Science And Religion Research Articles

How the Science–Religion Interface of Christian Religious Leaders Shape Their Perceptions of Depression

This study explores the relationship between Christian religious leaders’ beliefs about the science and religion interface and their understanding of the causes and treatments for depression. We focus on Christian religious leaders because they often serve as first responders for congregants seeking help with mental health issues and are influential figures in maintaining the authority of religious institutions. Previous research has neglected the role of religious leaders’ perceptions of the science–religion relationship in shaping their views on mental health. Relying on responses from approximately 1200 Christian religious leaders from the National Survey of Religious Leaders in the United States, this study adopts ordinal logistic regression to examine how epistemological conflict, epistemic openness, and views of institutional conflict shape religious leaders’ interpretations of and treatments for depression. This study contributes to knowledge of science and religion, religious leaders, and mental health in the United States.

Science–Religion Interaction: Exploring the Grounds, Delineating a Framework

ABSTRACT The early inquiries on the science-religion relationship have focused exclusively on their epistemic aspects for describing the essence of their relationship. However, the recent theories include practical and social aspects of science and religion, and seek models that support plurality, complexity, and dynamic aspects of them. In this paper, I follow two aims. First, I want to explore the implications of the recent theories for the existence of an inevitable dynamic and fruitful interaction between science and religion. Second, I try to delineate a framework for conducting science–religion interactive projects that preserves the authority of both systems, and prevents vicious and illegitimate results.

Religious people view both science and religion as less epistemically valuable than non-religious people view science

ABSTRACT Many religious people deny any conflict between religion and science, but nevertheless report less trust in science than non-religious people. We address this puzzle using insights from goal systems theory. Goal systems theory suggests that, when people have more means of achieving a goal, they perceive each individual means as less instrumental. We translate this “instrumentality hypothesis” to differences in how religious and non-religious people perceive science and religion. Religious people—who use both science and religion as means to gain knowledge—may perceive both as moderately instrumental, and as less instrumental than non-religious people view science. We support the instrumentality hypothesis in studies where participants evaluate the capacity of science and religion to explain extraordinary phenomena (Study 1), fill gaps in knowledge (Study 2), answer life's big questions (Study 3), and to help avoid COVID-19 infection (Study 4). We also find that non-religious people overperceive religious people's trust in religion and underperceive religious people's trust in science as sources of knowledge (Study 5). Non-religious people think that religion deters trust in science at the expense of high trust in religion, but instead, the typical religious person avoids extreme epistemic reliance on any single source of knowledge.

Evolving belief and being human: The emergence of religion in science and theology

Every human society as well as almost all human life is infused with ethics. There is common acknowledgement that morality and ethics are indispensable in addressing the serious global challenges humanity is faced with today. However, we seemed to have lost our grip on what morality is. How do we best understand human morality and ethics? This research argues that responsible ethics rests on a credible understanding of what it means to be human. The following exploration of the emergence of religion within the science and religion discourse formed part of a series of three seminars that have as their main objective to address a giant void regarding ethical and moral reflection within our society. This research was part of the discourse of the first seminar with the following main research question: What do we learn from the empirical study of morality (in the evolutionary sciences, the neurosciences, cultural anthropology, sociology, and moral psychology) about the sources, functions and characteristics of morality, and its relation to religion? This study offers an exploration of our capacity for religious awareness and belief against the background of niche construction theory. The capacity for imagination seems to have contributed to human evolutionary success and consequently our religious disposition. This transdisciplinary study combines perspectives of some of the most prominent interlocutors in the contemporary discourse on the emergence of religious awareness. By integrating the numerous perspectives evident in this study, this research explores how evolutionary thought can be constructively appropriated to interdisciplinary theology and ethics.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article explores the origin of religious awareness and belief as part of a larger discourse on morality in history. The interdisciplinary conversation covers the fields of evolutionary anthropology and theology within the contemporary science-theology discourses.

