Secular Beliefs Research Articles

Measuring Religious Evil: Examining the Use of Single-Item Measures in Religious Research

Multiple-item indexes are ubiquitous within the sociology of religion. However, there are a growing number of articles in other disciplines that have advocated the use of single-item measures in specific circumstances. Using quantitative survey data taken from the United Kingdom, this paper contributes to this literature by exploring the impact of single and multiple item measures of religious evil on a series of social and political attitudes. The findings suggest that belief in the devil is the most consistent predictor within a multiple-item measure of religious evil and the multiple-item measure does not significantly outperform single-item measures. Indeed, the item “most evil in the world is caused by the devil” could be a more efficient measure of religious evil, particularly where it is combined with religious attendance. While further cross-cultural research on the impact of belief in religious evil remains necessary, the paper also finds some evidence to suggest that exploration of more secular beliefs in evil might be advantageous.

Supozycyjna koncepcja wiary religijnej Władysława Witwickiego

Władysław Witwicki’s suppositional conception of religious faith was presented extensively in his book La foi des éclairés [Faith of the Enlightened] (1939). The aim of this work was to investigate how so‑called enlightened people (i.e. those with at least a secondary education) reconcile secular knowledge with religious faith. The empirical research presented by Witwicki was based on a number of concepts, such as judgment, supposition, psychological principle of contradiction, sincere belief and insincere belief. Witwicki concluded that the faith of enlightened people consists of suppositions which are held against secular beliefs. However, this conclusion was not sufficiently justified and can only be applied to a certain group of believers.

If not belief in God, then what? Identifying factors that contribute to well-being among Polish nonbelievers

Recent estimates by the Pew Research Center show that Poland is one of the fastest secularizing countries in the world. Despite the growing role of such attitudes in Poland and other countries around the world, still little is known about the psychosocial functioning and mental health of nonbelievers. The present study aimed to fill in this knowledge gap by examining various factors that may contribute to nonbelievers’ well-being, including perceived social support, emotion regulation strategies, secular beliefs (humanism and belief in science), and clarity of self-beliefs. Five hundred Polish nonbelievers took part in this study, of whom 38% reported no nominal affiliation with any religious or secular group, 33% affiliated with Roman Catholics, and 22% identified as Atheists. Comparing these groups, we found that while Catholics and Atheists did not differ significantly in terms of their overall well-being, religious “nones” scored lower than Catholics on overall well-being (but not meaning in life or social support). In addition, it was found that—at the level of the whole sample—having greater clarity of self-beliefs, using functional emotion regulation strategies, as well as having greater perceived social support were all positively associated with the presence of meaning in life and well-being.

The secular voter: Secularism and political attitudes in the United States

AbstractAs America grows more secular, secularism is increasingly relevant for American political attitudes and behavior. In this article, we contend that secularism—conceptualized as the affirmative embrace of secular belief and identity—is distinct from nonreligiosity, which is simply the absence of religion. We also argue that, at present, secularism is primarily a psychological, and not a social, orientation. Secular belonging and behavior are quite rare and generally unimportant politically, but secular belief and identity are far more prevalent and politically relevant. We examine the relationships that secular belief and identity, secular behavior, and nonreligiosity have with political orientations. Secular belief and identity have a much stronger and more consistent political connection than do secular behavior or nonreligiosity. Then, operationalizing secularism simply as secular belief and identity, we assess its connection to contemporary conspiracy beliefs and to support for democratic values. We find that secularists disavow most conspiracy theories and support the core democratic values of participatory democracy, freedom of expression, and political tolerance. Secularism's connection to political tolerance and support for freedom of expression is quite interesting because it is very different from those of liberal ideology and Democratic partisanship.

Dialectical thinking in contemporary spirituality: Reconciling contradictory beliefs through metamodern oscillations between two ways of thinking

Psychologists are paying increasing attention to a distinction between two ways of thinking. Cognitive psychologists discern between non-reflective “intuitive” and critical reflective “analytic” thinking. Cultural psychologists discern between context-focused “holistic” and object-focused “analytic” thinking. Both find the former strongly correlated with religious beliefs and Asian cultures, the latter with secular beliefs and Euro-American cultures. Yet, recent studies convincingly suggest: first, that analytic thinking does not just relate to secular beliefs but also to alternative beliefs that straddle the boundaries between secular and religious worldviews; second, that critical reflective thinking includes both the holistic context-focus of Asian religions and the analytic object-focus of European philosophies and sciences. This article supports these recent studies in the psychology of religion based on recent studies from the history and sociology of religion and a discourse analysis of interviews with members of a small-scale twenty-first-century spiritual group, as an example. We show that people who identify as spiritual in a metamodern context use both holistic and analytic thinking in creating alternative worldviews, which dialectically reconcile beliefs that many within modern western cultures would consider contradictory. We conclude that this both/and logic challenges theories and stereotypes about “secular versus religious” and “eastern versus western” thinking.

