Practice Of Religion Research Articles

DINAMIKA INTEGRASI NASIONAL BANGSA INDONESIA (Dalam Pendekatan Kerukunan Umat Beragama)

Diversity of religions in Indonesia are given the freedom to practice religion according to his teachings respectively. However these freedoms must be done with non-intrusive and detrimental to people of other faiths, because disruption of the relationship between followers of various religions will bring a result that can shake the unity of the nation. Various policies and programs in order to support the implementation of the development priorities of the National Defense solid, that is through the people's welfare, improve the quality of the religious and cultural resistance. Religion was very important role and strategic in the construction of National Defense solid, especially as the spiritual, moral and ethics. Religion as a value system should be understood and practiced by individuals, families, communities, and animates the life of the nation. Today there are still many people who do not have a good tolerance and integration with the many differences that exist. There are still some communities have not received such differences, the real difference as the dynamics of the life of the nation. And to keep the unity of the nation, people must regard and implement a system of social integration and national integration is a process of integration or assimilation of various socio-cultural aspects within the territorial integrity and the formation of national identity or nation that can guarantee the realization of harmony and balance in achieving a common goal as a nation

Religion and the cultivation of citizenship in Chinese higher education

A growing body of research has documented the escalating popularity of religion among student populations in China’s higher education settings. Despite the changes sustained by China’s religious policies throughout the post-Mao era, the state has not abandoned its long-standing approach of cultivating citizenship through Marxist–Leninist-oriented political education. The rising popularity of religion on university campuses thus reflects a complex interplay between religion and the state in the education sector. This study explores the meaning of religion as constructed in this setting by comparing (a) the political education curriculum, (b) the academic discussions of religious issues and the challenges faced by political education scholars and (c) the daily life discourse embedded in the voices of university teachers. The findings suggest that the manipulated meaning of religion in the political education arena accommodates the agenda of building a modern, secular state, but it fails to construct a cohesive and coherent understanding of religion. The state’s interpretation of religion leaves space for curriculum and policy implementers to renegotiate the meaning of religion in practice.

Cancer Screening Among Patients Who Self-Identify as Muslim: Combining Self-Reported Data with Medical Records in a Family Practice Setting.

Cancer screening is a core component of family medicine but screening inequalities are well documented in Canada for foreign-born persons. Although people of Muslim faith and culture are the fastest growing immigrant population in Canada, there is little information in the literature about their cancer screening practices. Determining screening gaps could inform practice-based quality improvement initiatives. We conducted a retrospective chart review combining patient-level medical record data with self-reported religious affiliation to examine the relationship between religion and cancer screening in a large multi-site urban family practice. Religious affiliation was classified as Muslim, other affiliation, or atheist/no religious affiliation. 5311 patients were included in the study sample. Muslim patients were significantly less likely to prefer English for spoken communication than the other two groups, less likely to be Canadian-born, more likely to have a female family physician, and were over-represented in the lowest income quintile. Muslim women were most likely to be up-to-date on breast cancer screening (85.2 vs. 77.5 % for those with other religions vs. 69.5 % for those with no religious affiliation). There were no significant differences in cancer screening by physician sex. In this pilot study conducted within a primary care practice, we used self-reported data on religious affiliation to examine possible inequities in cancer screening and observed intriguing variations in screening by self-identified religious affiliation. Future efforts to collect and use similar patient-level data should incorporate non-official languages and intensively outreach to patients with less health system contact. Regardless, the family medicine context may be the ideal setting to collect and act on patient-level sociodemographic data such as religious affiliation.

