Queer Muslims: between orthodoxy,secularism and the struggle for acceptance

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to concentrate on responses by Muslim scholars to both the Orlando incident and the United States Supreme Court Judgment on same-sex marriage. I first provide some comments on the Orlando incident in relation to the issue of Muslims, violence and homophobia. More importantly and central to my argument, I consider what the import of these responses are for Muslims – especially Muslims who identify as LGBTIQ or at least experience same-sex sexual attraction or participate in same-sex sexual conduct – and also what do such responses suggest about the prospect of same-sex sexuality being seriously considered, understood and accepted within the contemporary Islamic tradition and the possible consequences thereof. I make the case that the Islamic tradition, by way of its self-identified and proclaimed scholarly interpreters and representatives, urgently need to engage with the issue of same-sex sexuality in a more robust, dynamic and imaginative manner or risk a deepening epistemological crisis.     

Procrastination,temptations, and incentives: the struggle between the present and the future in procrastinators and the punctual

Two studies investigated the role of impulsivity in procrastinators' problems. In the first study, 147 freshmen completed questionnaires measuring the Big Five personality factors, a broad impulsivity scale, and Lay's general procrastination scale, and their perceptions concerning a compulsory course. The data revealed that procrastination was closely related to a lack of perseverance, that is, the inability to complete projects. This relation explained a large part of the well documented relation between conscientiousness and procrastination. In the second study, a subsample of these students was followed up during 11 weeks before their exams. They had to provide their study intentions and behaviour, the reasons why they failed to enact their intentions, and the perceived impact of studying on their final grade. The data revealed that all students tend to postpone the bulk of their study activities to the last week before an exam, and that this trend could nicely be described by a hyperbolic curve. The results also revealed that procrastinators postponed more of their intentions, mainly because of fun alternatives, but did not intend to study less or later. On the contrary, they even seemed to compensate for their vulnerability by formulating more intentions earlier. Procrastinators emerged as highly motivated students who lack the ability to ward off temptations and distractions during their studying activities. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Death without God: religious struggle, death concerns, and depression in the terminally ill

ABSTRACT— Religious worldviews often provide comfort near the end of life, but they can cause distress if life circumstances are perceived as evidence of God's disfavor. This study, the first to test terror management theory (TMT) with terminally ill participants, examined the hypothesis that concerns about death mediate the relationship between religious struggle (and religious comfort) and depression in the terminally ill. Ninety-eight patients with end-stage congestive heart failure (CHF) completed measures of religious comfort, religious struggle, belief in an afterlife, concerns about death, and depression. In separate hierarchical linear regression models that controlled for degree of belief in an afterlife, death concerns fully mediated the relationships between religious struggle and depression and between religious comfort and depression. These findings suggest that religious struggle is a breakdown in the terror management system that leaves the individual vulnerable to the terror of death, and that properly functioning religious worldviews offer comfort by buffering the individual against death concerns.     

继往开来，共创新业

三月的首都北京,春意盎然。五年一度的盛会:第十届全国人民代表大会第一次会议和全国政协第十届第一次会议在北京人民大会堂隆重召开,并分别于3月19日和3月14日圆满完成了各项议程,胜利闭幕。这是一次继往开来,具有重要历史意义的会议,对于动员全国人民全面建设小康社会、充分调动各方面积极因素、共同建设中国特色社会主义具有十分重要的意义。会议期间,来自全国各地和各行各业的近3000名人民代表和2000多名政协委员以饱满的政治热情和高度的历史责任感,代表人民意志,反映人民心愿,认真审议和讨论会议报告和文件。代表和委员们在审议和讨论…     

United we stand,divided we fall: the early Nietzsche on the struggle for organisation

According to Nietzsche, both modern individuals and societies are pathologically fragmented. In this paper, I examine how he proposes we combat this affliction in his Untimely Meditations. I argue that he advocates a dual struggle involving both instrumental domination and eradication. On these grounds, I claim the following: 1. pace a growing number of commentators, we cannot categorise the species of conflict he endorses in the Untimely Meditations as agonistic; and 2. this conflict is better understood as analogous to the species of struggle that Schopenhauer describes in his account of purposive organisation.     

Fictional women physicians in the nineteenth century: The struggle for self-identity

By the late nineteenth century, there were large numbers of women physicians in the United States. Three Realist novels of the time, Dr. Breen's Practice, by William Dean Howells, Dr. Zay, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and A Country Doctor, by Sarah Orne Jewett, feature women doctors as protagonists. The issues in these novels mirrored current issues in medicine and society. By contrasting the lives of these fictional women doctors to their historical counterparts, it is seen that, while the novels are good attempts to be truthful treatments of women physicians' struggles, in certain areas they do not accurately address the concerns of women physicians.     

Social norms and the expression and suppression of prejudice: the struggle for internalization

The authors studied social norms and prejudice using M. Sherif and C. W. Sherif's (1953) group norm theory of attitudes. In 7 studies (N = 1,504), social norms were measured and manipulated to examine their effects on prejudice; both normatively proscribed and normatively prescribed forms of prejudice were included. The public expression of prejudice toward 105 social groups was very highly correlated with social approval of that expression. Participants closely adhere to social norms when expressing prejudice, evaluating scenarios of discrimination, and reacting to hostile jokes. The authors reconceptualized the source of motivation to suppress prejudice in terms of identifying with new reference groups and adapting oneself to fit new norms. Suppression scales seem to measure patterns of concern about group norms rather than personal commitments to reducing prejudice; high suppressors are strong norm followers. Compared with low suppressors, high suppressors follow normative rules more closely and are more strongly influenced by shifts in local social norms. There is much value in continuing the study of normative influence and self-adaptation to social norms, particularly in terms of the group norm theory of attitudes.