Secular Life Research Articles

Religious Disaffiliates' Experiences and Challenges with Sex, Sexuality, and Body Image.

In recent years, an increasing number of ultra-Orthodox Jews have left their insular communities, choosing instead to lead a secular life. This article illuminates their perceptions and experiences related to sexuality, sexual behavior, and sexual health. Based on thematic analysis of 37 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with ultra-Orthodox disaffiliates, we found that sexual experiences have played a decisive role in the disaffiliates' lives. First, some participants shared that experiencing sexual abuse during childhood led them to disaffiliate. Second, prior to disaffiliating, participants had very little knowledge about sex, which was an unspoken issue. This resulted in misunderstandings and miscommunication related to courtship and dating after disaffiliating. Moreover, the knowledge gap of secular social norms led to disaffiliates being sexually exploited, as well as to male disaffiliates behaving inappropriately and consequently suffering from social rejection and loneliness. While some participants celebrated their new sexual freedom, others were fearful and reluctant to have sex. We suggest that in transgressing social, cultural, and identity boundaries, disaffiliates experience "cleft habitus" and are situated in a prolonged liminal position that affects their sexual behavior, intimate relations, sexual health, and body image. During the liminal period, disaffiliates typically learn threshold concepts, which are often troublesome and threatening. There is a striking need to offer disaffiliates assistance and support throughout this difficult process. This analysis can shed light on other groups of religious disaffiliates and cultural immigrants.

The Impact of Religion on Secular Life and Some Mainstream Religious Security Trends in the Coming Time in Vietnam

In the context of many internationally unpredictable fluctuations, hostile forces have been causing religious life in Vietnam to suffer many negative impacts. Many subjects have taken advantage of loopholes in state management of religion to distort Vietnam’s policies, causing internal conflicts. In many cases, a very small incident or a normal conflict in religion that can be exaggerated, distorted, and perverted to become serious; a religious incident in an area or locality that can easily be amplified into an international issue; an event that is only a phenomenon, but can be perverted to become a nature; an issue that is partial, but can easily turn into a whole; a story that is very ordinary, but can be turned into a complicated one. In the article, the author analyzes some of the main impacts of religion on secular life in Vietnam today, and some religious security trends in the coming time.

Modern Life-Building as a Biopower Strategy: Developing Sports Spaces in Urban, Rural and Industrial Areas in Turkey

In the early Republican period of Turkey (1923–1945), the newly established state provided a biopolitical agenda for developing modern and secular life in order to break the Ottoman heritage religious-traditional social structure. Thereupon, sports, as an indicator of modernization, took an important place in the biopolitics of the regime. Sports spaces were instrumentalized as a medium where biopower infiltrated to build a modern life. In order to effectively accomplish the modern life-building project, the Republican Regime invited international modernist architects to insert sports spaces into the social realm in urban, rural, and industrial areas. Accordingly, this paper explores sports-related spaces as a biopolitical agenda of the Republican Regime in the discourse of planning the city of Ankara and rural and industrial areas. Exploring history through the lens of sports reveals how the city of Ankara and rural and industrial areas formed a spatialized approach to the Republican Regime as a biopower to develop modern life.

Nature, Place, and Ritual: Landscape Aesthetics of Jingfu Mountain “Grotto-Heavens and Blissful Lands” in South China

The “Grotto-Heavens and Blissful Lands” (dongtian and fudi, 洞天福地) is a unique concept of sacred space in China and even in East Asia, combining beautiful natural scenery, rich historical heritage, and diverse cultural heritage. This paper tries to explain Mount Jingfu’s (jingfu shan, 靜福山) aesthetic representations. The results show that the landscape’s physical environment projects the spatio-temporal system and the concept of the universe in Daoist aesthetic ideals. With the spatial evolution of divine immortals’ abodes from imagination to reality, people’s yearning for divine cave palaces is transformed into their connection with and their expression of the palaces in exploring space interests and aesthetic trends that are then integrated into the secular life of thousands of households through living religious rituals. Preserved by local religious believers, the ritual activities incorporated geographic, familial, and divine interactions, and characterised essential social aesthetics. By exploring a typical case of Lingnan Region (lingnan, 嶺南, an old term for South China), this paper aims to elucidate the significance of the Grotto-Heavens and Blissful Lands as living heritage in contemporary society across multiple dimensions, and to provide a theoretical basis for the protection of its system.