Revalidating the Religious/Spiritually Integrated Practice Assessment Scale With Five Helping Professions

Objective: This article describes the validation of the Religious/Spiritually Integrated Process Assessment Scale (RSIPAS) across five helping professions. The RSIPAS was originally developed to measure clinical social workers’ self-efficacy, attitudes, perceived feasibility, behaviors, and overall orientation toward integrating clients’ religion and spirituality in practice. Method: The current study examines the internal consistency and criterion, discriminant, convergent, and factorial validity of this instrument with a sample of clinical social workers, psychologists, nurses, counselors, and marriage and family therapists in Texas ( N = 550). Results: Findings support the reliability (α = .95) and various forms of validity, with an improved fit in the factor structure among this more diverse sample. Conclusions: The RSIPAS may be used among these five helping professions to identify training needs or evaluate training efforts related to the integration of clients’ religious or spiritual beliefs in mental and behavioral health treatment.

Ecology, Environment and Technoethics

Science and religion are closely connected. If we deeply think over this we realize that science concerns only with the materialistic world while religion, though it has spiritual basis theoretically, has firm practical aspect also. Practical religion can be brought down to one conception-charity to our fellow beings. This is manifested by science by developing our concern over the world we live in, the ecology and environment so that people live in peace and happiness. Sages practice this by meditation, the spiritualistic way while people engaged in scientific study looks forward for clean world to live without any hazard whatsoever. Hence the concern of ecology, environment and the ethical approach in science and technology creeps in. in this article I have tried humbly to present ecology, environment and technoethics as far as I understand with my scanty knowledge within the prescribed limit.

Religious Freedom Under the Victorian Charter of Rights

When the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act was enacted in 2006 it was claimed that the Act would protect the rights of all persons, whatever their gender, age, disability, income, background or religion. Purporting to follow the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, the Charter proclaimed the right of every person to of thought, conscience, religion and belief, including the to demonstrate his or her religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching, either individually or as part of a community, in public or in private. Despite the assurances of the Victorian Charter, however, many people of religious faith in Australia feel that their freedom to practice their religion is under threat – no less in Victoria than elsewhere in the country. Moreover, the principal concern articulated by religious believers is a sense that it is the state and its agencies, not other religious believers, that poses the greatest threat to freedom of religion. If it is one of the purposes of the liberal democratic state to ensure the peaceful coordination and flourishing of different groups, this is not a very promising state of affairs.In this chapter, written for a forthcoming collection on the impact of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights, we interrogate the state of religious freedom in Victoria, focusing on the threats that it faces, both manifested and perceived. The chapter begins by sketching the various religious freedom protections that exist in Australian law and note legislation, especially in Victoria, that has raised religious liberty concerns – anti-discrimination, anti-vilification and abortion law in particular. The chapter then surveys the case-law under the Charter. Here we find that the Charter has played virtually no substantive role in protecting freedom of religion. Instead, anti-discrimination law has been increasingly prioritised. Lastly, we offer an account of three recent reviews of Victorian law as they relate to religion. We find that a contest has occurred, primarily between religious believers and organisations on one hand, and anti-discrimination agencies and human rights advocates on the other, over the exact boundaries to be laid down in state law between religious freedom and other state interests. We argue that an underlying pattern is discernible, whereby a certain image of liberal citizenship is progressively imposed upon persons, groups and organisations whose religious convictions, practices or identities are deemed to be recalcitrantly non-liberal. We conclude that, as a result, religious freedom has become a second-class right in Victoria. Managing serious and growing pluralism, we argue, requires deeper attention to fundamental principles of religious liberty.

Individual sensory experiences, socialized senses, and everyday lived religion in practice

Building on the conference theme, ‘Sensing Religion’, this article argues that the sociology of religion needs to pay attention to sensory experiences. Our discipline has traditionally focused on religion’s cognitive qualities – beliefs, creeds, and theologies – along with its organizational structures. By and large, we have failed to encounter, much less think about, other aspects of religion, particularly those that involve the senses. We have treated them as epiphenomenal, not central to religious life. This will no longer do. Examining religion as it is actually lived requires an attention to sensory religious experiences, as they are a core part of religious practice. Doing so requires, however, that we learn how to attune ourselves to that experience. Otherwise, we will fail to perceive the experiences that people actually encounter. This presentation provides some practical guidance about how to do this. It also presents diverse examples of embodied religious practices for which sensory experience is essential.