The Relationship of Religiosity with Students' Critical Thinking Skills on the Subject of Stoichiometry

Education is a learning process that is important for human life in producing quality humans. In studying science, religious science is needed to maintain balance in order to give birth to good habits in the activities of each individual. Science and religion are two things that reinforce each other. Science is present is expected to provide evidence so that it will improve the quality of one's beliefs. Similarly, the presence of religion in science can make science more useful and increase its benefit. This study aims to see the relationship between religiosity and students' critical thinking skills in class XI IPA SMA Negeri 3 Binjai. The method used is an analytical method using the Pearson correlation test. The subjects in this study were grade XI students of SMA Negeri 3 Binjai which amounted to 107 students. The instrument used was a religiosity questionnaire with 15 statements and Using critical thinking skills questions on stoichiometry material totaling 18 questions. The results of the study found that the average level of students' critical thinking skills on stoichiometric material was 29.71 and the average level of student religiosity was 42.94. The correlation coefficient between religiosity and critical thinking skills obtained is 0.809 which means that there is a strong relationship between religiosity and critical thinking skills of students in class XI IPA SMA Negeri 3 Binjai.

Motivation of Santri to Study the Kitab Kuning at Islamic Boarding Schools

Every individual has internal conditions, where these internal conditions play a role in their daily activities. One of these internal conditions is motivation. In learning activities, motivation can be said to be the overall driving force within students which provides direction to learning activities, so that learning goals can be achieved. This research aims to analyze the motivation of students to study the Kitab Kuning at Islamic boarding schools. This research uses a qualitative method with a case study approach, data sources were taken through individual interviews with fifteen informants consisting of Islamic boarding school leaders, teachers and students. All data was analyzed using the Miles and Huberman technique. The results of the research obtained data and facts that the motivational conditions of students studying the Kitab Kuning at the Syekh Adimin Ar-Radji Taram Islamic boarding school varied greatly. These include, i) wanting to deepen religious knowledge, ii) making it easier to understand the science of aqidah, worship and morals, iii) there are also those whose motivation is wanting to become a scholar, iv) being able to read prayers for parents when both of them are gone and v) wanting to learn science religion and general science.

Science religion encounters, epistemic trespass, neighbourliness and overlapping domains: theorisation and quantitative evidence of extent

AbstractThis study advances a concept of science religion encounter (SRE), with preliminary theorisation and shares findings on the extent and nature of such encounters reported by secondary religious education and science teachers. SREs are interdisciplinary engagements in classrooms involving subject knowledge from more than one subject. The researchers hypothesised they may arise unexpectedly, when a pupil asks a question, or be teacher-planned and intended. This article further elaborates the concept of SRE with reference to the concepts of ‘epistemic trespassing’ (ET), epistemic neighbourliness, and overlapping domains, introducing these to the field of education. The study is contextualised in the school classroom with quantitative data gathered among beginning and experienced teachers measuring whether this ET in SRE topics enter the classroom via ‘spontaneity’ or via a ‘deliberateness’. This clarifies the different roles a teacher may play and offers considerations for teacher development when navigating an SRE in ways that potentially reduce lost learning.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s Perennialism Perspective for the Development of Religious Studies in Indonesia

One of phenomena that can be analyzed in modern life of human being nowadays is the dysfunction of religion in the social sphere and the development of science and technology. In the context of getting a solution on such modernity crisis, Seyyed Hossein Nasr offers perennial philosophy, by representing Islamic traditional wisdom in modern life of human beings who suffer from a loss of spiritual dimension. This research aims, first, to know the perspective of Seyyed Hossein Nasr's perennial philosophy, and, second, to explore the relevance of perennial philosophy in Seyyed Hossein Nasr's thought about the study of religion. The research results are: firstly, perennial philosophy is a monumental work of Seyyed Hossein Nasr that unites among religion of Islam, philosophy, and science. For Nasr, perennial philosophy is a universal knowledge; that applies eternal and lasting values or norms which emerged from religion throughout the history of human being. Secondly, Nasr offers perennial philosophy as a perspective for study on religions, especially Islam. According to Nasr, there are three responses, namely: firstly, to criticize modern human being whose non-spirituality caused by secularist paradigm of the West modern science and technology; secondly, excavation and reinforcement of the traditional wisdom; and, thirdly, unity or meeting point of all religions in eternal universal principles.

