Eastern Religions Research Articles

Which Religions Still Affect Schooling? A Study of 143 Countries

This paper studies which world religions have exerted a contemporary influence on the extent of secondary schooling at the national level in the recent past. Using data on 143 countries and the period 1973 to 2012, it finds that both Hinduism and Judaism have a large positive effect, particularly among females. The group of other Eastern religions (which covers comparatively small religions, notably Confucianism) also has a positive effect, though it is slightly smaller, especially among girls. Islam has a negative effect, which is larger among females than among males. Neither Buddhism nor the three branches of Christianity – Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism – have any statistically significant effect. The results are robust to numerous controls and variations in specification.

Religious Beliefs, Political Identity and Firm Investment Preferences

Based on the survey of entrepreneurs' religious beliefs, it explores the effect of entrepreneurs' religious beliefs on firm investment activities. It comes to the conclusions as follows:firstly, compared with RD secondly, different types of religious beliefs have different effects on investment preferences, and compared with the entrepreneurs who believe in western religion, the entrepreneurs who believe in eastern religion are more likely to invest relationship-based items; thirdly, the influences of entrepreneurs' religious beliefs on investment preferences vary somewhat with entrepreneurs' political identity. Specifically speaking, compared with the entrepreneurs who have political identity, religious beliefs have more significantly positive impact on relationship-based investment if the entrepreneurs do not have political identity. It suggests that political identity may weaken the influence of religious beliefs on relationship-based investment.

O Confucionismo, Budismo, Taoismo e Cristianismo. O Direito chinês

A Religião Popular chinesa é vista como parte constituinte da Religião tradicional; porém, ambas são qualificadas como sinônimas. Por sua vez, a Religião tradicional costuma ser confundida com o Taoismo, já que durante séculos, o institucional tenta administrar as religiões locais. A designação “religiões tradicionais chinesas” é utilizada para se definir o vasto conjunto de sincretismos e crenças práticas e valores de diferentes religiões orientais com forte expressão; esse conjunto, também chamado de “crenças populares ou crenças tradicionais”, foi adaptado e desenvolvido ao longo de séculos e revela o caráter altamente sincrético e prático; todavia, do lado espiritual deste povo que conseguiu criar uma unidade compatível, com tanta diversidade, entre religiões diferentes. Também nesse conjunto encontram-se a valoração do Confucionismo, do Taoismo, do Budismo, da Mitologia chinesa e de outros usos e costumes como crenças, superstições e práticas tradicionais, sendo o culto aos antepassados considerado fundamental e mola-mestra para a construção do Sistema Jurídico chinês. A cultura chinesa não é orientada pelo Direito; segue, por sua vez, uma evolução própria, sendo que o Sistema Jurídico tradicional foi totalmente integrado em uma concepção filosófica, enfatizando o Confucionismo e influenciado pelos pensamentos jurídicos tanto do lado confucionista quanto do legalismo.

Religia jako duchowy autoerotyzm czy logocentryczna postawa wiary? Konsekwencje osobowego rozumienia Absolutu w teologii J. Ratzingera

The aim of this paper is to reason theistic religion as rational by referring to the idea of Absolute in Christianity and Eastern religion. The subject of research concern theology of Joseph Ratzinger, in particular statements about Buddhism. The analysis shows that an important element differentiates between theistic religion, particularly Christianity and mystic religion is understanding of Absolute. This general thesis led to three main conclusions. First, one of the key elements of Christian religion is the notion of person, used also in regard to Absolute. Second, consequence of this thesis is recognition that the world is the result of creation and has its source in Logos. The last conclusion comes down to a recognition that religion (and all cultic forms of religiosity), rejecting the limitation of man, closes in particularisms and is, consequently, self-affirmation.

Culture, Citizenship Norms, and Political Participation: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan

AbstractThis study investigates the role of religion in shaping the norms of citizenship from a cultural perspective for an East Asian country that exhibits fundamental differences in social contexts from Western advanced democracies. Using data drawn from the Taiwan Social Change Survey, we find that the Eastern religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Folk Religions are important for explaining the formation of the concept of being a good citizen. This study further examines the relationships between citizenship norms and various conventional and unconventional types of political participation. The empirical results herein suggest that duty-based citizenship and engaged citizenship have significant differences in their effects on political participation.