Health-Related Quality of Life in Persons With Ostomies Managed in an Outpatient Care Setting.

We examined health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in persons with ostomies receiving outpatient care. We also analyzed relationships among HRQOL, demographic, and pertinent clinical factors. We used a descriptive, exploratory, cross-sectional study design to collect and analyze data. Data in this article are a secondary analysis of data collected from a primary study, developed by Santos and Gomboski, on the adaptation and validation of the City of Hope-Quality of Life-Ostomy Questionnaire (COH-QOL-OQ) to the Portuguese language in Brazil. A convenience sample of 215 adults living with an ostomy was evaluated. Slightly more than half (51.6%) were men, 67.5% underwent colostomy surgery, and 59.1% underwent cancer-related ostomy surgery. Subjects received care in specialized health care units in 3 cities in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. After approval by the Research Ethics Committee and permission from health care units, data were collected using 2 instruments: the World Health Organization Quality of Life-Short Version (WHOQOL-Bref) (generic HRQOL instrument) and the COH-QOL-OQ (disease specific HRQOL instrument). Data were analyzed using χ test and logistic regression (via a stepwise forward method). Patients were classified into 3 groups according to the means and standard deviations of the scores: low, moderate, and high quality of life (QOL). Ostomy patients had total scores of 69.6 ± 20.2 and 6.1 ± 1.4 for the WHOQOL-Bref and COH-QOL-OQ instruments, respectively. Patients with shorter times since their ostomy creation had worse scores on both the specific QOL (P = .006) and generic QOL (P = .019) instruments. Patients who did not practice religion (P = .027; odds ratio [OR] = 3.39) and those without a partner/spouse (P = .007; OR = 4.90) had increased probability of having worse scores on the WHOQOL-Bref (generic instrument). Persons living with ostomies were found to have scores indicating moderate HRQOL on a disease-specific and generic instrument. Shorter time since ostomy creation, lack of religious practice, and lack of a partner negatively influenced the HRQOL of these patients.

Between real and virtual communities: Sufism in Western societies and the Naqshbandi Haqqani case

Sufism, the mystical/esoteric Islamic path of soul purification, is spreading extensively throughout Western societies. The internet is one of the most important vehicles of this diffusion. This article first describes the use of the internet in four European Sufi orders, underlining how the internet: (1) is an instrument of promotion, information and knowledge about Islam and Sufism; (2) reduces the distance between disciples and Masters; (3) is a digital space where religious experiences are reaffirmed, not lived. The second section of the article concerns the Naqshbandi Haqqani case, which is completely different from the other orders studied. For some Naqshbandi disciples, the internet is also a place in which to practise religion through rituals, prayer requests, initiation and religious experiences. Through an analysis of this particular use of the internet, the author explores the transformation of European Sufism both in the frame of post-modern religiosity and in the frame of transnationalism.

Taking liberties and making liberty: religious bounding and political violence in Sri Lanka

This paper argues that the relationship between religion and violent politics is best understood through a focus on religious practice. The case study of the Tamil Catholic Church within Sri Lanka's civil war is presented against a backdrop of Buddhist monk participation in violent insurgency decades earlier. The discrete cases evidence a common preoccupation with management of physical borders and discursive boundaries as actors seek to reproduce themselves and their work as legitimately ‘religious’. Despite relying on remaining ‘pure’ from the dirty political realm, in practice religion is bound to social action and reproduced through the violent circumstances it engages.

