Religious Viewpoints Research Articles

Religious and non-religious issues of medically assisted reproduction in France: Sexuality, incest and descent.

It is generally held that assisted reproductive technology has dissociated procreation from sexuality — just as the advent of the pill dissociated sexuality from procreation. My study will show, on the contrary, that sexuality in all its dimensions, including the physical dimension of the circulation of bodily substances as well as the psychological dimension of fantasy, is far from having been removed from new methods of reproduction, even if they do indeed dispense with sexual intercourse, because sexuality cannot be reduced to the sexual act. The circulation of gametes has an often-denied sexual dimension which is revealed in the questions raised by monotheistic religions concerning these techniques. I analyse the position of Sunni Muslim jurists with regard to different reproductive techniques. Using a cross-disciplinary approach, I combine this specific study with a comparative analysis from a religious viewpoint, putting Sunni Islam into perspective with other monotheisms, specifically Judaism and Roman Catholicism, as well as the other branch of Islam represented by Shi’ism. As an anthropologist, I performed a field survey in France on medically assisted reproduction, particularly at the Centre for the Study and Preservation of Human Eggs and Sperm in Paris on the donation of gametes. I will show that the questions raised by monotheist religions regarding medically assisted reproduction are very often the same questions that individuals resorting to these techniques in France ask themselves about the concepts of adultery, incest and descent, particularly when the reproductive process involves a third-party donor.

For the People, By the Viewpoints? Realism and Idealism in Public Reason

Abstract Since John Rawls, public reason theorists have attempted to show how liberal political norms could be acceptable to people with diverse religious and ethical viewpoints. However, these theories overlook the importance of the distinction between acceptability to realistic people and acceptability to viewpoints, which matters because public reason theories are committed to the former, but only deliver the latter, thereby failing to justify liberal norms. Public reason theories therefore face a dilemma: abandon realistic people and lose normative appeal, or retain realism and find a new way to justify liberalism.

집회서 48:17-22의 히스기야 터널에 관한 고찰 - 히브리어 본문과 칠십인역의 본문 비교 -

In this paper, I will search the story of Hezekiah’s tunnel in the Book of Ben Sira called Ecclesiasticus as well as in the biblical texts, comparing the Hebrew text and the Septuagint to discern differences in the translation among the Korean Common Translation, the Korean Catholic Bible, and the New American Bible Revised Edition.<BR> Hezekiah was one of the great kings of Judah, at least from the religious viewpoint of the Deuteronomist, the Chronicler, and Ben Sira. Hezekiah bored a tunnel from the Spring of Gihon to the Pool of Siloam (2Ki 20:20; 2Ch 32:30), thus assuring Jerusalem a good supply of water when Sennacherib attacked Judah and surrounded the city of Jerusalem.<BR> We can find this story of Hezekiah in the Book of Ben Sira 48:17-22. Ben Sira was originally written in Hebrew around the 2nd century BCE, and was later translated into Greek as one book of the Septuagint. Between 1896 and 1900, many fragments of Ben Sira in Hebrew were identified by scholars among the vast collection of materials recovered from the Cairo synagogue genizah.<BR> Ben Sira 48:17c “and he hewed through the rocks with bronze” is evidently referring to the boring of the tunnel from the Gihon to the Pool of Siloam. This resembles the description of the Siloam inscription. The verb חצב(hew through) and the noun צוד(rock) both occur twice in the Siloam inscription found six meters before the exit of Hezekiah’s tunnel in 1880, and it describes the dramatic meeting between the workers who have completed the tunneling.<BR> While the Hebrew text declares ‘the Most High God

THE CONTEXT OF COVID-19: ISLAM’S STAND BASED ON THE H’ADITH

The appearance of COVID-19 as a pandemic has shocked the whole world recently since the ending part of 2019. Although different views are found available from different religious viewpoints, the subject has attracted the whole world with the exercise of communal dialogue in India particularly when some cases have been reported to be found in the participants of Tablighi Jamaat (an unorganized Islamic reform movement) gathered at Nizamuddin Markaz (center) in Delhi. Whatever may be the purpose of those communal talks amongst people trying to make either the conservative Muslims responsible or the government administration concerned, it is the duty of a Muslim to make it clear in front of the world the views concerning pandemic based on the hadiths. The hadiths are the collection of Islamic traditions that contain the sayings, advice, or instructions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The paper is an effort to present the stand of Islam on pandemic and infectious diseases and how a Muslim should react to a COVID-19 like circumstances.

