Thinking Creatively About Religion: Belief-Related Differences

Writers (Chisholm, 1996) and theorists (Fateux, 1995a, 1995b) have discussed the relationship between religion and creativity, however, until the present, empirical studies examining this relationship have not been done. The current study used a psychometric approach to investigate the relationships among religiosity, religious motivation and creative thought about religious issues for two different religious groups. Results showed few relationships between self-perceived religiosity, religious motivation and religious creative thought. A comparison between two religious populations showed that the Mormon group scored higher in religiosity and religious motivation, but lower in creativity than the non-Mormon group. Future studies need to expand this type of work to other religious groups, and focus more on gender and age-related differences related to religious creativity.     

实际可行的伦理准则及其进化论基础

作者认为,现代科学,特别是认知科学、进化生物学和进化心理学中的许多发现和说明直接关系到伦理学的一些传统的、基本的问题。这些发现和说明可以和文化研究结合一道,从而揭示我们的社会行为、情感和直觉。同时,一切可以产生实际作用的道德体系都要以伦理自然主义为基础,都要考虑到某些源起于人的生物属性的动机和倾向,都要以最小程度的强制和最大程度的自主服从,去促进人类的团结与合作。本文的目的之一是,确立某些实际可行的伦理准则,并且以此改进人们的社会管理和社会交往过程。     

Thinking Sociologically About Religion: Implications for Faith Communities

This article is the published version of the 2011 H. Paul Douglass Lecture given at the Religious Research Association meeting in Milwaukee, WI. It argues that there has been a step change in activity with regard to the social scientific work on religion in Europe in the last half decade. It sets out the evidence for this claim and the (not always positive) reasons why this had happened. It then examines the implications of this work for the faith communities of modern Europe, arguing that effective cooperation between the religious sector and the researchers who study this is the best antidote for the misconceptions about religion that currently abound in many European societies.     

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.

An Attachment-Theory Approach Psychology of Religion

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that attachment theory, as origi- nally proposed by John Bowlby and subsequently refined by a host of other researchers, provides a powerful framework for integrating research and theory concerning the psychology of religion. The essay begins with a brief over- view of contemporary models of attachment, with particular emphasis on adult attachment relationships. Selected literature is reviewed concerning a variety of topics in the psychology of religion, including research on images of God, conversion, and prayer, and attachment theory is shown to provide a useful conceptual framework for integrating these findings. It is argued that extending attachment theory in this direction may benefit religion researchers as well as social and developmental psychologists interested in such topics as interpersonal relationships, stress and coping, and loneliness.     

Privatization or Deprivatization: British Attitudes About the Public Presence of Religion

Achterberg and colleagues conclude there is in train a significant change toward deprivatization in Europe. In the late 1990s Christians were more pro public religion in countries where they were least numerous and in the Netherlands in particular there had been an increasing difference in attitudes between believers and nonbelievers over 25 years. Examining more recent survey data on British attitudes (1998 and 2008), we find a firm consensus among the nonreligious against religion having a high public profile, while Christians are more likely to object to antireligion sentiment and people belonging to non‐Christian religions are more likely to support public religion. Nonreligious people appear to be no more hostile now than in the late 1990s, and where there has been a decrease in sympathy for public religion it is among religious groups.     

Religion and Decisions About Marriage,Residence, Occupation,and Children

Using data from the first wave of the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS), we consider the extent to which people report that religious factors influence their decisions about career choice, marriage, residency, and number of children. We find significant positive relationships between the importance of religion or religious faith and the perceived influence of religious factors on one's choice of occupation, decision about whether or whom to marry, decision about where to live, and decision about how many children to have. We also observe significant interactions between the importance of religion or religious faith and religious tradition, but we find no consistent patterns across our decision‐making outcomes. Our preliminary conclusions raise significant questions about the broader relationship between religion, perception, and decision making.     

初探宗教现象学

宗教现象学是当代西方文化中使用现象学方法来诠释宗教的一种学说，它在理论上与传统宗教的理性实体学说和自然神学理论相区别，一是将宗教的论证方式由外在实体出发转向由人的直观意识出发，二是将对神的论证由理性论证的途径改变为意识直观和生存体验的途径。宗教现象学把人的直观意识体验和生存感受作为其理论的出发点，它同时把宗教理解为前导入的生存的意义纲领。宗教现象学跨越了现象学、存在主义、解释学、心理学、人类学及神学等多个学科，尚有许多理论问题有待进一步澄清。     

Religion,Cultural Clash,and Muslim American Attitudes About Politically Motivated Violence

Does adherence to Islam predict attitudes about “suicide bombing” among American Muslims? This study examines the effects of religious and political factors on views of politically motivated violence (PMV). We draw from diverse scholarship, emphasizing arguments that are inspired by Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations perspective, as well as recent work in the sociology of Islam. Using a measure that gauges support for “suicide bombing” from the 2007 Pew Survey of American Muslims, results from logistic regression models suggest that political views and religious factors have a minimal effect on Muslim American attitudes toward suicide bombing. Furthermore, we find that Qur’ānic authoritativeness (i.e., the view that the Qur’ān is the word of God and not written by men) is associated with lower odds of supporting this form of PMV. We discuss the implications of our findings for the often anecdotal and alarmist accounts that link Muslim religiosity to support for “radical” extremism. We close with study limitations and avenues of future research.     