Saudi Arabia's Legal System for the Development and Preservation of Forests Based on the Principles of Islamic Law

Islamic law, or Sharī'ah, pays close attention to all issues that are beneficial to people's religious and secular lives. Furthermore, because Sharia law is comprehensive and all-encompassing. The purpose of these appropriate and well-defined regulations for the growth and preservation of forests, as well as the way in which they are used in Saudi laws and provisions concerning the same subjects, was to demonstrate how closely these statutory laws and provisions are tied to and grounded in Sharia. The aforementioned laws and regulations demonstrate the Saudi Arabian government's keen interest in the development and preservation of its forests. It supports any pertinent policy and measure aimed at organizing this development, drawing on the primary statutory sources—the Qur'ān and the Sunnah—as well as the enacted statutory provisions pertaining to forests.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Forest Development and Protection in Light of the Sharia and the Provisions Pertaining to Statutory

Islamic law, or Sharia, pays close attention to all issues that are beneficial to people's religious and secular lives. The laws of the Kingdom, especially those concerning the preservation and growth of forests, are taken from the writings of the Sharia because the foundation of the Saudi Arabian constitution is the Qur'ān and the Sunnah. Based on the main statutory sources, which are the texts of the Qur'ān and the Sunnah, as well as the enacted statutory provisions on the forests, this paper demonstrates how the Saudi Arabian government has prioritized the development and protection of the forests, and how the statutory provisions in the Kingdom are an extension of the Sharia.

LINGUOPOETIC ANALYSIS OF BAROQUE UKRAINIAN ELEGY "CUPIDO SEU AMOR ALATUS" BY ILARION YAROSHEVYTSKYI

Background. Latin baroque literature of Ukraine represents inheritance and unique interpretation of classical and medieval plots. Ukrainian poets and Ilarion Yaroshevytskyi, in particular, demonstrate their literary mastership and cultural reception of the time. His poem reflects the baroque worldview of distorted world and struggle of good and evil, spirit and flesh, Christian and pagan views, ascetic and secular life. The goal of the article was to conduct in-depth analysis of linguopoetic peculiarities of the poem in order to present the author's embodiment of the baroque worldview by the language means. Methods. The following methods were employed: method of linguostylistic and linguopoetic analysis, method of cultural interpretation, contextual and interpretative method, classification, systematization and generalization. Results. Analysis of the elegiac poem revealed the following linguopoetic peculiarities: 1) at lexical level – the use of mythological names denoting divinities and their epithets (Mars / Gradivus, Venus / Diona / Cypris / Erycina, Artemis, Lar); mythological characters (the Meduse Gorgon, Daedalus and Icarus, Eryx, Charybdis); 2) at syntactic level – parallel constructions / chiasm; inversion of the three types; 3) at stylistic level – direct speech; irony; repepetitions; comparisons; 4) at conceptual level – the oppositions of war and peace; secular and ascetic life; christian and mythological worldviews; spiritual and corporeal love. Conclusion. Latin elegy, represented in a poetic course "Cedrus Apollinis", contributed to the development of the genre in Ukrainian baroque literature and corresponded to the classical Latin samples. The poem demonstrates the author's awareness of mythological and medieval plots and their bizarre combination in elegiac genre.

Religion and Courtship Novels: A Comparison between The Story of the Stone and Mansfield Park in Spiritual Worlds and Secular Lives

This paper compares how the different religious traditions in China and England shaped their courtship narratives in the long eighteenth century respectively. It finds that though the courtship novels in the two countries share the theme of temptation, the hero in The Story of the Stone is tempted by general worldly pleasures, while in Mansfield Park by sexual desire. When constancy plays an important role in the Chinese context, second attachment is central to character development in English courtship narratives. The English marriage plot usually embraces worldly happiness while The Story of the Stone’s tragic ending enables the hero’s experience of enlightenment and becoming a monk. Although Xueqin Cao’s and Jane Austen’s courtship novels address similar theme, the very different Christian and Buddhist-Daoist values in China and England shape their courtship plots decisively. Courtship novels, a popular genre in the long eighteenth century that has been widely recognised as narratives focusing on secular life and marriage practice, are unable to depart from the religious tradition in each country.