Phaedo 62b

No final do prólogo do Fédon (61b-63b), há uma tensão entre desejo de morte e proibição do suicídio entendida por Cebes como um contrassenso manifesto. Contudo, o que se mostra um disparate é na realidade o recurso platônico para introduzir grandes temas que serão trabalhados ao longo do diálogo. Delinear-se-á, numa curiosa trama de mythos e lógos, um ponto crucial que reverbera no restante do diálogo e que possui, com efeito, grande envergadura para o pensamento filosófico e religioso posterior: trata-se do passo 62b, no qual se diz que “nós homens estamos numa certa de phrourá”. Como entender essa afirmação, cuja obscuridade é reconhecida pelo próprio Sócrates? Parece-nos que a compreensão desse passo depende da interpretação e, por conseguinte, da tradução que se dá para o termo phrourá. Afinal, trata-se de prisão, cárcere, custódia, posto, ou serviço de guarda? Devido às muitas controvérsias que esse vocábulo tem causado desde a Antiguidade, e na confiança de que essa discussão ainda está longe de encontrar seu termo, este artigo tem como objetivo não só analisar a semântica desse vocábulo grego, mas também articulá-la com o passo no qual está inserida. E o pano de fundo: uma visão religiosa particular que afirma o divino ser o que cuida dos homens. Em suma, espera-se que esse debate proporcione recursos para novas pesquisas e reflexões férteis sobre a filosofia platônica.

A Discourse Analysis of Cine-Politics from a Religious and Ethnic Viewpoint

Cinema has a significant impact on the lives of people in this contemporary world. To interact with people of differed communities, cinematic representation of varied ethnic communities plays a vital role in determining the image that the world perceives of them. This study attempts to look into three aspects: First being the nationalism discourse through films in the cinema of the third world countries. Secondly, it analyses the negative representation of various ethnic minority groups by Hollywood and how it directly influences their perspective. Finally, it inquiries into the ethnic cinema created by these groups to re-establish their image employing a progressive representation of their in-groups. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijhss.12.1.1

POVERTY REDUCTION BY ISLAMIC WAQF SYSTEM

Human development progress involves the capacity to generate income and translate it into capabilities, including better health and education outcomes. This process plays out throughout the lifecycle. Each person’s development starts early—even before birth, with nutrition, cognitive development and education opportunities for infants and children. It continues with formal education, sexual health and safety from violence before entering the labour market. For the poorest people the lifecycle is an obstacle course that reinforces deprivations and exclusions. This article deals with such global problem as poverty and gives a solution to this problem from religious viewpoint, as the religion is one of the drivers of humanity and economic activity.

