Religious Motivations Research Articles

Sustainability, human ecology, and the collapse of complex societies: economic anthropology and a 21st century adaptation

List of Figures List of Tables Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Part I Anthropology and Economics: A Review 1. Anthropology and the Cosmology of a Modern Economics 2. Wants, Needs and the Question of Surplus vs. Wealth 3. Complexity and Stability or Stagnation: Declining Returns and the Business Cycle 4. Wealth, Consumption, Quality of Life and Standard of Living 5. The Great Debate: Economists and Anthropologists: The Market and Society, Continued Part II. Introduction to Hominid Economics 6. Introduction 7. Forest Fires, Origins and Myths 8. Traditional Peoples and Fire 9. Climate and Fire, Assessing Time's Arrow and the Antiquity of Anthropogenic Fire 10. Forest Management in Modern and Traditional Society 11. The Degraded Environment and Homo Sapiens 12. Co-evolutionary Processes and Environmental Exploitation 13. Makeup and Nature of Forests: Fire-Adapted Species vs. 'Old Growth' Determining Fire History: Fire Scars, Fire 14. Histories and Thermal Alteration 15. Insects, Biomass Reduction and Pesticides 16. Conclusion: Forests and The Future of Man Part III Cycles of Growth and Collapse versus the Possibility of Sustainable Societies 17. Introduction 18. The Problem of Population and the Nature of Human Society 19. Consumerism and Sustainability: Japan as an Example 20. The Evolution of Modern Japan and its Transformation Part IV The Role of Ideology and Religious Precepts in the Containment and Change of Society: A Modernist View 21. Ideology and Religious Precepts and Motivations: Why People Work 22. Fundamentalism versus Globalism Part V Conclusion Bibliography Index

Selbstverbrennung als Versuch der Selbstrettung im Rahmen einer psychotischen Episode

Self-immolation as reported in the literature usually happens in the context of suicide acts or political martyrdom. We report a case in which a patient during a first psychotic episode attempted to immolate herself: she covered her legs with pieces of clothing and set them a fire. Severe burning made amputation of both her legs necessary, one above, one below the knee. The patient had not acted in this way in order to die, but to save herself from the impending end of the world. She was convinced the earth was going to explode, and she would only be able to flee to Venus by self-immolation. She acted under the influence of imperative acoustic hallucinations encouraging her and pressing her to proceed. Antipsychotic treatment with clozapine resulted in complete remission of all psychotic symptoms. Other than during psychosis the patient didn't believe in life on other planets, had no fantasies about the end of the earth, no contact with sects and no religious or cultural motives for self-immolation.

The Experience of Crusading (review)