Vanishing Boundaries: When Teaching About Religion Becomes Spiritual Guidance in the Classroom

Abstract. This article revisits the pedagogical dilemma of maintaining neutrality in the religious studies/theology classroom. I argue that if the boundary between teaching about religion and actually teaching spirituality seems to be vanishing, it is because the boundary was inappropriately constructed in the first place. To the extent that the religious concepts, even when compressed into religious studies categories, inherently inspire personal transformation, how can a boundary exist between the ideas students encounter and the power of those ideas to transform? Spiritual guidance emerges naturally in the academic study of religion, and those of us who teach in the field might as well get used to it. In explaining my position, I draw on my experience as a teaching assistant in Professor Walter Capps's course, “Religion and the Impact of the Vietnam War.” I, then, develop a pragmatic teaching strategy, neutral enthusiasm, which preserves the important neutrality of classroom presentation in religious studies courses, yet recognizes the unavoidable evocative power present in the intellectual territory that is religion. Neutral enthusiasm allows the content to do the work.     

An Emerging Field in Religion and Reproductive Health

Separate from scholarship in religion and medicine, a burgeoning field in religion and population health, includes religion and reproductive health. In a survey of existing literature, we analyzed data by religious affiliation, discipline, geography and date. We found 377 peer-reviewed articles; most were categorized as family planning (129), sexual behavior (81), domestic violence (39), pregnancy (46), HIV/AIDS (71), and STDs (61). Most research occurred in North America (188 articles), Africa (52), and Europe (47). Article frequency increased over time, from 3 articles in 1980 to 38 articles in 2008. While field growth is evident, there is still no cohesive “scholarship” in religion and reproductive health.     

勒内思考,故笛卡尔存在

亨迪卡对笛卡尔“我思故我在”的论证提供了一种新的理解方式.他将“我思”论证同戏剧作类比,指出“我思故我在”中的两个“我”属于不同的辨别系统.这种跨越不同辨别系统的推理并不一定能成立,因而笛卡尔的论证中有潜在的问题.但借助电视里真人扮演自己的现象以及命名关系这一“概念事实”,亨迪卡论证了“勒内”可以证明“笛卡尔”的存在.亨迪卡最后指出,这种戏剧类比理解之下的笛卡尔论证同哥德尔不完全性定理的证明有相似之处.     

An Existential-Phenomenological Approach to the Psychology of Religion

A primary aspect of existential and phenomenological methodologies is an attempt to understand one’s experience. In particular, phenomenology attempts to understand one’s experience in as pure of a form as possible. From an existential perspective, additional emphasis is placed upon the lived aspects of one’s experience. This paper outlines an existential-phenomenological approach to the psychology of religion. First, a brief history and summary of major themes of existential psychology is introduced. Next, this is applied to the psychology of religion. Last, the existential-phenomenological approach is considered in the context of the existential givens.     

马克思主义宗教批判思想之辨析

马克思主义的宗教批判思想,实质上是19世纪以来越来越鲜明的世俗化过程中反叛宗教神学的一种极端形式。不能从唯物主义世界观直接推出信仰层面的无神论,马克思新唯物主义以及唯物史观形成,同时也是对无神论的明确的扬弃。马克思对宗教持激进的批判与否定态度,至于把这样的态度解读为宗教精神的再度复活,其实是引伸开来的思想,同马克思本人的宗教批判思想无关。马克思的宗教批判从宗教产生的经济与政治关系入手展开对宗教及其社会现象的意识形态批判,也是一种宗教社会学。马克思的社会概念以及社会主义,意在通过从哲学到共产主义实践的转变成为无神论时代社会共同体的新的信仰,但涂尔干与韦伯则以不同的的方式证明了现代性社会的信仰及其认同依然是诉诸于宗教理解方式。如何面对现代世界宗教现象的多样性与复杂性,是马克思主义宗教批判思想面临的难题。     

Religion and cognitive control: An event-coding approach

Religion is playing an important role in our lives, be it from a personal perspective as member of a particular congregation or as an agnostic living among believers. What impact has religion on our decision-making and action? Two kinds of impact have been considered: religious goals are likely to constrain and color our behavior, but religion may also strengthen cognitive control in a more generic sense. While evidence supports both considerations, it remains a mystery how that works, that is, which mechanisms underlie the impact of religion on our decisions and action control. Here I suggest a preliminary mechanistic model accounting for this impact. It is based on the Theory of Event Coding (TEC), a general theory of human perception, attention, and action control, and the assumptions that goals are represented in a distributed fashion (as selection criteria) and that their impact is moderated by metacontrol, the current control style that varies between persistence and flexibility. The model is parsimonious (i.e., not religion-specific) and mechanistically transparent, and thus provides a solid basis for more systematic experimentation and theorizing.     

An Apology for a Religion of the Melancholic

This article is a study of depression and melancholia from the psychoanalytic perspective. Starting with the issue of levels and categories involving the phenomena of depression and melancholia, it elucidates the particular nature of the melancholic loss; the fact that the melancholic’s problem has to do with language; the view of the melancholic subject as a default subject; and the question of desire in melancholia and its trajectory toward recovery, eventually leading to a hopeful imagination concerning the innermost human desire. Three Lacanian psychoanalytic theories (Darian Leader (2009); Colette Soler (2006); Slavoj Zizek (2006)) are used to support my arguments; Suah Bae (2003, 2004) provides fascinating fictional truths that witness to the melancholic’s inner world; and Donald Capps (2000) renders a decisive help in my pastoral psychological reading of all of these writers.     

Post-Secularity and Religion in Britain: An Empirical Assessment

Abstract

In the almost half-century since Bryan Wilson published Religion in Secular Society, the secularisation paradigm has gone from take-for-granted orthodoxy to passé intellectual dead-end. It is now common to talk of post-secular Europe and de-secularisation. This article presents a very large body of data to demonstrate that despite the change in intellectual fashion, secularisation continues apace in Britain. Religion has become more contentious; it has not become more popular.