Editor's Introduction

We live in a world that seems increasingly less empathetic, trusting, and humane. Calls in Europe to ban or deport African refugees fleeing poverty and despair have grown louder as has the drumbeat to prevent asylum seekers from finding safe haven in the United States. The Internet is awash with angry and dehumanizing screeds about various threatening “others.” Differences in political and cultural perspectives and practices are routinely framed not as vitalizing but endangering and intolerable. Political rhetoric in the age of the tweet descends into an endless stream of lies and counter accusations of “fake news.” Questioning of scientific authority from climate change to hurricane forecasts to vaccinations receives prominent support including from the highest levels of the government. How, we ask ourselves, should we humanists respond in such a cultural and political climate and where can we seek concepts and models to push back against these destructive ideas and forces? The contributors to this issue each in their own way provide at least some answers by looking to past writings and by promoting new ideas that seek to break down seemingly intractable boundaries between “us” and “them” and science and faith and to open a pathway to empathy and trust.Jonathan Kahn recounts a recent effort at Vassar College to counter the ugliness of the picketing of the school by the infamously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church by organizing a public campus-wide foot washing. Although this “quixotic” effort failed to materialize, Kahn argues that this attempt to emphasize emotive and embodied empathy grounded in religious traditions and supported by affect theory has much potential. He argues that in light of the numerous highly emotionally charged issues impacting campuses and society (including gender, sexual identity, and racial discrimination, “date rape culture,” and accusations of demagoguery and hate speech) such approaches offer a powerful alternative to traditional responses by fully engaging with rather than rationalizing away the intense feelings such issues raise.Next, James Smith provocatively explores ways to understand the plight of émigrés undertaking physically and psychologically perilous journeys seeking a better life in a new land yet desperately hungry for the comforts of home. How best can they (and we) develop an appreciation for what he labels an “émigré spirituality” that reconciles and honors the mixture of human longing and estrangement that characterizes their experiences? Smith looks to the writings of earlier North African émigrés Albert Camus in his work The Stranger and Saint Augustine of Hippo in his letters and Confessions to explore ways of conceptualizing the real need for the cocoon of indifference to “the life is the road” and the hope for a sense of homeness that characterizes “the migrant soul … that is aware of its dependence and is animated by hope.”Kyle Winkler's essay “A World Made More Sufferable” is a meditation on the connections and differences between trust, rhetoric, and ordinary language. Grounded in thoughtful readings of ancient texts, predominantly the Iliad and Sophocles's play Philoctetes, as well as more recent theorists, he blends philosophy, classicism, and cultural studies to illuminate the relations between everyday rhetoric and trust. He also explores the ways the former can be marshalled in ways that can reestablish trust and thus a tolerable society with the possibility of human advancement.Finally, Christopher White's fascinating essay uncovers the ways Christians and other believers in Europe and America worked to reconcile new scientific discoveries, from electricity to the mathematical study of space to quantum mechanics, to their traditional religious values in ways that let them find intersections between the temporal world and higher plane transcendence. Rather than seeing the age of science as antithetical to religiosity, White instead reveals how new secular scientific discoveries and ideas actually stimulated new forms of spiritual thinking and allowed many to reconcile older religious viewpoints with a modern scientific sensibility.We conclude the issue with interpretative reviews of recent films and books. R.J. Cardullo reviews the films Lila Says by Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri and My Summer of Love by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski as examples of using non-exploitative “serious” sex and sexuality to advance larger significant social themes. Lindsay DiCuirci reviews Ezra Tawil's Literature, American Style: The Originality of Imitation in the Early Republic and its exploration of the impacts of eighteenth-century transatlantic literary exchange.Collectively, though disparate in content and approach, all these works help us better recognize that the counter response to our increasingly polarized and polemicized atmosphere lies in appreciating that rationalism and emotionality, feelings of alienation and homeness, trust and rhetoric, and science and religion should not be seen as fundamentally antithetical but as at times competing and at times reconcilable parts of what it means to be human.

“Wonderful”, “Hot”, “Good” Priests: Clergy on Contemporary British TV and the New Visibility of Religion Thesis

This article examines the “new visibility of religion” thesis through a case study of recent depictions of priests and ministers in British television drama and comedy. It focuses on four award-winning shows produced between 2009 and 2019 with clergy as central characters: Broadchurch, Broken, Fleabag and Rev. Clergy on these shows are depicted positively, in ways that contrast with portrayals in the 1990s and earlier 2000s. The shows demonstrate an active sympathy for, and engagement with, theological themes, and awareness of the important social role that clergy play in inner-city parishes. While some elements of these depictions support the idea of a “new visibility”, at the same time, they reiterate narratives of continuing religious decline in Britain. Rather than unproblematically celebrating faith, the shows use religion to critique neoliberal welfare policy and sacralise notions of community. This “new visibility” is also shown to contribute to the continued invisibility of some religious viewpoints in the media. This article concludes that despite these limitations, recent portrayals of clergy offer new opportunities for religious debate and conversation, particularly within media and fan commentary.

