How Children and Adults Represent God's Mind

For centuries, humans have contemplated the minds of gods. Research on religious cognition is spread across sub‐disciplines, making it difficult to gain a complete understanding of how people reason about gods' minds. We integrate approaches from cognitive, developmental, and social psychology and neuroscience to illuminate the origins of religious cognition. First, we show that although adults explicitly discriminate supernatural minds from human minds, their implicit responses reveal far less discrimination. Next, we demonstrate that children's religious cognition often matches adults' implicit responses, revealing anthropomorphic notions of God's mind. Together, data from children and adults suggest the intuitive nature of perceiving God's mind as human‐like. We then propose three complementary explanations for why anthropomorphism persists in adulthood, suggesting that anthropomorphism may be (a) an instance of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic; (b) a reflection of early testimony; and/or (c) an evolutionary byproduct.     

Illness coping behaviour of outpatients with depression or diabetes mellitus in two tertiary hospitals in Enugu state,southeast Nigeria

The study aims to compare the coping styles of patients with diabetes with those with depression. A total of 224 patients, 112 with depression and an equal number with diabetes were recruited. Sociodemographic variables were determined with the sociodemographic questionnaire, and coping styles with the Mental Adjustment to Cancer (MAC) adapted and Brief Religious Coping (Brief RCOPE) Scales. Fighting Spirit and MAC Summary Positive Adjustment were used more by participants with depression. Both groups of participants used the Brief RCOPE positive method to the same extent. Brief RCOPE negative was used more by participants with depression. Positive coping skills were used more by participants with depression than those with diabetes. This underscores the need for clinicians to explore the coping resources available to their patients, both religious and non-religious, and projecting them to their patients for enhancement and application as an adjunct for the purpose of a better clinical outcome.     

Beyond barbarity and concealment: animal sacrifice and religious slaughter in Islamic responses to postdomesticity

In a society where animals to be consumed as food are produced using modern industrial animal farming system (described as postdomestic in Bulliet [2005 Bulliet, R. W. 2005. Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The past and Future of Human–Animal Relationships. New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]]), most people who consume animals are very much removed from the production process. Most consumers do not participate actively or have intimate knowledge of the rearing and slaughtering of animals for food. In this article, I critically analyse existing Islamic responses to problems arising from the postdomestic condition with regard to consuming animal as food. In this article, my analysis focuses on making explicit the connection between the assumption of barbarity in the civilising discourse surrounding religious requirement for animal slaughter and the problem of postdomestic concealment of animals we consume. Furthermore, I analyse the role that the Islamic requirement for animal slaughter (zabiha) and the tradition of Festival of Sacrifice (eid al-adha) can have potential solutions that religion can offer to the problems of postdomesticity.     

Fostering critical religious thinking in multicultural education for teacher education

Religious diversity as a consequence of global immigration has become a cultural phenomenon of pluralism in society. The fear of indoctrination and the desire for religious freedom fuel the debate on whether to remove religion from school education. Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed offers a positive perspective on the debate by calling attention to the pedagogy of religious education in the pursuit of religious freedom for all human beings. Rather than transferring religious knowledge to students, the challenge for religious education is to foster critical religious thinking in them. Unfortunately, many teachers lack the confidence to address religious issues, as well as lacking support in the professional development of critical religious thinking. Hence, this article proposes a tentative model for fostering critical religious thinking that might fit into a course in multicultural education for teachers.     

The Rhetoric of Religious Dissent: Anti-Calvinism,Satire and the Arminian Controversy in the Dutch Republic

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of the Arminian controversy (1609-1619) on the literary culture of the Dutch Republic. Focusing on the work of pivotal figures like Dirck Coornhert, Reinier Telle, Samuel Coster and Joost van den Vondel, it is argued that political and religious controversy gave rise to a culture of religious satire that directly shaped the outcome of the conflict. Analyzing the similarities between satire and the practice of religious parrhesia, it aims to examine the paradoxes inherent in the early modern debate on toleration.     

Georges Dumézil: Theories,Critiques and Theoretical Extensions

Georges Dumézil, best known as the deviser of the theory of a tripartite patterning impulse in the cultures making up the Indo-European (I-E) linguistic group, spent sixty years refining this concept, and adding other themes such as the bifurcation of his fonctions and the concept of Interfunctional War. Before his death, his ideas were used to explain I-E patterns in cultural areas such as the Celtic, the Norse-Scandinavian and the Western medieval; since his death, his theorised structures have served as a base for such extensions as a ‘fourth’ function, a feminine potency to the formula and age-set-divisions as a part of the patterning impulse. Critics have concentrated on philological points, though some have denied the existence of the I-E tripartite division tout court. Just before Dumézil's death a variation on the ‘revisionist’ line began to accuse him of suspect personal–political opinions, and these accusations continue. The ultimate usefulness of Dumézil is the flexibility of his system and the extraordinary range of materials one can draw into his theories; his value is as a ‘medium’ for further research and theoretical structuring.     