TEOLOGIA CA PARADIGMĂ COGNITIVĂ AUTONOMĂ

This paper argues that cognitive approaches made in science andtheology, and their results are only apparently divergent or in conflict, andthat, in fact, they are complementary. Therefore the two forms of culturemake a contribution equally important to man’s attempt to understand thereality, at its various levels, and discover the truth about himself, about theworld and what lies beyond the strictly physical environment of theexistence. The paper advocates the idea that the most profitable attitude, bothfor science and for theology is to know each other increasingly better and todialogue with one another, proceeding to a continuous exchange,professionally and in good faith between concepts, views, assumptions andtheir theories.

Iranian Scholars’ Contemporary Debate between Evolutionary Human Genesis and Readings of the Qur’an: Perspectives and Classification

While the science–religion debate on human creation has been widely explored in the Muslim world, Iranian Muslim opinions have been missed in the mainstream literature. To see whether they follow the lead of the majority of Muslim thinkers or not, here is an overview of the Qur’anic Perspective of Iranian Muslim Scholars. After reviewing the previously categorized approaches of Muslims encountering evolution mentioned in the literature, this paper will survey the Qur’anic verses related to the biological creation of man with the “scientific-lexical” method of all possible states. Afterward, the views of the most-cited Iranian scholars, such as Saḥābī, Ṭabāṭabā’ī, Muṭahharī, and Jawādī, will be located within this classification by citing reasons and textual pieces of evidence from their accounts that determine the differences provided by the majority of Muslims.

Religion and Politics: Challenges to the Social Scientific Study of Religion

Based on a literature review, this paper addresses how political science and sociology incorporate religion in their theories and research. A particular focus is placed on how both sciences theorise the relationship between religion and politics. The paper argues that political science and sociology struggle with incorporating religion into their main theories, which reflect different views on religion’s importance and its overall role in contemporary societies. Some key concepts, such as ‘politicisation’ and ‘religionisation’, are also discussed. A brief overview of the scholarship of religion in Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of communism is used as an example of how the radically changed social and political context was reflected in the scholarship. The paper’s final section summarises current debates on religion, populism and culture in political science and sociology. It shows how a new way of communicating political messages produces complex and contradictory references to religion. While this is captured in the literature by interpreting religion as a cultural identity marker, the argument is that this should not be dissociated from the role of secular actors in imposing cultural features on some religions or political features on others.

Meet the Hidden Jesus within you in Javanese spirituality and Namaste greeting

According to Ted Peters (2018), Public discourse today continues topropagate the simplistic idea that science and religion are engagedin a hopelessly unwinnable war. This is misleading. Science andreligion interact at so many different junctures and in so manydifferent ways that any simple generalization misguides us. Althoughthe present writer wrote several articles on cosmology and logic,actually he is not quite well versed in philosophy, especially to meetthe above tension mentioned by Ted Peters. Nonetheless, we cameup in a converging ideas toward such a dialogue between science,philosophy an and theology. Let me emphasize, that what isoutlined here is not a synthesis or syncretistic idea, but it is meantto be a better dialogical approach, in the sense of Buber. See alsoArion, Hivner (2018, 2011). The present article is a continuation toour three previous articles (Christianto & Chandra, 2021; Christianto,Smarandache, Tjandrah Simbolon, 2022; Christianto, 2022), as anintentional discussion of our understanding of classic work, PJ.Zoetmulder, Manunggaling Kawula Gusti. In particular, we discusshow Gospel of Thomas’s place among the other Four Gospels canbe an alternative way to interpret sedulur papat limo pancer as aknown principle held among adherents of Javanese spirituality.