Near-Death Experience among Iranian Muslim Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Survivors.

Background:Near-Death Experience (NDE) refers to a broad range of subjective experiences associated with forthcoming death. The majority of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) survivors experience NDEs. It seems that near-death events are experienced differently by people with different cultural and religious viewpoints. Thus, this study aimed to explain NDEs in Iranian Muslim CPR survivors.Materials and Methods:A qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological approach influenced by Ricoeur was used to understand the meaning of CPR survivors' NDEs. Eight survivors were interviewed in private. The study was conducted in southeast Iran. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used for data collection, and probing questions were added when necessary. The duration of the interviews was between 40 and 65 min. According to Lindseth and Norberg, in the naive understanding phase, we read the interviews several times for achieving naive understanding. In the structural analysis phase, the whole text is divided into meaningful units. Finally, the researchers formulated a comprehensive understanding of the contextualization of the text.Results:Four main themes emerged including 1) pleasing experiences along with flying and seeing light, 2) the experience of transport to the beyond, 3) out-of-body experience, and 4) reviewing life and memories in a religious context.Conclusions:Iranian Muslim CPR survivors, reported NDEs, much similar to those reported by survivors in Western countries with different theistic religions. This means that medical professionals dealing with these patients need to be aware of such experiences in Iranian Muslims.

The Oxford Handbook of the Writings of the Hebrew Bible

The Oxford Handbook of the Writings of the Hebrew Bible

PEMIKIRAN FAZLUR RAHMAN TENTANG PENDIDIKAN DAN RELEVANSINYA DALAM DUNIA MODERN

Pragmatic education thought-instrumental is a philosophic point of view that blends with the religious viewpoint of abstract speculation in outlining the education. One of renewing Islamic education is Fazlur Rahman. According to him, the goal of Islamic education are as renewal which is the initial step in the Islamization for all aspects of human life. &#x0D; The study of library (library research) i.e. research sourced from material libraries using a qualitative approach. In this case, the author does exploration of a number of primary data as well as secondary data. The author does an analysis of the concept of Islamic education prespective Fazlur Rahman and relevance against the modern world. &#x0D; The concept of educational thought Fazlur Rahman i.e. the Qur'an as a guide in resolving every problem and the answer and make the human person that are creative, have moral values in accordance with the Qur'an. Whereas, education as an alternative to the secular science by receiving updates and tried to enter it with Islamic concepts as for Islamic education renewal effort started from the educational objectives, educational system, learners, educators and the means of education. The relevance of educational thought on modern world Fazlur Rahman now is integration between religion and discrimination through public education, omission of religion and public education, this has been done wrong by the College namely IAIN with try to follow the thinking of education Fazlur Rahman dare change the State Islamic University (UIN).

Pseudo-Radicalism and the De-Radicalization of Educated Youth in Indonesia

This article discusses a recent phenomenon of radicalization among university students in Indonesia, with special attention to what may be called “pseudo-radicalists” (i.e., a group of students who have been exposed to radical ideologies); however, they are not strongly grounded in an exclusive and extreme religious viewpoint that justifies militant attitudes and violent actions. We carefully and critically examine the extent to which educated youth have been infiltrated by radical influences and how they de-radicalized themselves. Our research includes seven government tertiary institutions identified by the National Agency for Combating Terrorism or Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Terorisme as having been inflicted by radicalism, namely, Universitas Indonesia, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Institut Pertanian Bogor, Universitas Diponegoro, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Universitas Airlangga, and Universitas Brawijaya. By situating our case study within the existing literature on radicalization and de-radicalization, we hope that this article will enrich our perspectives and shed some light on crucial issues facing educated youth, especially within tertiary campuses.