Contextualizing the Free Exercise of Religion

The Founders drafted the free exercise clause to prohibit the government from substantially interfering with religious liberty, such as through laws that coerce individuals into violating their religious beliefs, target specific religions or religious practices, or to question the sincerity of an individual’s religious beliefs. However, the Founders did not envision that the government was required to grant citizens exemptions from generally applicable laws. The proposed standard in this article furthers the original purposes of the free exercise clause and safeguards citizens from unequal protection of the law.Four factors should guide the Court should when evaluating whether a law substantially burdens an individual’s religious liberty and whether a countervailing state interest is sufficiently compelling. First, courts must consider the role of the individual who seeks protection under the blanket of religious liberty. For example, is the individual a pastor in a private church or a clerk in the county courthouse? Second, courts should consider the place in which the right is exercised. Is the individual seeking to exercise this right in a church or synagogue, or in a classroom or a courthouse? Third, courts should consider the effects of exercising religion on third parties, particularly where such effects, if they had resulted from state action, would infringe on third parties’ constitutional rights. Fourth, the Court should consider whether a religious liberty claim involves practices that are central to the individual’s belief system. It is one thing for an Amish family to claim that a compulsory education law infringes on the fundamental tenets of their religious faith. It is another thing for individuals to claim that issuing marriage licenses in their public capacity as county clerks infringes on their right to freely practice religion, to freely discriminate (which often coincides with such claims), or to express moral disapproval of a particular group. This test will appropriately balance the free exercise of religion with the guarantee that all citizens enjoy equal liberty, equal dignity, and equal protection of the law, and furthers the broader purposes of the First Amendment.

THE LOGIC OF HOLY QURAN PENOLOGY

Ethically, penalty is bad evil and abominable without a strong theoretical and practical justification, wisdom and religion will not confirm it. On the other hand, establishment and execution of penalty is in contrary to principle and it can have deep and paramount political, social, human, legal and religious reflections especially in an Islamic community. penal policy governing Islamic judicial system should be based on Islamic criminal teachings. As the most important source, Islam play the main role. In Quran, in addition to respecting human relations with each other, the relationship between human and Allah is also considered. It is a point ignored by most western philosophers and they have considered the purpose of punishment irrespective of this point that it has caused that several opinions are expressed on punishment execution. In Holy Quran attitude, the policy and aim of punishment is clear. In Holy Quran, in addition to justice, the benefit of punishment is also considered. Therefore, one can say that school of Holy Quran is a combined school concerning punishments. The goals of punishment and principles dominating punishments are justified in this regard.

Exploiting Religion for Wealth Generation in Yorubaland of Nigeria: The How and Why

Discussions in this paper are based on socio-religious cum philosophical views of such scholars as Emile Durkheim,Max Weber, Sigmund Freud and most especially Karl Marx who views religion as ‘opium of the people’. Thisexplains why some people in Yorubaland of Nigeria hide under the practice of religion to enrich themselves at theexpense of other people. Using historical and descriptive methods, the paper investigated and found out that, as aresult of high level of unemployment rate, greed and laziness, many people in the study area have taken the practiceof religion as the quickest way of amassing wealth for themselves using crooked means, and this negatively affectsthe socio-economic status of Yorubaland in particular and Nigeria as a nation. The paper recommended employmentgeneration, religious education, and checks and balances as corrective measures.

Ateistų ir tikinčiųjų santykiai Gižų Šv. Antano Paduviečio parapijoje: nuo bičiulystės iki konfrontacijos

Relationships among religious people and atheists in parish of St. Anthony of Padua from 1963 to 1990 are analyzed in this article. Research was made on micro level using memories of believers and atheists. This method helps to better understand everyday relationships among believers and atheists. Person’s character and job position influenced upon his attitude towards religion and atheism. Peoples behavior was different: some hidden their attitude towards religion and atheism, some demonstrated it publicly and some fought for their rights to practice religion or against it.

Agama dan Kehidupan Manusia

This writing analyzes that religion has some roles in human life. In the research of community, religion considered as an element of culture, which is not neglected to be studied. In some way, religion is believed frequently as the source of comprehensive values that cover even inspire derivative values which is developed in human life. In observation, practical religion in society is also developed from religion doctrines and adjusted with the cultural environment. The concourse of doctrines and cultures seems obviously in the pratice of rituals, so religion and culture indeed united in the community. Therefore, religion has many roles in the human life and public sphere. However, in line with changes of the world, how does the religion role in the human life?