Islamisasi Ilmu Pengetahuan dalam Bingkai Integrasi-Interkoneksi: Menguak Ide Islamisasi Ilmu Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi

This article intends to examine how the concept of integration-interconnection as a formula in overcoming the skeptical secularism out of the rationalism and empiricism. The Islamization of science that was initiated by Ismasil Raji al-Faruqi is a response from the secularism indication that have spread among Muslims, both at the economic, political, cultural and scientific levels. The spread of this concept within Muslims create malaism , which only accept all things what comes from the Western. Whereas Islam as a science religion has its own characteristics that are based on the principles of Qur'an and the Sunnah. The Contradiction of This epistemological is that Muslims should be able to rise up and resist the oppression carried out by Western with their secular concept. By using the library method, this research seeks to find the answer of knowledge problems accepted by Muslims by processing data sources, both primary and secondary sources. The primary source is the original work of Ismail Raji al-Faruqi, while the most important source of sekunder is in the form of supporting data related to this research. The data processing is expected to solve the problems in Muslims understanding with scientific integration-interconnection concept. These integration-interconnection have become a very important basis for finding two opposing scientific poles, that is Islamic and secular in nature.

KEBENARAN ILMIAH DALAM HUKUM

According to Michael Williams, there are five theoretical formulations of truth: Correspondence Truth, Coherence Truth, Pragmatic Truth, Performative Truth, and Propositional Truth. In the history of Western philosophy, actual knowledge corresponds to reality, while in Eastern philosophy, proper knowledge is the knowledge that saves. There are three Institutes of Truth, namely: Science, Philosophy, and Religion, all of which have points of similarity on the one hand and issues of difference on the other. The topics of similarity include: Neither Science nor Philosophy nor Religion aim at least the same thing: Truth. With their respective characteristics, Science, philosophy, and Religion seek the truth about nature and include humans and God. The points of difference, including Both Science and Philosophy, both result from the same source, namely human reason, while Religion comes from divine revelation. Both Science and Philosophy begin with an attitude of doubt or disbelief. Religion begins with an attitude of trust and faith. Both the truth of Science, and the fact of Philosophy, are relative (relative). At the same time, the reality of Religion is absolute (absolute) because Religion is a revelation sent down by the One Who is True, Absolute, and Perfect.

EXPLAINING EVIL IN THE BIOSPHERE: ASSESSING SOME EVOLUTIONARY THEODICIES FOR MUSLIM THEISTS

AbstractThe problem of evil is one of the most difficult and protracted problems for the trio of Abrahamic faiths that uphold the classical conception of an “omni‐competent God”—omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. In its standard formulation in the literature, the existence or character of God is brought into direct contention with the existence of evil. One subset of this problem, reinvigorated by recent discussions within the intersection between the philosophy of religion and philosophy of science, is the evolutionary problem of evil or the “Darwinian problem of evil.” This article analyzes this subset of the evolutionary problem of evil hitherto unexplored in any depth within contemporary Islamic theology and proposes some possible evolutionary theodicies that Muslim theists can utilize based on core doctrines and other precepts of the Qur’ān as well as ideas developed within contemporary evolutionary theism and environmental ethics. In this way, the article offers a contribution to the currently small but growing body of theodicy literature within contemporary Islamic ethics and environmentalism.