The Experience of Crusading. Volume One: Western Approaches. Edited by Marcus Bull and Norman Housley; Volume TTJVO: Defining the Crusader Kingdom. Edited by Peter Edbury and Jonathan Phillips. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2003. Pp. xvi, 311;xv, 311. $60.00; $65.00.) The illustrissimo of Anglophone crusade historians, Jonathan Riley-Smith, is the worthy dedicatee of this handsomely produced, two-volume, sixty-fifthbirthday present from his former students and crusade colleagues. And in it Jonathan-I confess a friendship-appears twice. For the same portrait of the amiable, pipe-smoking scholar serves as the frontispiece of each volume. Would that the editors had inserted along with their respective Appreciations a bibliography of his books, essays, and reviews. Particularly in Volume Two, they are guilty of referring to his works without properly citing them. One aspect of Jonathan's achievement deserves to be underscored. A driving force behind the foundation of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East in 1980, he provided crusade studies with a vital institutional focus. Nowadays, no medievalist, regardless of specialism, can ignore the pervasiveness of crusading culture in the Middle Ages. Witness the chronological range of these essays (c. 1000-c. 1400), together with their geographical sweep (Western Europe, the Levant, the Mediterranean world). Likewise impressive are the genres of history represented. Western Approaches, the European volume, begins with Marcus Bull, who offers wise observations on so many themes, e.g., Urban II's sermon, miracula as sources, that his title vainly struggles to contain them. Giles Constable notes that the conquest of Lisbon (1147) was indisputably integral to the Second Crusade. Norman Housley highlights the fundamental problem of the staggering costs of crusading, which, ironically, fourteenth-century promoters of the crusade helped to publicize. Perhaps because the rhetorical pieties of the sources are taken at face value, Christopher Marshall perceives no contradiction between the religious and commercial motives of the Italian city-republics for supporting the crusades. Signaling the influences of the First Crusade upon the Second, Jonathan Phillips argues that Odo of Deuil's De profectione Ludovici VlI is more complex than is usually assumed. James Powell examines the failure of Innocent UFs two-track policy to win over the Byzantine Emperor Alexius III on the eve of the Fourth Crusade. John Pryor's essay on the FourthCrusade Venetian fleet conies as a breath of fresh sea air. Pryor presents a strong case for an amphibious attack on Egypt as Dandolo's original objective. Anna Sapir Abulafia's touches on Joachim of Fiore's attitude to the crusades (disregarding B. Z. Kedar's critique of E. R. Daniel), but is mostly concerned with Joachim and the conversion of the Jews. James Brundage demonstrates convincingly how the canonists created a new category of ecclesiastical persons to accommodate the military orders. Currently preparing a critical edition of Humbert of Romans's Depredicacione cruets (after 1266), Penny J. Cole proves that Humbert took the First Crusade as his paradigm. Characteristically probing, H. EJ. Cowdrey distinguishes between the bellum sacrum and the helium iustum, and dates the blurring of that distinction to the end of the twelfth century. In an essay which is not altogether in harmony with Cowdrey's, John France takes up the Christian attitude to war before 1000, cleverly exploiting hagiography to refute Erdmann. Art and the crusades is reserved for Christoph T. …

Reversión de la ligadura de trompas por microcirugía: resultados reproductivos en 115 casos

Objetivo: describir los resultados en fertilidad de la reversión microquirúrgica de la ligadura de trompas y las causas de su solicitud. Determinar si las tasas de embarazos se relacionan con la edad de las pacientes y la longitud útil de las trompas.Diseño: cohorte descriptiva de seguimiento.Pacientes e intervención: entre enero de 1984 y enero de 2001, a 127 pacientes el mismo cirujano les practicó reversión de su ligadura de trompas, utilizando técnica microquirúrgica. Se incluyeron pacientes con edad menor de 38 años, progesterona mesoluteínica mayor de 15 ng/ml, longitud útil de trompas mayor de 5 cm a la laparoscopia diagnóstica, espermograma y prueba postcoito normales. Se excluyeron pacientes esterilizadas con fimbriectomía. Se siguieron por dos o más años. El análisis estadístico se realizó mediante el programa SPSS.Resultados: las principales indicaciones para solicitar reversión fueron nueva unión (50,4%); deseo de más hijos (35,7%); muerte de hijos (10,4%); razones psicológicas (1,7%) y motivos religiosos (1,7%). Se siguieron por más de dos años 115 pacientes (92%). La tasa global de embarazos fue del 72,17% (83/115), de las cuales el 10,4% se embarazó dos veces (12/115). Tasa acumulada de embarazos máxima a los 10,7 meses. Tasa de partos 65,2% (75/115) con 77 nacimientos. Tasa de abortos 12,2% (14/115). Y tasa de ectópicos 5,2% (6/115).Conclusiones: la reversión de la ligadura de trompas con técnica microquirúrgica es una opción para recuperar la fertilidad en pacientes menores de 38 años, con longitud final de trompas mayor de 5 cm y sin presencia de otros factores de infertilidad.