Family Ethics in Taixu's Humanistic Buddhism: The Wisdom of No-Self and the Action of the Bodhisattva

Abstract: The notion "Buddhism for Human Life" ( rensheng fojiao 人生佛教), coined by the influential Chinese Buddhist leader Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947), has had a great impact on shaping Buddhist life in the twentieth century. Much scholarly attention has been paid to Taixu's modernizing programs in monastic education and reformulation. This article instead examines Taixu's discourse about lay people, with a focus on family ethics. It discusses the way in which Taixu clarifies the role played by Buddhism in secular life. His discourse weaves together a range of intellectual themes. He elaborates on several previously lesser-known Buddhist scriptures, arguing that the Buddhist perspectives can help to reduce tensions between the individuals' quest for autonomy and their commitment to social responsibilities. He suggests that, compared to Confucianism and Western philosophies, Buddhism provides more coherent ideational grounds on which to deal with the challenges faced by individuals and families, thereby contributing to the welfare of Chinese society.

PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS OF CHINA AS THE BASIS OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE

The social life of China, its culture and art were determined by the local religion of Taoism, and the main postulates were laid out in the treatise "Daodejing" ("The Book of Tao and De", 6th century AD). Accordingly, a person with the whole way of life became a participant in the cycle of phenomena in nature, and therefore felt that he was not the main creation of God, as it was in Christianity, but only one of the components of the universe.
 Unlike Christianity, the phenomenon of Buddhism consists in the absence of a "logos" – the deity at the heart of the religion, since initially the image of the Buddha was interpreted as the image of a person who has achieved enlightenment. In Buddhism, there was no thesis about the value of human existence, which was interpreted as one-moment and changeable.
 Now let's trace how the specific philosophical and religious teachings of China influenced art and architecture.
 This is clearly visible both in secular buildings and in the temples of the three religions. The phenomenon of the transformation of the borrowed religion of Buddhism on local soil can be illustrated by the example of the unique cave temple complex of Dunhuang, the creation of which lasted over a thousand years, from the 4th to the 14th century. On the example of the wall paintings of sanctuaries, it is possible to trace how the borrowed subjects and techniques were gradually diversified and improved under the influence of local painting techniques. Moreover, scenes of secular life, portraits of benefactors, as well as a pantheon of Taoist deities were gradually added to the purely Buddhist subjects (fetian – the Chinese version of the heavenly apsaras, lords of Fuxi and NЯwa, etc.).
 The principles of feng shui and established hierarchy were also maintained in secular architecture and landscape design. So, all the main facades were oriented to the south, and the screens acted as barriers for evil spirits (in the gardens, such a function was performed by "natural screens" – "green screens", when one natural picture covered the other and it was impossible to view the entire garden at the same time. Chinese garden became the personification of the harmony of the world, therefore each landscape picture was carefully thought out. It was believed that gazebos – small pavilions in the garden became a place where a person encountered the laws of perfect harmony of nature. 
 An analysis of the relationship between traditional Chinese architecture and art and traditional philosophical and religious teachings proves that architecture and art were subject to the principles of feng shui and local "religious syncretism".

“I was afraid, because I was naked”: Ethical literary criticism, the fall of Adam and Eve and moral teaching

This article explores the moral teachings in the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:4–3:24) from the perspective of ethical literary criticism. According to the theory of three stages in human civilization—natural, ethical and scientific selection, the fall of Adam and Eve represents the historical process of human civilization going from natural selection to ethical selection. It is ethical selection that enables Adam and Eve to have ethical consciousness and distinguish themselves from animals, which provides ideas for the birth and growth of humans and highlights the function of “moral teaching and learning” in children's education. Besides, the so-called original sin is the animal factor remained in human beings after natural selection, which can bring about different ethical predicaments of “to be or not to be” and lead to making wrong ethical choices. The fall of Adam and Eve indicates that human beings are born with Sphinx factor—human factor and animal factor and integrate into the secular life and religious activity with divine factor. Once the animal factor of an individual is out of control, breaking the ethical taboo and violating the moral order or religious rule without exerting the power of human factor or divine factor, there will inevitably be punishments and tragedies. The fall of Adam and Eve is such an ethical tragedy, which purifies primitive desires and evokes moral emotions through pity and fear to uphold the morality in society and the authority in religion.