Religious Practice Assessment: An In-Depth Analysis

To interpret the religious freedom provisions, the Supreme Court of India created the Doctrine of Essential Religious Practises, or "ERP." In its techniques and tactics, the ERP doctrine fosters gender discrimination, making it a dysfunctional legal dynamic that is contributing to a process of de-secularization, according to the report. A different normative approach is also proposed in the study. A model that achieves constitutional morality may be the one recommended by the author to be used in the interpretive endeavour. The model will examine constitutional meaning to situate the harmonious vision that the judiciary has failed to accomplish in its repeated attempts to resolve disputes between claims of religious nature. The issue in the context of gender will become clear through the doctrinal study of recent decisions via the theoretical lens of constitutional principles. This essay examines the Supreme Court's Doctrine of Essential Religious Practises and Religious Freedom clauses as a means of interpreting religion's reach, bounds, and potential for differentiating religious from secular beliefs. It also demonstrates how these analyses are not focused on advancing the cause of gender justice. The Triple Talaq case, despite its honourable conclusion, will be examined to highlight the detrimental effects of the ERP philosophy.

Impact of Cultural Globalisation on Indian Youth: Facing the Challenges of Dialectical Identity

Modernization and Cultural Globalization both are processes through which Indian society is changing itself towards adapting modern rational values within the sphere of structural and institutional patterns of behavioral norms. While internalizing the values and norms of cultural globalization, Indian youth are facing the challenges of conflict between tradition and modernity which is somehow responsible for creating the crises of dialectical identity among youth. With the learning of values such as equality, freedom, egalitarian and rational approach towards life, individualism, economic progress, and secular belief, Indian youth still follow the traditional behavioral patterns due to structural (Caste system) and institutional (Family, kinship system) characteristics of society. This conflict generates the dialectical consciousness and identity feeling among youth in Indian Society. The objective of this paper is to analyze those factors and assumptions that are responsible for developing the dialectical identity crises in the personality system of Indian youth.

A Comprehensive Exploration of Themes in "Family Matters" by Rohinton Mistry

Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters(2003) is a literary masterpiece that intricately weaves together a rich tapestry of themes, offering readers a profound exploration of Parsi family dynamics, aging and senility, religious diversity, class disparities, Mumbai's character as a metropolis, secularism, and the enduring questions of mortality and legacy. This paper provides a thorough analysis of these thematic elements, emphasizing how they interact and intersect to form a complex narrative that reflects the intricacies of human existence within a specific cultural and social context. Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters invites readers into the world of the Vakeel family in the bustling city of Mumbai. Through a multi-dimensional narrative, the novel delves into the essence of family relationships, the challenges of aging, the interplay of religious and secular beliefs, the struggles arising from socioeconomic disparities, the cityscape of Mumbai as an active participant in the story, the importance of secularism, and the contemplation of mortality and legacy. Each of these themes plays a significant role in shaping the narrative, and together, they paint a comprehensive picture of life within this Parsi family.

The First Republic of Azerbaijan: A State without a Nation

The process of forming modern nation-states is the nationalization of belief and consciousness through secularization. Azerbaijan has experienced modernity under Tsarist colonialism. Due to colonialism, the modernization process started without national policy. This article aims to shed light on the research related to the first Republic of Azerbaijan. In this respect, first, a theoretical background was formed, then modernization was addressed in the colonial context, focusing on the formation of modern secular belief in Azerbaijan. Moreover, Turkism was addressed as the basis for the formation of national/political consciousness. The study was built on the problem of why the republic was an incomplete state. The main point of the study is the problem of why the first Republic of Azerbaijan, being the first modern state, is not or cannot institutionally become a competent nation-state. Failure in the adoption of the constitution was used to support the hypothesis of non-completion of national sovereignty’s construction.