The Idea of Perfect Man

Different religions have one belief in common in that man is not self-existent. It means that his life is basically dependent on an independent central power. This concept was suggested by early religions in the form of the belief that nature has powers, but more advanced religions have a belief in a metaphysical being, who is the creator of the world. Besides human desire for perfection is a common subject that connects different religions to each other although there exist various interpretations about perfection and perfect man. The basis of the western new thought is humanism, in which human is a self-centered one and is not dependent on any greater force; however, in the eastern thought, man and the world are under God’s centrality, moving toward a spiritual goal and a superior world. This article aims at the position of the perfect man, as a creature on the earth, in the worlds of Darwinism, Marxism, Nietzcheism, Freudism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Mazdaism, Manichaeis, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is concluded that among all eastern religions, Islam is the only multi-dimensional one and considers both materialistic and spiritual dimensions of man.

MAX WEBER’DE DOĞU ALGISI VE TÜRKİYE ÖZELİNDE TARTIŞMALAR

Max Weber's approach to Eastern society reflects the general trend of Western-centric East corpus. Weber’s distinctive course is trying to reveal Eastern tradionality strictly with a cultural justification. In this context, Weber uses the patrimonialism to describe Eastern states central structure not let the devolopment of society and the market power; in addition compares Eastern religions characteristics and the superior features of Western society structure. Weber’s influence on the social science literature in Turkey is seen in the dabate on Ottoman social structure and Islam. In this study, it is examined Metin Heper’s, Serif Mardin’s and Sabri Ulgener’s approach to the conceptual framework of Weberian East perspective and to his thoughts about Islam

Squaregnosis, beateros: Alan Watts and the occultism of Aquarian religion

Alan Watts’ influence on religious discourse is beginning to be mapped by twenty-first-century scholars, but emphasis is mostly placed on his role as an interpreter of Eastern religion for the West. The present article considers Watts as a contributor of Western hermetic and occult tradition to contemporary American Paganism. Drawing on historical perceptions of occultism, Watts’ works and their use by subsequent Pagans, I locate Watts as a source for both gnostic realization and erotic transmutation through cosmic hierogamy. Drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic theory, I contend that Watts’ commitment to gnostic and erotic themes enframed a ‘historically-effected consciousness’ undergirding the modern Aquarian movement in general and American Paganism in particular.

What Is It Like to Be a Psalmist? Unintentional Sin and Moral Agency in the Psalter

This article takes up the problem of unintentional sin in Psalms 19, 90, and 119 to ask what it was like to be a psalmist on the issue of moral agency. In contrast to some reconstructions of ancient Israelite (and Near Eastern) religion, I argue that concerns about intentionality—specifically its lack—indicate that the psalmists were not akin to philosophical zombies: what psalmists did mattered along with how they did it, with knowledge or without. I situate this psalmic way of being with reference to sin vis-à-vis Carol Newsom's work on moral agency in the Hebrew Bible, arguing that moral agency in the Psalms (at least on this matter) nuances some of the categories offered thus far.

Paul Summergrad, M.D., 141st President, 2014-2015.