Religious Congregations and Social Justice Participation: A Multilevel Examination of Social Processes and Leadership

Religious congregations have potential to be mediating structures for social justice participation. However, research has yet to examine the specific social processes or leadership characteristics within congregations that may promote social justice participation. In this study, we use data from 176,901 participants nested within 1,938 congregations to test how social processes (i.e., religious attendance at worship services, extra-worship participation, bonding social capital, a congregational norm for justice) and leadership characteristics (i.e., leader modeling of justice, horizontal leadership style) predict personal social justice involvement through the congregation (i.e., participation in social justice activities sponsored by the congregation) as well as personal social justice involvement outside the congregation (i.e., participation in social justice activities not sponsored by the congregation). We use multilevel logistic regression to examine these social processes and leadership characteristics at both individual and congregational levels of analysis. Results showed distinct patterns of associations at individual and congregational levels of analysis and that different social processes and leadership characteristics predicted personal social justice participation through or outside the congregation. These findings reveal the importance of social processes and leadership characteristics in understanding how congregations may mediate social justice participation. Implications for community psychology research and practiced also are discussed.     

Examining Patterns of Political, Social Service, and Collaborative Involvement of Religious Congregations: A Latent Class and Transition Analysis

This investigation examines typologies of congregations based on patterns of congregational political and social service activities and collaborative partners. Based on a latent class analysis of a national random sample of 2,153 congregations, results indicated four distinct types of congregations with unique patterns of political, social service, and collaborative partnerships labeled: (a) Active, (b) Not Active, (c) Social Service Not Political, and (d) Political Not Social Service. Moreover, congregational characteristics such as religious tradition and clergy characteristics predicted membership in certain types. A latent transition analysis using an additional 262 congregations revealed distinct patterns of how congregations changed types across a nine year period. Results showed both congregational continuity (e.g., Not Active congregations remained Not Active) and change (e.g., Active congregations were likely to change type membership). This study advances congregational research by examining congregational types, what predicts certain types, and how congregations change types across time. Implications for future research and partnership with religious congregations also are discussed.     

Collective identity and wellbeing of Roma minority adolescents in Bulgaria

In Europe and particularly in Bulgaria, Roma represent the largest low‐status minority group that is subjected to marked public intolerance and discrimination. This study examined links among Roma (N = 207) and Bulgarian (N = 399) adolescents’ ethnic, familial, and religious identities as salient identity aspects for their psychological wellbeing. Results indicated that, as expected, Roma youth reported lower levels of wellbeing than Bulgarian youth. The latter revealed a weaker religious identity than Roma youth, whereas no ethnic group differences emerged regarding Bulgarian or familial identity. Furthermore, we observed that collective identity was higher in older participants of both groups. Finally, a multigroup analysis using structural equation modeling showed that collective identity was a positive predictor of wellbeing for both Roma and Bulgarian adolescents. Findings demonstrated differences in salience as well as structural communalities regarding ways in which collective identity affects wellbeing of youth from two ethnically diverse communities.     

Religions in a Secular World

The task of astrotheology is to speculate on the theological, cultural, and ethical implications of space exploration, especially the exploration of astrobiologists into the (1) origin of life; (2) a second genesis of life; and (3) expansion of life beyond earth. When assumptions within the field of astrobiology are examined, we find that the Darwinian model of evolutionary development is imaginatively projected onto extrasolar planets; and this model includes a built-in doctrine of progress. The assumption of progress within evolution permits astrobiologists to look forward to contact with an extraterrestrial civilization that is more intelligent and more advanced than that on earth. Such an extraterrestrial civilization will allegedly have an advanced science that can save earth from its primitive and under-evolved propensity for violence. However, no empirical evidence for a more highly evolved or advanced civilization currently exists, despite these beliefs. The theologian labels the constellation of scientific assumptions here the “ETI myth.” Astrotheology celebrates hard-nosed empirical science and even encourages space exploration; but the mythical assumptions regarding the doctrine of progress within evolution are here given critical analysis.