologists was faced with the dilemma of defining their approach as distinct from the old psychology while defusing public concern about the materialistic implications of their new science. Many of these new psychologists developed a rhetorical strategy of incorporating religious sentiment into their writing for the popular press. Their strategy emphasized the harmony of the new science with religious faith and stressed the moral qualities of psychological work.     

Soul,freedom and salvation: a literary,cinematic and musical journey to the crossroads

It is tempting to assume that the construction of rational arguments for the existence of God reflects the basic logical form of theological discourse and debate. However, it would also seem that most if not all major religions are grounded mainly in stories (including biographies) of divine or divinely inspired saviours or prophets, and that the form of much ordinary religious understanding is ‘narratival’. In addition, such latter‐day moral and social theorists as Alasdair MacIntyre have held that human moral and spiritual understanding cannot but take a narrative form, and regarded religious stories as contributing crucially to such appreciation. However, while it is tempting to support such claims by reference to classics of literary and artistic culture, it is arguable that much contemporary cinematic and other popular art has also developed the major moral and spiritual themes of classical culture in significantly insightful ways. This article explores the movie Crossroads as a particularly fertile instance of such development.     

Determination of the Regression Coefficients and Their Associated Standard Errors in Hierarchical Regression Analysis

Hierarchical regression analysis is potentially a very useful statistical technique for establishing the significance of sets of predictor variables. However, when a hierarchical analysis which is based on theory is performed, some estimation procedures for the regression coefficients and their associated standard errors are potentially inappropriate. Specifically, the hierarchical regression equations, the incremental or hierarchical tests, and the parameter estimation of this procedure may not correspond. This problem is investigated by the development of four approaches (simultaneous, stagewise, orthogonal, and hierarchical) of estimation to the analysis. For each method, regression, coefficient estimators and their standard errors are determined. By comparison of these approaches, the use of orthogonalized sets of predictor variates or a modification to a series of simultaneous analyses are recommended as the most sensible technique for a theory driven hierarchical analysis.     

On the Use of Nonparametric Regression in Assessing Parametric Regression Models

We develop a new method for assessing the adequacy of a smooth regression function based on nonparametric regression and the bootstrap. Our methodology allows users to detect systematic misfit and to test hypotheses of the form “the proposed smooth regression model is not significantly different from the smooth regression model that generated these data.” We also provide confidence bands on the location of nonparametric regression estimates assuming that the proposed regression function is true, allowing users to pinpoint regions of misfit. We illustrate the application of the new method, using local linear nonparametric regression, both where an error model is assumed and where the error model is an unknown non-stationary function of the predictor.     

早期正一道的上章济度思想

早期正一道主要的斋醮仪式是上章。作者通过对早期正一道上章与三官手书的探讨,认为五斗米道的三官手书就是上章的文书。并从道教斋醮科仪思想的角度,对正一章文的济度思想进行分析,指出斋醮济度思想源于正一道的上章。     

Regression estimation and post-stratification in factor analysis

Regression estimation and poststratification are methods used in survey sampling to estimate a population mean, when additional information is available for some auxiliary variables. The extension of these methods to factor analysis is considered. These methods may be used either to improve the efficiency of estimation or to adjust for the effects of nonrandom selection. The estimation procedure may be formulated in a LISREL framework.The author is grateful to the referees for their comments.