PRAKSIS POLITIK NABI MUHAMMAD SAW (Sebuah Tinjaun Teori Politik Modern dan Ketatanegaraan)

This paper examines the praxis (actions) of the Prophet Muhammad in the phase of Mekka and Madina with the viewpoint of modern political theory. The aim is to provide a theoretical and rational explanation that the actions of the Prophet can not only be seen from a religious viewpoint but can also be seen from a political perspective in measures of political and state theory. One of the Prophet's political actions in the Mecca phase was to build agreements with representatives from the city of Yastrib in the event of the first and second Bai'at Aqabah. The event in the size of political science can be called a social contract, namely building a social agreement to form a joint political entity. So that the event is considered as the first fundamental foundation of the building of the Islamic State. Politically, the Bai'at event can be read like a meeting of two interests in one historical momentum. First, the interests of Muhammad as a messenger of Allah to transmit Islamic teachings to the people of Yastrib. Second, the interests of the Yatsrib community for the presence of a leader who was able to mediate in the social conflict between them - a conflict between the Aus tribe and the never-ending Khazraj tribe. While in the Medina phase, the Prophet's political action was to build a written agreement as a common legal basis that became a guideline for the people of Medina in acting, both socially and politically. This political document is called Shahifah in the original text and later experts call it the Medina constitution, which is the basis for the formation of a state for the Muslim community in Madina.

Homosexuality as a Psychological Problem in "Am I a Feminist or a Womanist" by Staceyann Chinn

: Recently, homosexuality has become a very widespread phenomenon in the world even in the eastern Islamic societies though it is considered a forbidden behavior. It is, therefore, necessary to search behind this problem. The current paper aims at exploring the socio-political aspect of poetry as related to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community. The analysis will be conducted through the poem A Feminist or a Womanist by Stacey Ann Chinn which is actually a warning against such approaches. Namely, she does so by developing the poem over an imaginary conversation with another woman who is asking her about her lesbianism. So, as she is being asked in a manner that she finds offensive, she replies to the imaginary conversation partner that she is not asking the right questions. She considered that the issue is not about being lesbian but about being a woman. She basically projects the idea that the problem is in womanhood, not in the fact that she is a lesbian and/or feminist. However, as there are two viewpoints to this behavior-- one is responded to it while the other one is against it, this paper is going to show the religious viewpoint in both Islamic religion and Christianity as well as the medical viewpoints regarding it through discussing the biological and psychological factors behind this disease which actually Chin herself suffers from.

Religions Viewpoints of Khalil Jubran (Khalil Gibran)

Jubran Khalil Jubran was one of the thousands Lebanese youth who emigrated with his family to the United States because of inappropriate social, political and financial situations. Using his great potentialities, he became on of the most influential figures of the world in thinking, literary, and art dimensions.&#x0D; This study attempts to investigate 1)the influential and challenging character of Khalil Jubran in the Arab world, Europe, and America; 2) the challenging religious and literary viewpoints presented by Khalil Jubran; 3) his distinguished and unique viewpoints about ontology, religion, human, and society; 4) having freedom of religious expression with a specific and non-imitative style; 5) management and guidance of the Northern Mahjar academy; 6) great realization of humanistic and moral attitudes in his works; 7)deep contemplation in human mental and behavioral states and materializing them in different works of poetry, prose and essay; and 8)lack of religious and sectarian prejudice. Although he was born to a catholic family, his personality reflected Christianity thinking, Islam, and Buddhism; and great figures such as Jesus, Imam Ali, Buddha, Abolala Moeri, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Coleridge, Nietzsche, famous European and American novelist provided him with highly valuable experiences. A lot of his viewpoints are consistent with Islamic views. A few inconsistencies are, however, observed in relation to transpiration of the soul or transmogrification, a global single or common religion, contradiction between propagating religious unity and advocacy of legitimacy of multiplicity in thinking and morality; giving love to all humans even to the cruel and murderers! and frangibility and instability of religious beliefs because of integration of the origin of his thought, which will be investigated and criticized in this study.