Holy Terror and Mass Killings? Reexamining the Motivations and Methods of Mass Casualty Terrorists

The starting point of this contribution to the Forum is the oft-cited distinction between “old terrorism” and “new terrorism” alluded to in earlier contributions. Practitioners of the old or traditional terrorism—ETA in the Basque region of Spain and the IRA in Northern Ireland are often given as examples—are involved in a localized conflict, normally with a state, over fundamental political questions. It is argued that groups such as this calibrate the level of violence carefully so as not to alienate their supporters or remove the possibility that they will eventually be offered a place at the negotiating table. Practitioners of the “new terrorism,” in contrast, are said to be fighting a global, or even cosmic, battle against forces of evil, normally defined in religious or apocalyptic terms. The religious or pseudo-religious motivations of these groups mean they are less constrained by political concerns, including the need to maintain a constituency. They are therefore more willing to inflict large numbers of casualties. Al-Qaeda and the attacks of September 11 epitomize the new terrorism. What emerges from the literature that relies on this dichotomy is a tightly linked causal story, namely that there has been an emergence of transnational, religiously motivated terrorist groups with expansive, almost apocalyptic, goals that are willing to engage in massively destructive attacks. Because of the nature of their motivations, goals, and organizational structure, it is possible that such groups will seek to acquire and use WMD. In …

Metaschematismus und formale Anzeige. Über ein biblisch-paulinisches Rüstzeug des Denkens bei Johann Georg Hamann und Martin Heidegger

In philosophical argument references to the Bible are always philosophically important. By comparing Johann Georg Hamann's and Martin Heidegger's writings it can be shown that religious concepts, figures and motives are formally indispensable for philosophy. Both Hamann's and Heidegger's thinking is based upon biblical formulae. One major formula of Hamann's theological thinking derived from a biblical model is the Pauline concept of 'metaschematism', which shows considerable correspondences to Heidegger's most important phenomenological method of formal indication (formale Anzeige). References to Pauline letters play an important role in the development and application of formal indication in Heidegger's early lecture Introduction to the phenomenology of religion (Einleitung in die Phanomenologie der Religion). According to that, Paul becomes a major figure concerning the method of philosophical thinking. For Heidegger, Christian religiosity in a formal manner can be considered as the basis of life experience in general and therefore, of philosophical thought as well. In philosophizing there is no such thing as secularization although philosophy secularizes the content of religious concepts.

RESEARCH: "A Motivational SystemsTheory Approach to the Relation Between Religious Experiences and Religious Motives"

This study used motivational systems theory (MST; Ford, 1992) to clarify a number of ambiguities surrounding conceptualizations and measures of religious experience and motivation. These ambiguities refer to the differences between numinous and mystical religious experience, extrovertive and introvertive mystic religious experience, and intrinsic and extrinsic religious experience. On the basis of the assumption that personal goals and affective processes are central and relatively independent components of motivation, this investigation explores the relation between a multidimensional measure of religious motives recently developed by Lazar, Kravetz and Frederich-Kedem (2002) and Hood's (1975) multidimensional measure of religious experience. Correlation analysis of the responses of 164 young adult male Jewish orthodox students of Jewish parochial schools to the previously mentioned measures lead to a number of speculations about the ambiguities concerning religious experience and motives.

Cultural Influences on Religious Experience and Motivation

The present investigation focused on possible cultural influences on religious experience and religious motivation among 165 Orthodox Israeli Jews from Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Ethiopian cultural backgrounds. Discriminantfunction analysis was performed on measures of introvertive, extrovertive and interpretive religious experience as measured by the M-Scale (Hood 1975) and measures of religious motivation as measured by the MRBQ (Lazar, Kravetz, and Frederich-Kedem 2002). This analysis showed that a combination of experience and motivation measures -interpretive religious experience coupled with non-family based religious motivations - distinguished between these groups belonging to the same religion but coming from different cultural backgrounds, thus providing support for cultural influence on these religious variables.

Religijne motywy w rewolcie Witaliana w 513-515 roku

The short of the first twenty years of VI century of Byzantium's history when political changes in Constantinople took place was described in the article The religious motives. The leader of the rebellion indicated two aspects of his pronouncement as the most important ones. They were restoration of the religious union on the East based on resolutions of The Chalcedonian Council and recognition of the leading role of The Apostolic See in the field of guarding religious authenticity. Despite the military defeat Vitalianus' revolt ended with success on the religious field.