It isaprivilegeandapleasuretobeabletomakethis introduction today. It is also a bit intimidating. Speaking about a colleague or friend is challenge enough, but doing justice to one’s life partner requires just the right balance of honesty and tact. Almost exactly 30years ago, I arrivedon the sceneofPaul’s life, just at the point where his professional life had become solidified and his career was about to take off. We had both justfinished our training in internalmedicine and psychiatry, very much committed to being doctors. I was at the start of 30 years of working on the consultation service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Paul was at the beginning of his career doing medical psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital. But his trajectory would bemuch different and much more expansive than either one of us could have ever imagined at that moment. But let me go back for just a fewmoments. Paul grew up in the Bronx—a red diaper baby, forged in the politics of his immigrant family’s activist and Jewish background, wrapped in the bonds of cooperative living and union brotherhoodwith loving parents and a very bright younger brother—not far away from that secular place of worship knownasYankee Stadium. Itwas paradise until he suffered the first glancing blow of his idyllic young life—theymoved to the suburbs. Despite this upheaval, at least it was the 60s, and whatever was lacking in his immediate suburban environment, the larger world on television and radio— news, music, drama—and the wanderings of his own inquisitive mind provided many outlets. His passions—Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Eastern religions and playing the guitar—transported him beyond the suburban borders. The next 10 yearswere spent in the icy incubator of upstate New York. First, college in Buffalo, where taking courses like Guerilla Warfare ultimately gave way to 4 serious years studying Zen Buddhism in Rochester, which eventually led to medical school back in Buffalo, becoming a serious student of the human body and the human mind. The next big chapter of Paul’s life came with the move to Boston, doing medicine at Boston City Hospital and psychiatry at Mass General, where shortly after graduating he was involved in creating the first medical psychiatry unit there. We met in 1985, and by 1986, he had experienced the second and third conversions of his young adult life—he returned to his Jewish roots and the study of Jewish mysticism, and he left his beloved Yankees to become a full-fledged Boston Red Sox Fan. 1986was one of those especially difficult years for the Sox, andwhile someof itmayhave beenhis attachment tome, it was clear that the drama and trauma of that season had captured his imagination. But after the team so tragically lost the World Series that year, he came to realize that rooting for the Red Sox was unfortunately a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. During the next 20 years at Mass General, Harvard and Partners Psychiatry, he consolidated his clinical psychiatric skills and deepened his academic achievements as a consummate medical psychiatrist. But he was also developing his “other sides,”first as the political psychiatrist involved not just in management and finance but in the bigger issues of health policy and the future of medicine and its place in a new and fast changing world. And in his spare time, he managed to finish his psychoanalytic training, knowing that fluency in the knowledge of unconscious processes connects to deeper meanings as a physician and as a person. In the middle of all of this, our children came along, and “father” of course became the most favorite of his titles. But Paul was destined for larger stages—he became the Chair ofPsychiatry atTufts andPsychiatrist-in-Chief atTufts Medical Center, a title he has really cherished. Thenmore titles andmore jobs—Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Tufts Physicians Organization. But it was 2 years ago, when, I believe, he came to the place where he was supposed to be: as the President-Elect and now President of the American Psychiatric Association. All of his life experience, interests, detours, and purposefuldirected journeys could be poured into a job that fit him like a glove. These last 2 years, Paul has devoted himself to the public and political agenda of the APA, promoting the need for strategic planning, while continuing to advance issues that touch the human condition and human spirit. Whether attending the Black Psychiatrists of America Congressional Conference or theWorld Psychiatric Association Congress, Paul has made the APA a part of the process. With his support for legislative reform in our country’s complexmental health system, his advocacy for veterans and suicide prevention, and his pioneering role in recognizing faith-based leaders and the powerful role they play inmental health in our grassroots communities, Paul has been both an innovator and a champion.

Grey Matters

In my 2013 Bulletin blog post on the categorization of religious traditions as eastern or western I focused on my work as an academic studying Tibetan Buddhism in North America and my experiences teaching eastern religions to students at a post-secondary institution in the United States. Expanding on my earlier contribution, here I focus my attention on the challenges and responses related to the east/west taxonomies in the context of my research and teaching.

Buddhism and Religious Diversity ed. by Perry Schmidt-Leukel (review)

Buddhism and Religious Diversity. Edited by Perry Schmidt-Leukel. Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, vol. 1: Eastern Religions (402 pp.); vol. 2, Christianity (330 pp.); vol. 3, Islam and Judaism (361 pp.); vol. 4, Religious Pluralism (344 pp.). London and New York: Routledge, 2013. The 4-vol. set costs $1,430. As Tomoko Masuzawa and other critics of the category of religion have noted, most of the discussions of issues surrounding religious diversity in the modern academy have been broadly confined historically to Christian and secular authors. Of course, religious diversity is not a topic that has been limited to modern academia, and the only thing that surpasses the cultural and religious diversity throughout human history is the sheer number of cross-religious and cross-cultural encounters throughout that history. Given this discrepancy between the dearth of scholarship in the academy (on the topic of diversity, no less) and the breadth and depth of the reality, the recent growth in works on non-Christian perspectives on religious diversity is quite refreshing, and Schmidt-Leukel's work is certainly a valuable contribution to this new wave. This four-volume set covers Eastern religions, the Abrahamic religions, and religious pluralism broadly conceived. These Buddhist volumes deal with their perspectives on other religious traditions; those looking for texts on other religious traditions' perspectives on Buddhism should look elsewhere. This set is primarily a collection of articles and excerpts from previously published works, and it does not contain much novel content. However, as any scholar in the field of Buddhism and religious diversity will tell you, the value of simply gathering many of these texts together for the first time is immense, as many were difficult to acquire. While it does include some translations of older works, the set generally includes just modern scholarly secondary sources on earlier periods, in addition to primary and secondary sources on Buddhism and religious diversity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Many important topics are simply not considered--Schmidt-Leukel laments, for instance, the lack of recent literature on Buddhist perspectives on Jainism (one could certainly add Sikhism and non-Asian indigenous religions as well). There are several articles that discuss Buddhist perspectives on diversity within Buddhism, but most focus on Buddhist perspectives of religious diversity outside of the tradition, however broadly conceived. Topics that are included are considered quite extensively; readers will discover that nearly all of the important authors and modern texts on Buddhist perspectives on Eastern religions, Abrahamic religions, and religious pluralism are included, such as excerpts from Arthur Wright's classic study on Buddhism and Chinese culture and Masao Abe's famous reflection on kenosis. Unfortunately, there are no introductions for the texts, which would have been very helpful to contextualize many of the pieces. …

An explanation and analysis of how world religions formulate their ethical decisions on withdrawing treatment and determining death.