The Role of Islamic Education Teachers in Fostering the Habit of Congregational Prayer at SD Bintang Bontang

The purpose of this study was to determine the role of PAI teachers in fostering the habit of congregational prayer at SD Bintang Bontang. The type of research used is qualitative research, with primary data sources and skunder. The results of this study show that 1) congregational prayers will remind students and teachers to stick to religious principles amidst the challenges of secular life. No matter how busy students are pursuing worldly ideals through educational media, it does not mean they have to be far from Ukhrawi ideals. This is how the religion of Islam teaches, and 2) congregational prayer activities can also minimize juvenile delinquency at school. Psychologically, students will feel watched and fortified by the prayers they do.

Modernization Through Leisure and Sports: The Case of Sümerbank Industrial Campuses in Turkey

The Turkish Republican Regime exploited leisure and sports activities in terms of shaping the community in line with the modernization project of the newborn state in the early republican period of Turkey (1923–1945) wherein leisure and sports activities were organized to normalize secular life and to disconnect people from the traditional ways of life. Sümerbank industrial campuses were established as state institutions in various towns in the 1930s. They were mobilized in line with the state policy by providing sports and recreational grounds in the campuses. This article is an exploration of the role of leisure and sports in the modernization process of early Republican Turkey in the Sümerbank industrial campuses. The research is based on academic literature on leisure and sports and the social-spatial analysis of campuses so as to shed light on the role of leisure and sports activities on industrial campuses to shift the community from traditional, rural, and agricultural to contemporary, secular, urban, and industrial.

State of termination in religious-mystical culturе

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of domestic and foreign developments on the issues of a certain state of man in general and the state of TERMINATION in the religious and secular life of man in particular; the concept of «termination» is substantiated; the content of the leading concepts of the problem is revealed. The signs, types, functions, and qualities of the TERMINATION state are highlighted and systematized. The analysis is carried out on the materials of the documentary on religious and mystical culture. The philosopher in his theoretical reflections tries to cover both the objective state of affairs and the subjective world of man. Philosophy shows that external catastrophes can begin with an internal catastrophe, a subjective one, when people follow petty in petty ways, when the natural compensatory insight mechanism as a STATE OF CESSATION, a regulatory state of self-awareness, which results in the cessation of a trivial action, when this action is stopped as unnecessary. In religious and mystical culture, compensatory insight as a STATE of Cessation is the Divine state of the mystic as the cessation of action-actions. However, this is a cessation of small, trivial actions-actions. Compensatory insight as state of Cessation is the cessation of pettiness. The state of cessation is a cessation for a short time. And then there is action, actions for salvation. The state of Cessation - is a spontaneous experience in which the old personality dies in a person. It is experienced as a revelation, an insight. It is clear that there is relativity, what to consider important in the actions of a person, and what is not important. One person thinks some actions are important, while another person considers important, and another person considers completely different actions. But the state of STOP state can be triggered in both cases. in both cases. The state of STOP is a rather subjective state of the individual with his or her attitude to the world and to other people. But still, there is a more or less objective criterion. The objective criterion is that a person is somehow or another is orientated towards those actions that aimed at the development of life, at its preservation, its salvation, and not its destruction. And here the actions must be of a certain orientation. For example, a person of the XXI century, with his objective knowledge, his understanding of history, with his understanding of cosmic processes should be guided in their actions to preserve human life, to, to protect this life. But in the actions of people we. we see manifestations of cruelty and inhumanity. These actions are aimed simply at the destruction of human life. An example is, is the war that Russia has unleashed against Ukraine. In this war, the actions of the Russian occupiers - are actions to destroy all living things. Here the manifestation of the state of Suspension in a person does not does not work. The Russian soldier does not stop those his actions that destroy people.

Who Counts as ‘None’?

Abstract People in South Asia who neither believe in god(s) nor engage in religious practices nevertheless often self-identify as Muslims or Hindus rather than—or in addition to—identifying as atheists. The situational and contextual dynamics generating such positionings have implications for the conceptualization of nonreligion and secular lives. Based on ethnographic research in India and Bangladesh and focusing on two individuals, we attend to embodied and more ambivalent modes of nonreligiosity. This enables us to understand nonreligion as situated social practices and beyond what is typically captured with the term ‘religion’. Studying nonreligion also where it is not visible as articulated conviction or identity not only contributes to accounting for the diversity of nonreligious configurations but also offers significant complementary insights.

“Churching” of Russian History and Historiosophy of N.D. Talberg.