Abstinence halls (zhaitang 齋堂) in lay households in early medieval China

Most of what we know of religion in early medieval China concerns religious virtuosi, the spiritual and intellectual elite. But often, in texts focused on them, we glimpse the activities of some of the surrounding laypersons whose responses to virtuosi are in many cases the reason we have the texts in the first place. We possess normative writings of various kinds prescribing how laypeople should or should not practice religion. Evidence of how they actually did practice religion is harder to find. This modest article attempts to fill a very small part of this gap. I argue that, from at least the late third century, some households in China were furnished with a special room reserved for Buddhist observances, in effect a domestic shrine. I will show what these rooms were used for and something of the significance they were thought to have.

Informality and the politics of temporariness: Ethnic migrant economies in Little Bangladesh and Little Burma in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This article examines two ‘ethnic’ economies in Kuala Lumpur (KL) to study how transnational migrants build new communities in the city. These communities consist of largely temporary migrants formally in the country as guest workers. As part of a global shift towards transnational temporary labor migration regimes, these new migrants from countries like Bangladesh and Burma come to Malaysia in search of opportunities and work. Despite the precariousness of their legal statuses and restrictions on their rights, migrants build vibrant, busy and active economic and social hubs in KL. Migrant communities rely upon quiet encroachment practices to stake their claims as urban citizens. They engage in struggles over the right to use public spaces, practice religion and speak different languages. These are also highly gendered spaces marked by sex-segregation in terms of work and consumption, which is a product of the gendered nature of contemporary migration. The article suggests the need for migration research to pay closer attention to the role of informality as a resource for agency and resistance for temporary migrants, as well as how both gender and ethnicity influence these experiences for migrant communities in developing non-Western societies.

Exploring the Sacred-Secular Dialect in Everyday Social Work Practice: An Analysis of Religious Responses to Managerialism among Outreach Social Workers in Hong Kong.

We examine the recent proliferation of religious discourses among front line social workers in the former British Colony of Hong Kong in order to explore the nature of ‘re-enchantment’ in modern social work practice. In-depth qualitative interviews with twenty social workers who identify as ‘Christian social workers’ in a variety of social work organisations (both religious and secular) reveal the adoption of religious identities and discourses to navigate the encroachment of managerialism. A systematic analysis of these narratives suggests that Christian social workers evoke religion to reclaim feelings of authenticity in their work, to facilitate more personalised relationships with their clients, and to empower themselves following the introduction of managerialist policies. We illuminate the dialectical relationship between religious discourses and managerialism to critique claims in the literature about a ‘re-enchantment’ in social work, and to understand the essence of religion in modern social work practice.

PLURALISM AND INDIVIDUALIZATION IN THE ARGENTINE RELIGIOUS FIELD: CHALLENGES FOR CATHOLICISM IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF SOCIETY AND POLITICS

This article analyses the changes in the modern Argentine religious field. Based upon statistical studies on beliefs and religious attitudes, we describe the consequences of secularization in Argentine society, the way in which people believe and practice religion, the changes in religious identification, the religious diversification process and the way in which the religious practices’ and beliefs’ level of institutionalization have been decreasing. In this framework, we trace the development of the complex relationship between the State, the politics and the Catholic institution. We focus particularly on Catholicism because it is the most prominently public religion in Argentina, the most powerful and the most influent on the State and political arenas.

What do Argentine people believe in? Religion and social structure in Argentina

This article analyses Argentina’s contemporary religious field. On the basis of a statistical study on beliefs and religious attitudes, the authors reflect on a wide range of issues. They address the consequences of secularization in Argentine society, new configurations in how people believe and practise religion, shifts in religious identification, the religious diversification process, in which believers fall off the institutional frame, and, finally, people’s on religious intervention in public issues (such as education, sexual health and family planning).