Schools, religion, and affect: unpacking Australian educator discomfort

ABSTRACT Religious bigotry, including incidents of discrimination and violence based on religion, continues to rise across Australia. Religion is consequently considered a destabilising factor in Australia’s commitment to diversity. But does Australia’s religious diversity pose a threat to social cohesion or an opportunity? In Australia’s public schools, despite significant curricular and pedagogical advances in the areas of equity and inclusion, it remains unclear how and to what extent educators support the diverse religious identities of learners. Informed by an affective-discursive analytic, this study unpacks a series of emotional encounters at one primary public school in Sydney that serves a community where most families self-identify with a religion. Educators were invited to discuss how their school responds to religious diversity. This article explores the discomforting affects that entangle liberal humanist commitments to freedoms and secular schooling that emerged in focus groups. The article argues that emotional responses to learners’ religious diversity, particularly of fear or apprehension, speak to a broader national teacher education context in which how religious and secular beliefs and knowledges should come into conversation remains unsettled. If Australian teacher education is to prepare educators for social cohesion, how can learners’ religious identities be genuinely included in curriculum and pedagogy?

Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and Twentieth-Century French Politics. By Sarah Shortall

In recent decades, France has figured prominently in international debates on secularism (laïcité) and religion, for instance with respect to its ban on religious iconography in public schools. Following the legal separation of church and state in 1905, this once predominantly Catholic country became increasingly irreligious over the course of the twentieth century. At present, French Republicanism itself is a strident secular belief that tends to accuse religious believers of divisive “communitarian,” subnational commitments. Such ongoing anxieties about traditional religion are rooted in the fact that Catholicism has long been a dominant political and cultural force. If the gradual ascendency of Republican laïcité is familiar, less well-known is how theologians and religiously committed thinkers came to terms with separation. Such is the neglected story that Sarah Shortall tells in her original and engaging reconstruction of French Dominicans and Jesuits from the early 1900s through the Second Vatican Council during the 1960s. Once the victory of anti-clerical politics of the early Third Republic (1870–1940) was assured, French Catholics had a choice: they could pine for yesteryears when they had been in charge, or they could come to terms with the fact that the ground had shifted. For some, secularity provided an opportunity to revisit Christian traditions and rethink theological categories. Loss became an occasion for revival. Shortall argues that a coterie of French priests, some of whom eventually got in trouble with the Vatican, imagined ways of being in not of the world; that is, of being religious in the public sphere without having to fully embrace the saeculum. Such visions, says Shortall, amounted to a “counter-politics,” positions from which secular powers could be criticized in light of sacral time, the incarnation, soteriology, eschatology, and so forth. Innovations came from rereading Thomas Aquinas or reviving Patristic and Augustinian perspectives against the rote authority of neo-scholasticism. In the interwar era, Jacques Maritain theorized the notion of the human person, and “New Theologians” such as Henri de Lubac formulated ecclesiology in terms of a collective mystical body of Christ. Both were opposed to contemporaneous alternatives such as the royalist Action Française, which, nostalgic for a bygone era, sought to reboot theocracy and was condemned in 1926.

Later Life as a Daring Experience: Factors Associated with Older Adults’ Risk Perception

ABSTRACT Risk perception refers to people’s subjective judgments about the possibility of negative occurrences and the extent to which they are concerned with them. Previous studies have found that older adults who were exposed to ongoing terror threats developed later-life and terror risk perceptions. These studies showed that high risk perception has negative psychological and physiological consequences. This study aimed to identify the factors associated with the development of both later-life risk perception and terror risk perception in later life. Data were collected via an online survey with 306 Internet users aged 50 years and over, half resided in a high-risk zone while the remainder lived in a low-risk zone. The Perceived Risk Scale, measures of depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, social support, spirituality, internet use, and personal background were applied. Low self-rated health was associated with terror and later-life risk perceptions, regardless of the risk zone. After controlling for personal background, only depressive symptoms significantly correlated with high risk perceptions. These findings suggest that older adults with poorer self-rated health, secular beliefs, and elevated depressive symptoms may be susceptible to developing high risk perceptions. Clinicians should encourage older adults to identify preserving resources to improve adjustment to late life stressors.

ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ РАДЯНСЬКИХ ОРГАНІВ АНТИРЕЛІГІЙНОЇ ПРОПАГАНДИ НА ДОНЕЧЧИНІ В ДРУГІЙ ПОЛОВИНІ 1920-Х РОКІВ: НА ПРИКЛАДІ СПІЛКИ ВОЙОВНИЧИХ БЕЗВІРНИКІВ