IntroductionThis paper explores definitions of death from the perspectives of several world and indigenous religions, with practical application for health care providers in relation to end of life decisions and organ and tissue donation after death. It provides background material on several traditions and explains how different religions derive their conclusions for end of life decisions from the ethical guidelines they proffer.MethodsResearch took several forms beginning with a review of books and articles written by ethicists and observers of Bön, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous Traditions, Islam, Judaism, Shinto and Taoism. It then examined sources to which these authors referred in footnotes and bibliographies. In addition, material was gathered through searches of data bases in religious studies, general humanities, social sciences and medicine along with web-based key word searches for current policies in various traditions.ResultsReligious traditions provide their adherents with explanations for the meaning and purpose of life and include ethical analysis for the situations in which their followers find themselves. This paper aims to increase cultural competency in practitioners by demonstrating the reasoning process religions use to determine what they believe to be the correct decision in the face of death.ConclusionPatterns emerge in the comparative study of religious perspectives on death. Western traditions show their rootedness in Judaism in their understanding of the human individual as a finite, singular creation. Although the many branches of Western religions do not agree on precisely how to determine death, they are all able to locate a moment of death in the body. In Eastern traditions personhood is not defined in physical terms. From prescribing the location of death, to resisting medical intervention and definitions of death, Eastern religions, in their many forms, incorporate the beliefs and practices that preceded them. Adding to the complexity for these traditions is the idea that death is a process that continues after the body has met most empirical criteria for determining death. For Hinduism and Buddhism, the cessation of heart, brain and lung function is the beginning of the process of dying—not the end.

Family-firm risk-taking: Does religion matter?

We propose that family firms with religious founders have less risk than other family firms. Using a sample of 4159 family firms in China, we find that firms founded by religious entrepreneurs have lower leverage and less investment in fixed and intangible assets compared to firms founded by nonreligious entrepreneurs. These findings are consistent with our proposition. However, these findings primarily hold for entrepreneurs who adhere to Western religions but not to Eastern religions. As such, our paper makes important contributions to the literature on family-firms and their risk-taking and the literature on the relation between religion and risk aversion.

KAZAKİSTAN'IN COĞRAFİ VE KÜLTÜREL POTANSİYELİ

Kazakhstan is a country that has many different ethnic elements. The main ones are the Koreans, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, Ahiska Turks, Greeks, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Balkars, Karakalpaks and Altaylılar. Within these communities, all but the Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Germans and Koreans are Turkish communities. Apart from these, there are a few non-Turkish ethnic elements. Most of the Turkish communities are Muslim, while other ethnic elements are generally Christian or Eastern religions.

Soil’s Social and Cultural Connections

Soil’s Social and Cultural Connections

THEOSOPHY AND THE IMPACT OF ORIENTAL TEACHING ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ABSTRACT ART

This article focuses attention on a marginal topic that has received little attention in art history to date – the great interest shown by the avant-garde artists in the early 20 century in the occult sciences, especially theosophy, and the infuence of these occult sciences on the development of modern art, and first and foremost, on non-representational art. Although, as a result of the modernisation in the 19 with its whirlwind of rapidly developing scientifc discoveries and technological processes people increasingly turned their back on Christianity, it would be wrong to describe this time as one when religion was totally abandoned. Alongside Christianity, the study of Far Eastern and Middle-East religions and philosophical systems became popular, and in the cultural sphere, Christianity started to be treated as a purely cultural phenomenon, and not as the centre of absolute truth and morality. Spiritualism, occultism, and theosophy, the latter being a mixture of philosophical, religious and scientifc views that was moving in the direction of a systematic set of beliefs, became extremely popular in the second half of the 19 pressure of a materialistic worldview. In the early 20 avant-garde artists were gripped by these ideas, including Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, whose work formed the basis for different trends in abstract art. The infuence of the occult sciences on both artists was decisive in the development of their theoretical points of departure and creative principles. Attention was focused on the infuence of the occult sciences on the oeuvre of these artists already in the mid-1960s (Sixten Ringbom, Robert Welsh). When the works of Hilma af Klint, which had been unknown to date, were made public, a topic, which had been relatively marginal in the study of the spiritual sources for abstract art, increased in importance. A question developed, not only about abstract art as a radical innovation of form, but as a search for new spiritual meaning, which sought fll the void that resulted from the abandonment of Christianity. The strong interest in Far-Eastern religions that developed in the youth culture of the 1960s also spread to Estonia, although in a modest form and for diferent reasons than in the West. This interest was realised in the abstract works of several artists (Tõnis Vint, Leonhard Lapin). The activities of Linnart Mäll, a scholar of Buddhism, who worked at the University of Tartu, also infuenced this process. Therefore, material related to Estonian art also exists that can form the basis for examining, when and how the spiritual vacuum that has developed in today’s world has been replaced/supplemented.

