Attitude towards Christianity and New Age beliefs among undergraduate students in Slovenia: a study in implicit religion

This study examines two conflicting hypotheses regarding the association between traditional religiosity and new age belief: the “worldview hypothesis” suggesting a positive association between these two sets of beliefs; and the “functional alternative hypothesis” suggesting a negative association between these two sets of beliefs. A sample of 1209 undergraduate students attending the University of Maribor, Slovenia, completed the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity as a measure of traditional religiosity and the Lavri? Scale of New Age Belief, alongside a measure of frequency of church attendance. The data demonstrated a positive correlation between attitude towards Christianity and new age belief, even after taking into account different levels of church attendance. These findings support the worldview hypotheses in favour of the functional alternative hypothesis.     

Say one for me: the implicit religion of prayers from the street

Within the field of the psychology of prayer, there has been a growing interest in empirical studies concerned with the analysis of the content of ordinary people's private prayers, with a view to providing a more nuanced understanding of the psychological correlates of prayer among those who engage in the activity. One research tradition has focused on the content analysis of intercessory prayer requests left in church-related settings, and it is within this context that the present study is located, examining 417 intercessory prayer requests, collected on the streets by bishops in the Church of England as part of the 2011 “Say One for Me” Lent Prayer initiative. The study was informed by the constructs of implicit religion and ordinary theology, and employed ap Siôn's general analytical framework for intercessory prayer requests. Three types of implicit religion were found to be present in the prayer content: societal consensus, the source of explicit religion, and the effect of explicit religion, and the significance of these results is discussed.     

Preferences for religious help-seeking: racial and gender differences,interfaith intolerance,and defensive theology

We examined the relation between preference for religious help-seeking and defensive theology, interfaith intolerance, spiritual conceptualisations of mental health problems, race/ethnicity, and gender in a predominantly Christian sample of 389 college students. MANOVA revealed significant main effects for race/ethnicity, with African American participants showing higher scores than Caucasians and Latinos/as across all main study variables. Follow-up ANOVA yielded main effects for race across all four variables and main effects for gender on spiritual conceptualisation of mental health problems and defensive theology. All race/ethnicity by gender interactions were nonsignificant. Preference for religious help-seeking was regressed in a hierarchical manner on race/ethnicity and gender, followed by interfaith intolerance, defensive theology, and spiritual conceptualisation of mental health problems. A statistically significant model explaining 46% of the variance emerged incorporating all variables except race. A framework for understanding help-seeking preference is presented, followed by directions for future research.     

Emotional expressiveness during worship services and life satisfaction: assessing the influence of race and religious affiliation

The purpose of this study is to see if an emotional expressive worship style is associated with life satisfaction. Our study model contains the following core relationships: (1) blacks are more likely than whites to worship in conservative Protestant congregations; (2) members of conservative congregations and blacks will attend church services more often; (3) blacks and conservative Protestants are more likely than either whites or members of other congregations to openly express their emotions during worship services; (4) individuals who express their emotions during church services will be more likely say they worship in a highly cohesive congregation; (5) people who worship in highly cohesive congregations will generalise this sense of connectedness to people outside their place of worship; and (6) those who feel closely connected with all people will experience a greater sense of life satisfaction. Finding from a nationwide survey provide support for each of these relationships.     

God,the good life,and HEXACO: the relations among religion,subjective well-being and personality

The relations among religiousness, subjective well-being (SWB) and the HEXACO (Honesty–Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness) model of personality were studied in a Muslim population. As expected, Extraversion and Honesty-Humility factors were the strongest correlates of SWB and religiosity, respectively. Religiosity also correlated with higher levels of SWB, and explained variance in SWB beyond personality factors, showing that religion is a unique predictor of well-being. Results have been discussed within the religious orientation paradigm, and the HEXACO model of personality structure.     

Spirituality and Religion in Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) in Kwazulu-natal,South Africa: A Longitudinal Study

This study assesses the effects of spirituality and religion in health outcomes of patients on ART in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Participants were 735 patients who attended three HIV clinics for ART over a period of 20 months as follows: 519 after 6 months on antiretroviral therapy (ART), 557 after 12 and 499 after 20 months on ART. They completed the Duke Religion Index each visit. Factors associated with spirituality/religiousness included fewer mental health problems (lower depressive symptoms, lower alcohol use), CD4 cell counts, adherence to ART, better certain health related quality of life outcomes (physical, psychological and environmental), social support and internalized HIV/AIDS stigma. Further research could examine the feasibility of including spirituality and religion in the assessment and providing support interventions for HIV patients.     

Sleep duration and chronotype in adults in Côte d'Ivoire: influence of gender,religion and age

This study investigated the sleep-wake rhythm and chronotype of people living in Côte d'Ivoire. We assessed sleep-wake behaviour in 556 adults (336 men, 220 women) between 25 and 54 years (mean: 38.63) by means of structured interviews. Data were analysed by linear models with sleep wake variables as dependent variables and age, gender, religion and region (urban/rural) as fixed factors controlling for number of working hours and children. Results suggest sleep length not to differ between weekdays and weekends but sleep timing (chronotype) was later on weekends with a midpoint of sleep at 1:37am during weekdays compared to 1:58am on weekends. The more children, the earlier was the midpoint of sleep and the shorter was sleep length. Midpoint of sleep was earlier in older people. Women slept longer during weekdays and were earlier chronotypes. Sleep duration was longer in the rural areas and midpoint of sleep was later in the urban areas on weekdays and on the weekend. Muslims showed the shortest sleep duration and were earliest chronotypes. Sleep-wake cycles in the African setting sample were shorter for women, Moslems, and older people.     

What is Mormon Transhumanism?

Abstract

Mormon transhumanism is the idea that humanity should learn how to be compassionate creators. This idea is essential to Mormonism, which provides a religious framework consistent with naturalism and supportive of human transformation. Mormon transhumanists are not limited to traditional or popular accounts of religion, and embrace opportunities and risks of technological evolution. Although usually considered secular, transhumanism has some religious origins and sometimes functions as religion. Accelerating change contextualizes a Mormon transhumanist narrative of common expectations, aspirations, and parallels between Mormonism and transhumanism. Mormon transhumanism has produced secular arguments for faith in God and religious arguments for transhumanism.