A Locus of Dialogue: the Catholic School in a Pluralist World

A Locus of Dialogue: the Catholic School in a Pluralist World Brian Flannery It is generally accepted that the levels of Catholic patronage in Irish education are out of kilter with the profile of Ireland’s new demographic. The current levels, put at ninety-three per cent at primary and almost fifty per cent for secondary, reflect an Ireland of some decades past. The increase in immigration has brought new people into the country and a once largely homogeneous nation now finds itself enriched by a new diversity of faiths and racial groupings. Another and more profound change, in an educational context, is the rise of secularism and an increase in the number of people who identify themselves as having no faith.1 The pervasiveness of Catholic schools, it could be argued, does not meet the needs of these new populations. We are living in a time-lag of sorts, as educational provision has not caught up with developments in Irish society. Whilst the responsibility for educational provision lies with the government and not with the Catholic Church – although the DES (Department of Education and Skills) can at times be quite disingenuous on this point – Catholic schools are currently faced with a very real challenge, which will only intensify as these trends continue to grow. Even allowing for the willingness on the part of the bishops to divest patronage to groups like Educate Together, there still remains a large number of Catholic schools that have to cope with the diversity of a pluralist Ireland. How does an institution which was established to educate the children of one faith-tradition respond to the new reality of having very mixed populations in its classrooms? Indeed, how does it respond to populations who are actively unhappy that no accommodation can be found that respectfully acknowledges their particular faith tradition or their desire for no ‘religious’ input at all? What to do? Professor Lieven Boeve of the Catholic University of Leuven has developed a very interesting and helpful framework by which to examine the identity A Locus of Dialogue: the Catholic School in a Pluralist World Studies • volume 108 • number 429 47 options available to Catholic institutions in a pluralising cultural context. He proposes that there are a number of responses that a school institution can make. In the analysis that follows, broad brush strokes will be used to describe each response and to make links with the Catholic educational scene in Ireland. Inevitably, this overview will simplify the richness of the typology from Leuven, but the commentary will hopefully serve to encourage reflection and discussion on the state of Catholic schools at present. It might be useful to consider which response most accurately reflects the reader’s own experience of Catholic schools as they see them and which response they find themselves most drawn to for the future. Institutional secularisation In this response the school is very attuned to changes taking place in wider society. As Christianity slowly disappears from the wider culture, there is a comparable erosion of Catholic identity within the school. The school population becomes increasingly mixed and inclusive of other religious outlooks and philosophies of life. In this new scenario, rather than promote a particular identity the school begins to downplay all identity in an effort to be ‘neutral’ and ‘inclusive’. Religious viewpoints become a private matter, and the school avoids all discourse around its founding mission. The process is implicit rather than deliberate, but it is only a matter of time before the preferential position of all things ‘Catholic’ is no longer recognised and then the names, symbols and rituals are all slowly discarded. Religious instruction is abandoned and the school instead offers broad courses in comparative cultural and personal formation. The school becomes colourless. It is effectively secular. In short – the school goes with the larger cultural flow. In the context of Irish Catholic schools the indicators of such a process might be the absence of the following: regular school liturgies and retreats, a meaningful Religious Education programme, explicit mention of the school’s mission on open days and school gatherings, little or no staff formation on ethos-related themes and an arm’s length relationship with...