Cognitive motivation and religious orientation

This research investigated the hypothesis that the more circumscribed religious orientations should be systematically related to broader social-cognitive motivations tapping general needs for order, structure, consistency, and certainty. Specifically, the relationships between four cognitive motivations (Need for Cognition, Preference for Consistency, Personal Need for Structure, and Personal Fear of Invalidity) and the Means (extrinsic), End (intrinsic), and Quest orientations were examined. Five hundred and twenty seven undergraduates completed questionnaires assessing each of these constructs. A path model tested with structural equation modeling demonstrated good support for the influence of general cognitive motivations on the more specific religious motivations. Key findings include: Need for Cognition and internal Preference for Consistency positively influenced Quest orientation; Need for Cognition directly and Personal Need for Structure indirectly correlated with Means orientation; public Preference for Consistency positively and internal Preference for Consistency negatively predicted Means orientation.

Religion-Related Child Physical Abuse

Religious beliefs can foster, encourage, and justify child abuse, yet religious motivations for child abuse and neglect have been virtually ignored in social science research. In this paper, we compare victims' retrospective reports of religion-related child physical abuse to other reported cases of child physical abuse. We describe in statistical detail the nature and circumstances of the abuse, characteristics of victims and perpetrators, and the spiritual and psychological impact of the abuse. Results indicate that although the basic characteristics of religion-related physical abuse are similar to non-religion-related physical abuse, religion-related abuse has significantly more negative implications for its victims' long-term psychological well-being.

Don't Call Me Ishmael: Religious Naming Among Protestants and Catholics in the United States

We explore whether first names of religious origin continue to have religious connotations for Protestants and Catholics in a U.S. culture where naming is largely secularized. We use 1994 General Social Survey data to examine several questions: (1) whether there are Protestant‐Catholic differences in broad categories of names (Old Testament, New Testament, saints, etc.); (2) whether worship attendance predicts the likelihood that Protestant and Catholic parents select categories of names corresponding to their respective traditions; and (3) whether worship attendance predicts selection of specific names that are disproportionately common within Protestantism and Catholicism (without regard to the broader categories). Results show some expected Protestant‐Catholic differences in the frequency of name categories. However, there is no relationship between parental worship attendance and the likelihood of choosing these categories, suggesting that differences cannot be explained by religious motivations. In contrast, worship attendance does increase Catholics' likelihood of choosing specific names that are disproportionately common within their tradition. This suggests that committed Catholics perceive certain names as “Catholic” and represents one instance in which names do retain religious connotations for believers. We are aware of no previous research that has established such a link between parental religious commitment and naming.

NATURAL LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT

Abstract A review of: Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World (New York: Basic Books, 2003). 240 pp. $23.00. Elshtain's book is an important meditation on moral statecraft in the post-9/11 context. Her main conclusions are that an examination of the intent of actors is vital; conventional political analysts have too often downplayed the religious motives behind terrorist attacks; and much of today's Christian political commentary about war and terrorism is superficial and overly simplistic. Although this book is a valuable contribution, Elshtain could have pushed her analysis of the language employed in the terrorist debate further.

Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California

Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. By John L. Kessell. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. Pp. VII, 462. Illustrations, preface, abbreviations, notes, glossary, works cited, index. $45.00.) Can historians understand the motivations of people with languages, spiritual beliefs, and historical circumstances altogether different from our own? In our postmodern era, human nature is no easy concept to defend or even define, and respect for cultural differences has led historians to some of their best recent work. Yet without some belief that we can understand people vastly different from ourselves, historians could not interpret the actions of even the literate colonizers of the Americas, to say nothing of their neighbors-native, African, and European-who left no written or oral records. John L. Kessell's Spain in the Southwest challenges the recent emphasis on difference and wonder in early cross-cultural contact. An emeritus professor of history at the University of New Mexico, Kessell argues not only that historians can understand colonial peoples but that they understood one another quickly and well, at least when they needed to. Starting with sixteenth-century contact between Spaniards and Indians, Kessell guides his readers through early, faltering Spanish attempts at exploration, conversion, and settlement; the founding of Santa Fe in 1610; the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and subsequent war and reconquest; Comanche expansion in the mid-eighteenth century; gradual Spanish moves into Texas and California as other Europeans challenged Spanish dominance; and, finally, clashes between the Mexican and United States republics. Building on his own work, including the influential Kiva, Cross, and Crown (1979), and other secondary sources, Kessell reveals the imperial, religious, and individual motivations that drew Europeans and their descendants to what New Mexico governor Diego de Vargas called kingdom, at the ends of the earth (p. 160). While Spaniards occupy the center of Spain in the Southwest, Kessell integrates recent thinking regarding colonialism and Indian diversity and agency and reminds the reader of the vast Indian world beyond, including places like the upper Arkansas River valley, where Europeans had no power and little presence. Kessell's fluid and gripping narrative, interspersed with a rich variety of illustrations and maps, makes this complicated world comprehensible. …