‘Politics with a Spiritual Dimension’: Václav Havel in the Context of Eastern Philosophy and Religion

This article analyses the work of Václav Havel in order to explore some possibilities for integrating Eastern spiritual and philosophical perspectives within Western political and academic discourses. In particular I focus on a difference of opinion in the literature on Havel over whether to categorise him as a religious or a postmodern thinker, and contend that this tension disappears when his work is placed in the context of the ancient Indian philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism. Havel was not a Shiavite (nor was he a Christian); however, I argue that Havel and Shaivism share a fundamentally similar worldview. I also argue that Shaivism has much to offer Havel and Western philosophy and politics more generally. To demonstrate this I explore the topics of God and religion, truth and morality, and human nature. Whilst these discussions are very brief and preliminary they show that this could be a powerful and fascinating area of future research.

The anthropology of Eastern religions: ideas, organizations, and constituencies

Preface Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Vedas and Vedanta Chapter 3: Jain and Buddhist Traditions Chapter 4: Hindu Traditions Chapter 5: China's Main Religions Chapter 6: Japan's Religions Traditions Chapter 7: Conclusion Bibliography Index

대순진리회 상제관 연구 서설 (Ⅱ): 15신위와 양위상제를 중심으로

This article as an attempt to analyze Jin-beop-joo(眞法呪, incantation of true law) and the view of Yang-wui Sangje(兩位上帝, Sangje in two Godship) corresponds to the second preliminary work prior to the research on the view of Sangje in Daesoonjinrihoe. The points of this article are as follows: First, Jin-beop-joo and 15 Godship(神位) based hereupon are one of the most essential elements comprising the view of Sangje in Daesoonjinrihoe. Since the other Jeungsan line religious orders except Daesoonjinrihoe does not use 15 Godship in explaining and understanding Jeungsan, this fact should be regarded as an important characteristic of Daesoonjinrihoe. Second, 15 Godship is the important installation to assemble Sangje and the other gods in the same place. In Buddhism temples and China-Taoism temples, the gods each are placed in a separate palace. Whereas Sangje and the gods are concentrated in the same place, Yound-Dae(靈臺) which is the shrine of Daesoonjinrihoe. This fact shows Sangje takes the reins to the gods visually. 15 Godship facilitates that system. Third, the number 15 of 15 Godship symbolizes the natural laws of the cosmos. Thus the shrine of Daesoonjinrihoe implies the law of universe emblematically. Forth, 15 Godship shows that the Highest God in Daesoonjinrihoe are located in the middle of the functional gods ruling over nature like mountain, sea, season, the Great Dipper, and Taoistic or Buddhistic gods like Ok-hwang Sangje(玉皇上帝, The Great Jade Emperor), Seoga-Yeorae(釋迦如來, Tathāgata Buddha), Kwan-seong-Jegoon(關聖帝君, Holy god Guan Yu), along with various envoys and ancestral gods. Besides, considering the fact that the majority of 15 Godship consists of the Eastern deities, it verifies the view of Sangje in Daesoonjinrihoe is built in the Eastern religions. Fifth, whereas the other Jeungsan line religious orders have a tendency of understanding Jeungsan as Ok-hwang Sangje, Daesoonjinrihoe worships Jeungsan as Gu-cheon Sangje(九天上帝), not as Ok-hwang Sangje. This accords with the following fact; Jeungsan is the highest ruling entity in Gu-cheon, whereas in Jinbeonju, which was handed down from Jeungsan, the highest ruling entitiy in Gu-cheon is expressed as a different being from Ok-hwang Sangje. Sixth, Daesoonjinrihoe understands Sangje as the form of two Godship, Yang-wui Sangje, which are Gu-cheon Sangje and Ok-hwang Sangje. Judging from the form of salutation, the status of these two Sangjes are the same. Yet, the object of belief is Gu-cheon Sangje as the highest God, while Ok-hwang Sangje is stipulated as the one who has wielded a true law succeeding to the Gu-cheon Sangje