Max Weber on Russia: Between Modern Freedom and Ethical Radicalism

The Weberian writings on the Russian Revolutions have been mostly overlooked by scholars, and treated as secondary within the large corpus of Max Weber’s sociological and political texts. Nonetheless, they deal with a central question in Weber’s work: the destiny of freedom in late modernity. While questioning the chances of success of the liberal struggle in Russia, Weber turns back to the moment in which modern freedom emerged in history, singling out the specific conditions that made it possible. Among these, a very central (although also very neglected) role is played by what Weber calls “a particular religious viewpoint.” Instead of being a result of economic development (Weber refuses the thesis according to which capitalism is necessarily emancipatory and bounded to democracy), or of an idea of tol-erance grounded on indifference (as a certain interpretation of liberalism would suggest), modern freedom has its cen-tral birthplace in religious radicalism, in particular in the puritan one. Weber seems to suggest that modern (that is, negative) freedom is born in a position of ethical intransigence, when religious virtuosi refuse to obey to political (i.e. worldly) authority in order to follow their own conscience, that is God’s voice. In order to better comprehend this pecu-liar link, the article investigates the Weberian conception of modern freedom as it emerges from his writings on Russia, seeking to deepen the relationship between modern freedom and ethical radicalism.

Focus and Locus of Pilgrimage Tourism at Santaneshwor Mahadev Temple, Lalitpur

This study explains prospects and constraints of pilgrimage tourism at Santaneshwor Mahadev temple located in Godavari Municipality, Lalitpur. In doing so, quantitative case study methodology is applied. Necessary data are collected from 123 respondents (60 local residents, 60 tourists &amp; 3 hotel owners) selected convenniencely, randomly and purposively. The result indicates that this temple is famous from religious and cosmological view points. And also famous for becoming 360 degree scenic view points having good networking of road accessibility. Tourist arrival in the study area is favorable in all season. However, tourism activities in this area found minimum. Majority of the local people belongs to Brahman caste and engaged in subsistence farming. They have no clear-cut idea for developing and promoting tourism activities. There is lack of basic tourist facilities like; tourist center, modern toilets, clean drinking water, restaurants, accommodation facilities, foreign exchange etc. Hence, awareness programs should be implemented in local communities and different facilities must be offered for promoting religious tourism. And better to prepare master plan by concerned authority to make Santaneshwor Mahadev temple as attractive pilgrimage tourism destination.

Does Religion Predict Health-Promoting Behaviors in Community-Dwelling Elderly People?

As the aging phenomenon gains importance in many societies, regular health-promoting activities by the elderlies become more crucial for disability reduction and their health promotion. Religious viewpoints and perspectives can have an influence on the individuals' assessment of life events. Recent studies show a correlation between religiosity and mental health. However, there is limited number of studies on the relationship between religiosity and health behaviors, especially in elderly. The purpose of this research is to evaluate religion's predictive power in health-improving behaviors of the elderly. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 316 community-dwelling elderly with the mean age of 67.9 ± 6.6years, who were functionally independent without cognitive or mental impairments. Health-promoting lifestyle profile 2 assessment (HPLP2) and Alport questionnaires were used to assess health behaviors and religious orientation, respectively. Data analysis was performed by independent T test and multiple linear regression models with SPSS version 23. An internal religious orientation was found in 71 elderly; this accounts for 22.5% of the study population. Based on the health behavior scoring 154 individuals, 48.8% of the study population obtained a score of higher or equal to 139. These individuals were placed on third quartile and higher. Among the health behavior components, "the health responsibility" was the only component related to religious orientation [internal 25.1 ± 6.6 (P < 0.001, r = 0.78) vs. external 22.6 ± 6.5 (P > 0.05, r = 0.22)]. Based on the multiple linear regression models, no significant relationship was found between total health behavior score and religious orientation. However, a significant relationship existed between the participants' health behaviors and some of their profile. The results indicate that despite good health behaviors in nearly half of the elderlies, no significant relationship was found between health behavior and religious orientation. The results suggest possible impact of other religion-related concepts including private religious behaviors, devotion, spiritual transcendence, religious adaptation, and religious traditions and experiences on the health behaviors. These concepts require further study for better understanding of their impact.