Problematische Naturen? Held und Heroismus im realistischen Erzählen by Bettina Plett (review)

248 Reviews feature again in E. S. Shaffer's essay, which examines unduly neglected aspects in the bearing of Goethe's writing on Coleridge and shows how the 'Bekenntnisse einer schonen Seele' inspired the ideas about self-exploration and biblical interpretation treated in Coleridge's Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. Peter Skrine's contribution on the Winkworth sisters is less clearly focused. There can be no doubt about their eminence as mediators of German culture, and the letters relating to their reading of Die Wahlverwandtschaften, which were written in 1853, are fascinating. The fact that Goethe's novel was discussed in Britain before it was translated can, however, be illustrated by earlier and more widely accessible published criticism in the peri? odical press. What is more, Skrine's final observations on Goethe's influence on Mrs Gaskell's work remain somewhat disconnected from his main argument despite her biographical link to the Winkworths. Die Wahlverwandtschaften also plays a role in Jane K. Brown's crisp and illuminating reflections on Goethe and American literature, which concentrate on the distorted reworking of Goethe's novel in Edith Wharton's The House ofMirth and compare her response with Walter Benjamin's and Ford Madox Ford's reactions. Edward Said's misrepresentation of Goethe's attitude towards the East is the topic of David Bell's clearly structured piece, which emphasizes the common traits rather than the dif? ferences in the Orientalism of both writers. James Simpson's thought-provoking ideas about the reception of a classic cover a wide range of nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors and are most absorbing in the discussion ofthe religious motivations for T. S. Eliot's appraisal of Goethe. This paper echoes some of Boyle's introductory considerations and might have constituted an appropriate coda to the volume. The final place is, however, taken up by Eda Sagarra's readable and well-documented contribution, which is concerned as much with the general history of German teaching in Irish universities as with Goethe's place in the curriculum. A short review of a conference volume cannot be exhaustive. It should be empha? sized, however, that Peter Michelsen's observations on Wilhelm Meister's reading of Shakespeare, Howard Gaskill's discussion of Goethe's reception of Ossian, and John Williams's examination of some recent Goethe translations also contribute significantly to the success of this stimulating and meticulously edited collection of papers. Oxford University Sus anne Stark Problematische Naturen? Held und Heroismus im realistischen Erzahlen. By Bettina Plett. Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, and Zurich: Schoningh. 2002. 450 pp. ?65.40. ISBN 3-506-76782-8 (hbk). The term 'hero', charged as it is with classical epic expectations, becomes increasingly dubious in the later nineteenth century, so that one might wish to find an alternative term, though 'protagonist' does not quite emancipate us from genre traditions. In pursuing this problem in German realism, Bettina Plett is aware of its comparatist dimensions, referring to Thackeray's mischievous claim of 'a novel without a hero' and what Willibald Alexis called Scott's 'liebenswiirdige Nullen'. But in Germany the decline in forcefulness of the literary hero contrasts vividly with the propagation of a heroic monumentalism in the dominant Wilhelmine culture. Critical spokesmen demanded an inspiring heroic representation, adequate to the times, that authors consistently refused to deliver. Plett reviews the critical tradition in this matter from Hegel to Northrop Frye and the great-man theory of history from Rousseau to Treitschke. Significant within this discourse is the contrast of Carlyle and Mill, for one of her governing theses is that fixation upon or scepticism about the heroic correlate with authoritarian or democratic attitudes respectively. MLRy 99.1, 2004 249 Plett begins with Friedrich Spielhagen's Problematische Naturen, the Goethean title of which has supplied her own, and In Reih' und Glied; the dubious heroes of both deviate considerably from Spielhagen's theoretical requirements. She continues somewhat unexpectedly with Adalbert Stifter's Witiko, whose hero refuses distinction and assertiveness in the interest ofthe commonweal; Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Jiirg Jenatsch, an unstable representation of the incompatibility of effective leadership with integrity; Friedrich Theodor Vischer's cranky Auch einer, which ironizes the biographies of great men and...