An unbiased and objective studying of the history, activities, and development trends of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, namely, studying the relationship between Orthodoxy and state power on the territory of the Donetsk region, an industrial region with its own regional characteristics, is necessary. For a complete and objective study of state-church relations, the relationship between the Bolshevik Party and the Orthodox Church in the Donetsk region it is necessary to input the efforts of more than one generation of domestic historians. Today, when the issues of relations between the Orthodox Church and the state are of great interest to both domestic and foreign researchers, there is a lack of fundamental research in the field on the historical problems of state-church relations in various regions of Ukraine, in particular in the territory of the Donetsk region. The purpose of this study is a comprehensive historical analysis of Soviet entities of anti-religious propaganda in the second half of the 1920s, on the example of the activities of the Union of Militant Infidels in the territory of the Donetsk region. The article is devoted to the study of the problem of the activities of the Soviet entities of anti-religious propaganda in the 1920s. The author analyses and summarizes the peculiarities of the functioning of the Union of Militant Infidels and the repressive anti-religious policy of the Soviet authorities on the territory of the Donetsk region in the second half of the 1920s. The researcher concludes that the influence of the Orthodox Church on the social and political life of the Donetsk region has not yet been the subject of a special study, and therefore the study of the role of Orthodoxy in the 1920s will provide an opportunity to fill the existing factual gaps in the relationship between Soviet anti-religious propaganda entities and the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Thus, in the 1920s, despite the schism and anti-religious actions of the Soviet authorities, the Orthodox Church continued to play a significant role in the religious life of the Donetsk region. The rural population of the Donetsk region which were remaining mostly indifferent to atheistic propaganda actively participated in the construction of churches, the organization of church services and the support of priests. The influence of religion on children remained unchanged – during church holidays schools were empty. Even rural activists maintained their outward religiosity. Religion continued to hold a strong position not only in the villages but also in the cities. But despite this situation, the Bolshevik government constantly resorted to social manipulation by skilful usage of anti-religious agitation and propaganda means. Gradually, the Communist Party was able to change the emphasis so that the huge Orthodox country approached the system of secular beliefs, the sacralization of the party, its leaders and goals, investing in this process all the available potential and skills of religiosity, which were determined by its historical and cultural and civilizational features. On the one hand, the atheism of the population took place under the constant influence of the ideology of hostile counter-revolutionary activities, which the Orthodox Church and its ministers supposedly carry out; on the other hand – due to the active affirmation of communist ideology through the organization of debates, lectures, reading huts, anti-religious circles, schools, trade unions, Komsomol, anti-religious literature, etc.

The problem of human dignity in its theological connotations under the conditions of the war of the russia against Ukraine

The author draws attention to the problem of human dignity as the basis of civilizational coexistence of subjects of different religious and secular beliefs. It is shown that neither international legal documents nor theological concepts provide a clear definition of the term “dignity”. Different readings refer to the meaningful, structural, dynamic meaning of this term. Based on the religious principles of tolerance, non-involvement and objectivity, this article examines human dignity in its theological connotations in view of the challenges of modern Ukrainian realities. The current positions of religious organizations, which traditionally enjoy the considerable trust of Ukrainian society, are articulated. Based on the generalization of the theoretical material and the statements of religious leaders of various denominations, the author concludes that in the conditions of the impossibility of political dialogue in the context of reconciliation with the aggressor, the idea of interreligious dialogue also needs urgent reconstruction, in particular, in particular, a direct answer to the question of whether dialogue can be the mission of the Church, conducted by it at the cost of truth and, at the same time, indulging human dignity, is needed.

Divine attribution? The interaction of religious and secular beliefs on climate change attitudes

AbstractAfter five decades of research, there is still little consensus about the relation of religious variables to environmental attitudes. Even putting aside variations in sampling and measurement, we still have doubts about where modest consensus exists—the role of religious beliefs. Religious beliefs, such as mastery over nature, are more unstable than previously considered. Moreover, more importantly, these studies have generally failed to consider the role of secular beliefs about environmental problems and the interaction they may have with religion. Using data from a 2012 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey, we find religious variables have effects conditional on secular beliefs. Moreover, we draw upon an embedded experiment that shows instability in religious dominionism—the dominant religious effect in previous work. The results suggest previous reports of religious effects are not wrong, but overstated, and eliding secular beliefs is a serious sin of omission.

Secularism Orientations

Introduction: There has been extensive research conducted on religious orientations, but less so of secularism orientations. We sought to examine several ways that secularist beliefs connect and compare. 
 Methods: Undergraduate students in introductory psychology classes (n = 397) completed an online questionnaire assessing their secularist beliefs, religious orientations, and psychological well-being.
 Results: An exploratory factor analysis yielded four types of secularism orientations: Faith in Humans, Faith in Law, Faith and Science, and Faith in Paranormal. These four factors then distinctly correlated with religious orientations and subcomponents of well-being. 
 Conclusions: Identifying secular belief systems and their implications is key to understanding the consequences of the Western decline in religious practice. These preliminary data provide insights into their types and benefits for psychological functioning.