Review: A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture, by Amy B. Voorhees

As an archivist who focuses on the history of the Christian Science religion and its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), I am always delighted to see new books on these frequently misunderstood subjects. Award-winning scholar Amy Voorhees has produced a fine discussion of both in A New Christian Identity.I recommend the book, with a few caveats, to anyone interested in learning about Eddy and how she and her church evolved in the United States of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is a fairly short book, not intended as either a full-length biography or history. It is crammed with information about Eddy and her accomplishments. While this results in passages where the prose is a bit dense (and intense), Voorhees lightens up as the work proceeds, resulting in a pretty good read.The author is focused on Eddy’s major work, her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Voorhees explains that her goal is to provide “historical context for aspects of [Science and Health’s] development as her religion coalesced around it and the Bible in North America” (xi). Indeed, Voorhees is selective in covering particular aspects of Eddy, her book, and her church. While I do not agree with all her choices, her motivation does not strike me as rooted in partiality. The general approach is sympathetic, but it is not biased.Does Voorhees give the promised “historical context”? A study of a few hundred pages does not allow for a lot of detail on the many and varied Christian (and non-Christian) activities in the Boston (and New England) of Eddy’s day. There, Congregationalists, Baptists, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Theosophists, Spiritualists, and others held sway, building and growing lively congregations. What a remarkable place for Christian Science to be born, and to thrive! The vast historical context presents the author with a dilemma. While one cannot ignore the New England influences on Eddy, by the mid-1880s Christian Science was expanding rapidly throughout the United States, and within another decade would begin to grow in Europe.Voorhees has chosen not to focus on one of the most interesting aspects of Eddy’s career as a religious leader: her work as pastor/preacher of her church during its early days (late 1870s to 1880s). Eddy at this time was mainly living in Boston, regularly preaching at services, and definitely interacting with both friendly and hostile pastors in the area. As a woman and as the founder of a church that many viewed as unchristian and blasphemous, she became a local, and national, celebrity. Voorhees’ focus, rather, is on the culture from which Christian Science and its followers emerged.My primary caution with this book is that in the need to summarize and condense a mass of information, some omissions and factual errors have occurred. For example, Voorhees’ brief reference to “the prolific Israel Pickens” (180) appears to assume that he was a convert to Christian Science from Judaism, but he was not. Pickens, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Mobile, Alabama, was a Southerner and a former Episcopalian. He may, in fact, be a better example of upper-class whites who were attracted to Christian Science in the first decades of the twentieth century.The book concludes with a brief essay titled “Christian Science Identity.” It is a lively and fascinating summary of the book, bringing in tantalizing mentions of various notables and scholars who have written about Eddy and Christian Science. It is a stirring conclusion and I recommend reading it as both an introduction and conclusion.One engaging feature of this book is the very Victorian-sounding abstracts that head every chapter. They are both witty and informative. For Chapter Twelve, “Holy and Unholy Challenges: Divine Healing and Theosophy (1886–1890),” we read:In which divine healers and Christian Scientists share some views and also elbow one another over actual or perceived differences; in which Eddy’s Christian commitments and the esoteric convictions of Theosophists mutually repel one another; in which emergent New Thought accommodates the theosophically inflected eclectic healing views neither Christian Science nor divine healing can absorb; and in which the leading public perception of Christian Science as an unorthodox Christianity continues to morph into multiple conflicting definitions by decade’s end (139).Happily, it seems clear that the author plans to pursue further investigations into the cultural influences on Christian Science and the clashes that Eddy, her book, and her followers had with Victorian America. I look forward to reading them.A New Christian Identity will captivate, surprise, and inform anyone interested in American religious history, women in religion, and New Thought.

THE TERRITORIES OF THINKING AND FEELING: RETHINKING RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND REASON WITH ALISTER McGRATH

AbstractAs Alister McGrath has argued across a lifetime of work, we need to approach the binaries that have been handed down to us—personal/academic, emotional/intellectual, secular/religious—with a healthy skepticism toward the integrity of their boundaries, attending instead to the contact zones between them. This article connects McGrath's body of work to what I call “cogency theory,” an approach that rejects the thinking/feeling binary itself. It begins with a survey of how McGrath understands rationality—not only as multiple, but as defined, in meaningful ways, by feeling. This is illustrated by reexamining McGrath's controversy with Richard Dawkins, analyzing their debate in terms of how the argument itself comes to feel. This new paradigm allows us to supersede petty antagonisms built into contemporary culture—like the presumed science–religion conflict—and refocus on overarching concerns like the climate crisis. The article concludes with a question about the extent to which beliefs and “worldviews” define how we—either as groups or individuals—can make or unmake ecological disaster.