PREVENTION AND INSURANCE OF CONFLICT AND TERRORISM: ISSUES AND EVIDENCE FOR LATIN AMERICA

Political violence, conflict, terrorism cause severe dislocation to societies, often lead to losses of human lives and destroy economic assets. The causes of terrorism and conflict are very complex, often related to grievances associated with perceived social and economic injustices, the quest for political power and ethnic or religious motivations. The prevention of conflict and terrorism (C-T hereafter) is a very complex task that involves a combination of resources, intelligence capacities, institutional reforms that foster a culture of dialogue and peaceful resolution of conflict. Ultimately, economic progress and development are essential for peace and social stability.

Religious altruism and the living organ donor

Potential living organ donors who describe religious motivations as the basis for their donation, particularly in the absence of an emotional or genetic connection to the intended recipient, raise challenges for the transplant team who are more comfortable in assessing relational motivations than religious ones. This article provides a composite case scenario to illustrate some of the biases that may interfere with the assessment of the donor motivated by religious altruism and how religious altruism may be pathologized. The clinical challenges in assessing the religiously altruistic potential living donor are reviewed. Religious approaches to altruism and their implications for living organ donation are reviewed for a sample of the major world religions.

Las misiones interiores en la España Postridentina

This work attests the importance of the role that missionaries played in Postridentine Europe. The author studies the rethorical and theatrical aspects of their labour with which the missionaries tried to persuade the people, remarking that these expressions and methods were linked with other expressions of the Baroque Culture. On the other hand, popular missions were one of the principal tools to spread a devout model of life to the wider population. This new practice was sustained by the congregations founded by the Jesuits and Capucins in the villages, that encouraged particular devotional practices and a new kind of religious motives which are typical of the Postridentine period.

Geopolitical genesis and prospect of Zionism

Zionists take for granted and teach three central tenets: (1) the Jews invented Zionism, (2) the Jews are a Semitic people, and (3) the State of Israel should and will remain an exclusively Jewish state. This paper takes issue with the first claim and raises critical questions about the others. First, the paper presents Zionism and the Jewish Question as geopolitical children of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation conflict in Europe and the Euro-Arab/WesternIslamic colonial encounter. Second, it traces the non-Jewish origins of Zionism to Puritan England, the English-Dutch commercial wars, and Napoleon’s attempt to estrange the Jews from their European and Ottoman rulers in his plans to destroy England and Russia and dominate Europe. Third, it shows how the British articulated a set of imperialist imperatives and religious motives designed to make the Eastern Question fit the Jewish Question. Fourth, it examines the emergence of the Jewish Question in Russia in light of successive partitions of Poland and the interference of British Zionism in Eastern Europe. Fifth, it discusses the role of the Jewish Colonization Association in shuffling capital and labor between Europe, Russia, the Americas, and the Middle East. The paper concludes with some remarks on the overall prospect of Zionism in light of new perspectives about the non-Jewish genesis of Zionism, the non-Semitic origins of contemporary Jews, and the non-Zionist future of Palestine/Israel.

A five-year pregnancy

In June 1560, Pierre Boaistau, a French Renaissance writer, published a long and richly illustrated manuscript written in a beautiful italic script. It was published in Paris, but in the previous winter Boaistau travelled to England to present a specially prepared dedication manuscript of his work to Queen Elizabeth I who was said to be delighted by the gift.1