The article offers the analysis N.D. Talberg’s historiosophy and its Orthodox foundations. The author shows that Talberg’s concept of Russian history is based on the application to it of the principle of “symphony of the authorities” as a measure of the churching of Russian people life, and hence the entire Christian meaning of Russian history. This is an ecclesiocentric view on Russian history when the history of Russia is understood as the history of the people of God, and all the events of Russian history are important insofar as they are connected with the earthly existence of the Church of Christ. N.D. Talberg belongs to the type of historian-publicist, and his personological method gives spiritual biographies of outstanding fi gures of Russian history, a kind of “secular lives”, through which the Orthodox meaning and spiritual driving forces of Russian history are revealed.

‘I had more time to listen to my inner voice’: Zen meditation tourism for Generation Z

With much academic attention to experiential learning in on-site tourism experiences, the benefits of Zen meditation tourism on Generation Z after their re-entry into daily secular life remains largely unexplored. Drawing on experiential learning theory, this study explores the benefits experienced by participants after Zen meditation tourism in three stages including reflection, learning results, and active experimentation. Employing phenomenology-based ethnography, six consecutive rounds of online face-to-face interviews were conducted with 12 informants who were continuously traced after attending a Zen camp. The study findings revealed long-term positive benefits in three aspects of this generational cohort. First, Zen practices tend to be fading yet abiding after the Zen camp which continues sporadically into daily life. Second, socialisation is continuously progressive; but self-growth is complicated and unstable. Theoretical and practical implications of these novel findings are discussed.

The Hegemonic Character of Techno-Functional Neo-Immanentism and Its Relationship with Culture Wars

This paper analyzes the social processes that have led to the consolidation of a technocratic secular order and the type of cultural struggle that has made this possible. To this end, it first proposes a reconstruction of the technocratic consciousness in the course of the secularization process that culminates in the technological determinism or technological solutionism of the social present; then, the analysis focuses on the neo-immanentist tendency of techno-functionalism, in which the secular context and the text of secularization become one and deplete a social explanation; thirdly, it reflects on and deals with the open nature of secular life, in which context does not determine social texts (inter-actions) and opens the way to the existence of different life options that compete with each other and even turn on—rebel against—institutional design. This reflection, then, focuses on the specific features of the culture wars in Western Judeo-Christian culture and its globalizing tendency. Finally, the document closes with a conclusion that analyzes the road travelled and introduces the new challenges arising from the arguments presented.

Territory Identity and Ritual Life of Religious Spaces in Urbanized Communities: A Case Study of Jiangsu

The rapid urbanization in China has had a profound impact on religious practices of rural communities, but few study has explored the relevant dynamics. This study provides an overview of urbanization’s impact on rural religious spaces, and compares the changes of religious spaces before and after urbanization. It aims at improving the understanding of religion in urbanized communities. Phenomenological methods were employed to analyze our transcriptions of 16 interviews which were conducted in the religious spaces of 11 urbanized communities in Jiangsu, China. We also investigated the worship circle mentioned by the participants through field surveys and map analysis. Based on these, four similar themes were sorted out, namely, worship circle and environment, aging and feminizing agents, ritual and secular life, as well as religious well-being. And the results showed that: (1) passive change of worship circles would bring new sense of belonging and identity to elderly residents; (2) the new religious spaces contained a lot of local knowledge and traditional characteristics, which were evolving continuously with sites sacredness maintenance and secularization function expansion; (3) female agents were of great importance to religious spaces preservation.

Study on the Influence of Fairy Tale Realism on Xixi's Novel Creation

Magic realism was introduced into China in 1970s. Due to the special historical, geographical and cultural background of Hong Kong, Hong Kong literature developed freely and independently with less ideological constraints. Ye Si and Xixi once represented the Hong Kong cultural elite and directly integrated with western culture. As early as 1950s and 1960s, they began to experiment with magical realism to write, almost following the literary trend in Latin America. The book Flying Felt is a linear series of the rise and fall of the Hua family, with magical realism and fairy tale realism, to write the century-old secular life history of Hong Kong (Feitu Town). This paper takes Xixi's Flying Felt as the main research object, and from the perspective of fairy tale realism, summarizes Xixi's "improved" writing of magical realism and diversified writing of fairy tale realism through narrative techniques and language styles in his works, and analyzes the artistic treatment of historical issues in his works. At the same time, it discusses the expression of Hong Kong local consciousness in Xixi's novels.