The Role of Religion in Educational Science; An Analysis toward the Modern Science

wacana sains (sains) dalam tradisi intelektual Islam sebenarnya telah dilakukan oleh para ilmuwan muslim. Berbagai eksperimen ilmiah dilakukan oleh para ilmuwan guna menemukan tanda-tanda kebesaran Tuhan dalam ciptaan-Nya. Selama dekade terakhir ini, para ilmuwan Muslim telah mencoba untuk memikirkan kembali identitas Islam yang disebut 'Ilmu Islam'. Ditulis dalam artikel ilmuwan baru bahwa perdebatan yang telah terjadi di seluruh dunia tentang masalah ini, dan disarankan untuk menemukan kembali Ilmu Islam yang merupakan salah satu tugas intelektual yang paling sulit tetapi paling penting, inilah yang para ilmuwan, intelektual, filosof dan ilmuwan Muslim. Masalah sains telah dipelajari oleh cendekiawan Muslim selama lebih dari seribu tahun sampai sarjana Barat mendapat manfaat besar dari membaca literatur yang melimpah tentang sains. Namun, sains modern saat ini kurang bernilai dan kurang pendidikan yang benar tentang mengidentifikasi apa sebenarnya sains itu. Ketiadaan nilai dan pendidikan dalam cangkokan ilmu pengetahuan modern ini kemudian menggerogoti nilai-nilai dasar Islam yang bertentangan dengan kesadaran sejarah dalam Islam. ummah. Tulisan ini mencoba menganalisis landasan-landasan dasar ilmu keislaman yang mulai dikaji ulang. Dengan pendekatan deskriptif dan analisis, peneliti mencoba menggali sejarah bagaimana nilai pendidikan Islam tidak pernah lepas dari ilmu pengetahuan.

Monism and the Religion of Science

Monism was not just a philosophical outlook, but also an early twentieth-century new religious movement. Founded by the internationally renowned evolutionary theorist Ernst Haeckel, it was supposed to be a “Religion of Science” that repudiated matter-mind dualism in favor of reverence for a divinized Mother Nature. This article traces the genesis of the German Monist League and how it was transplanted to the United States by the publisher, Paul Carus. Although readers of this journal are likely to know about new religions that embrace “pseudoscience,” the surprise is that Monism had followers with significant scientific renown including multiple Nobel Prize-winning scientists, famous philosophers of science, and even a celebrated sociologist. Scholars of secularism or science and religion will want to know about how Haeckel and his followers constructed a hybrid Scientific Faith or Secular Church that this article demonstrates went on to provide the foundation for professionalizing American philosophy.

Forgiveness and the Naturalistic Approach to Religion: A Contextual View of the Problem of Evil

Cognitive Science of Religion and evolutionary approaches in the study of religion have opened the rapidly developing field of naturalistic explanation of religion. Since its inception, this empirically driven project has undergone a slow evolution, giving rise to the view that explaining religion is not a matter of accounting for a single (cognitive or functional) trait, but rather involves explaining a very complex repertoire of patterns of thinking and behavior. In this paper, we would like to provide a philosophical analysis of the highly complex problem of forgiveness from the Christian religious and naturalistic perspectives. Our analysis demonstrates a crucial way to understand the concepts of guilt, forgiveness and reconciliation as discussed in the context of Christian theology. At the same time, we also discuss certain strengths and weaknesses of the naturalistic accounts. Finally, we formulate some suggestions for advancing the science–religion dialogue on the problem of evil.