“Euclid” must fall: The “Pythagorean” “theorem” and the rant of racist and civilizational superiority — Part 1

To eliminate racist prejudices, it is necessary to identify the root cause(s) of racism. American slavery preceded racism, and it was closely associated with genocide. Accordingly, we seek the unique cause of the unique event of genocide + slavery. This was initially justified by religious prejudice, rather than colour prejudice. This religious justification was weakened when many Blacks converted to Christianity, after the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The curse of Kam, using quick visual cues to characterize Blacks as inferior Christians, was inadequate. Hence, the church fell back on an ancient trick of using false history as secular justification for Christian superiority. This trick had resulted in a false history of science during the Crusades when scientific knowledge in translated Arabic texts was indiscriminately attributed to the early Greeks, without evidence. This false history enabled belief in religious superiority to mutate into a secular belief in White superiority. After colonialism, and the Aryan race conjecture, the belief in White superiority further mutated into a belief in Western civilizational superiority, openly propagated today by colonial education. Hence, to eliminate racist prejudice, it is necessary to engage simultaneously with the allied prejudices about Christian/White/Western superiority, based on the same false history of science.

‘All across Europe it had come’: The Black Death and Fascism in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them

Sylvia Townsend Warner’s wartime novel The Corner that Held Them (1948), about a nunnery during the Black Death, reflects on female community and bonding in a period of male fascist violence. The novel explores the shift from pacifism to acceptance of the need for anti-fascist war which characterised Warner’s intellectual beliefs from the 1930s into wartime, probing the arts of peace in compositional practice. Such a dialectic of war and peace is considered in relation to what Maud Ellmann has described as the outward turn to collective choral consciousness in mid-century modernism. This article explores both the staging of fascism as plague and the feminist daring and limits that Warner saw as operative in female witnessing and withstanding of Nazi ideology and menace. It closely reads key scenes from the panorama of a novel (notably Alianor’s stillness as her husband is killed, Alicia’s plans to withstand the economic impact of the Black Death and the cure of Ralph’s plague symptoms) to register the satirical and allegorical substance of Warner’s rescripting of Woolfian notions of resistance to warmongering misogyny by a society of outsiders. The readings seek to consolidate a varied and multiple sense of the book as a Marxist historical novel that gives voice to the ruled. In doing so Warner analyses the Black Death as a moment in history that saw the emergence of early modern capitalism and labour relations out of the feudal system, even as the religious framework that had structured medieval Europe gave way to more secular beliefs in autonomy, self-determination, citizen and collective dreams, projects and affects. At the same time the plague as a political trope, rooted in anti-fascist rhetoric that turns Nazi anti-Semitic uses of the Black Death motif on their head, triggers readings that bring those historical scenes into allegorical relation with the ways in which the Second World War was experienced by marginalised female communities.

Secularism and American Political Behavior

Abstract The recent growth of the secular population in the United States has implications for American politics. However, our understanding of these implications has been hindered by oversimplified concepts and measures that equate secularism with non-religion. We separate the two concepts, distinguishing “non-religiosity,” or the absence of religion, from “secularism,” or a positive embrace of secular beliefs and identities. Using original national-sample cross-sectional and panel surveys, we introduce new measures of secularism, evaluate their properties, and assess their connection to political attitudes and behavior. We find a clear distinction between secularism and non-religiosity in the American public and show that secularism is more closely related than non-religiosity to political attitudes, identifications, and engagement. In fact, while secularism is related to changes over time in political orientations, non-religiosity is not.

Historical Origins of the Personal Belief Exemption to Vaccination Mandates: The View from California.

A number of states, starting with California, have recently removed all non-medical exemptions from their laws requiring vaccinations for schoolchildren. California was also one of the earliest states to include a broad non-medical, or personal, belief exemption in its modern immunization law, which it did with a 1961 law mandating polio vaccination for school enrollment, Assembly Bill 1940 (AB 1940). This paper examines the history of AB 1940's exemption clause as a case study for shedding light on the little-examined history of the personal belief exemption to vaccination in the United States. This history shows that secular belief exemptions date back further than scholars have allowed. It demonstrates that such exemptions resulted from political negotiation critical to ensuring compulsory vaccination's political success. It challenges a historiography in which antivaccination groups and their allies led late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century opposition to vaccination mandates while religious groups drove mid-twentieth century opposition. It also complicates the historiographic idea of a return to compulsion in the late 1960s, instead dating this return a decade earlier, to a time when belief exemptions in polio vaccination mandates helped reconcile the goal of a widely vaccinated population with the sacrosanct idea of health as a personal responsibility.