Sphere Of Beliefs Research Articles

Have the Inhabitants of France, Great Britain, Spain, and the US Been Secularized? An Analysis Comparing the Religious Data in These Countries

This paper carries out a comparative analysis of the religious beliefs and practices of residents in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, using two waves of the World Values Survey. The main objective is to investigate the impact that secularization has had on the religious experience in these countries. More specifically, the prospection is carried out around the Christian creed in its Protestant and Catholic manifestations, understood as the majority beliefs in these countries. To carry out this task, we compiled a series of data distributed around the following categories: Contextualization: The importance of religion within different aspects of life; level of religiosity and membership in religious denominations; the sphere of beliefs: Belief in God, belief in life after death, belief in hell, and belief in heaven; scope of practices; and the nones. Subsequently, we carry out an explanatory-interpretative analysis articulated around four questions or challenges faced by these religious forms in the context of secularization: 1. The crisis of Christianity; 2. the thesis of European exceptionalism; and 3. the rise of the nones. In conclusion, the data analyzed allow us to affirm—with nuances—the following: 1. The existence of a process of dechurching in the heart of Christianity; 2. the confirmation that the European case is exceptional if we compare it with other trends or other cultural programs of secularization; 3. that the area of greatest dechurching is linked to community practice, something that allows this research to adhere to Davie’s thesis, which defines the current religious situation as believing without belonging; and 4. as a consequence of the process of dechurching, there is a rise of a social group without religious adscription: The nones.

Założenia rowkowe o charakterze funeralnym ze stanowiska Domasław 10/11/12 / Chrzanów 4, pow. wrocławski jako przejaw oddziaływań kulturowych

The most interesting feature discovered in Domasław’s burial ground is the ditched enclosures complex of a funeral character. The oldest complex with a ring trench was dated to the middle Bronze Age (HaA2). This custom reaches its apogee in the early Iron Age (HaC). A total of 26 chamber graves encircled by trenches, as well as another ditch without a burial probably also from this period, were discovered in the cemetery. At the end of the Early Iron Age, burial practices within the Domasław necropolis did not cease completely. The category of sepulchral features with a younger chronology should also include the rectangular, nearly quadrangular structures which appear in the La Tene period and even at a later phase using this burial ground. The Domasław burials with surrounding trenches have no analogies in the nearest regions. Excavated circular structures make the largest group of funeral ditches to the north of the Carpathian and Sudeten Mountains. The influence on the shaping of the burial rite’s material remains as recorded in the form of chamber graves which stand out for their construction and furnishing, might be also treated as an element of impact. The appearance of circular ditches within this province might be also treated as an element of southern (Hallstatt) impact. The circular ditches at this burial ground is the manifestation of these influences. The strong impact from the Hallstatt circle probably led to profound changes in the sphere of beliefs, ideas, and social stratification. The custom of surrounding graves with rectangular ditches recorded in enclaves of the La Tène culture in Poland is undoubtedly the effect of the arrival of Celtic people from the south to these areas.

Neoliberalism, Postsecularism, and the End of Religion

This article examines the situation of religion in the context of contemporary neoliberalism. I argue that neoliberalism is a symptom of a fatal crisis in modern liberalism, which is brought about by geophysical planetary limits to growth. The concept of religion is a modern one that emerges from a secularized Christianity, and as liberalism declines, religion as a category is also declining. This phenomenon can be analyzed in terms of what I call postsecularism. Postsecularism indicates the breakdown of the modern divide within liberalism that assigns religion to a private sphere of belief that is separate from political-civil reason. Postsecularism attends to the ways that what we call religion exceed their modern frames and become deprivatized and politicized. In this process, spiritual-political forces are liberated from the modern framework of religion. Recent movements called New Materialism and New Animism can be seen as attempts to conceptualize this development. Finally, as an example, I turn to a recent book by Elizabeth Povinelli called Geontopower to show how religion fails to capture a profound entanglement of spiritual and political phenomena in neoliberalism, or what she calls late liberalism.

THE DEPICTION OF RELIGIOUS CONFLICT IN BHAGAT’S THE GIRL IN ROOM 105

This study aims to discuss the issue of religious conflict in Bhagat’s The Girl in Room 105. The objectives of this study are to analyze the religious conflicts and characteristics of the religious conflict reflected in the novel. This study uses descriptive qualitative method using sociological approach and several theories of religious conflict. The result, this study depicts the religious conflicts between by Muslim and Hindu as well as the characteristics of the religious conflict. The religious conflicts are presented in the sphere of belief: conflict between Muslim and Hindu, ideology: conflict between Kashmiri and Indian, organization: conflict between separatist groups of Kashmir against Indian government, family: conflict between Keshav and Zara’s family, and individual: conflict between Zara and Keshav.

Kontrowersje dotyczące urażania uczuć religijnych: Analiza wybranych aspektów debaty publicznej

In analyzing selected aspects of the debate over offending religious feelings, the author discusses Saby Mahmood’s argument that religiousness in public discourses of the Western world is basically perceived as a speculative phenomenon concerning the sphere of abstract beliefs. It is assumed therefore that the harm that can be produced by the publication of a blasphemous illustration is lesser and less palpable than in the case of hate speech directed toward a race or sexual orientation. The author’s analysis, which is undertaken from a Durkheim perspective, shows that, for example, the caricaturized presentation of a religious symbol constitutes not so much an act of undermining the abstract image as — in the affective perspective of the religious — an act violating the sense of ontological security of a given moral community which that symbol represents. At the same time, the Durkheim perspective facilitates an understanding of why religious symbolic resources can be ambivalently used in processes of legitimating social actions, beginning with constructive forms of civil public religions to extreme fundamentalist movements making use of violence and the discourses of political extremism.

Axial Breakthrough in Ancient Greece. New Considerations: Plato, Confucius, and the Buddha

Here I will examine the resemblances and similarities between Plato and two other personages, Confucius and the Buddha, who were his near-contemporaries, and who enabled a breakthrough. The Platonic break with the world of bodies and the sphere of belief, in favor of a level of intelligible realities, the models of the sensible realities explained by mathematics and moved by the soul, explains the specificity of the Western world, in the field of science, politics, ethics, and even religion.

On cultural dialects in Slavic ethnolinguistics

In the article the author considers the basic ideas of the Moscow ethnolinguistic school on the basis of several examples from the South Slavic cultural dialects. The methods are similar to the technique of isolating certain linguistic dialects and cultural dialects; much attention is paid to justification of the concept ?cultural dialect.? Eastern Serbia and western Bulgaria were taken as an example for the analysis of dialects based on phonetic, grammatical features and those that are observed in folk culture and which are reflected in its terminological vocabulary. Research was carried out into one of the main arealogical regularities that is linked to the interaction between cultural and language contexts of its functioning (in the sphere of beliefs and rituals, in folklore texts - legends, stories about encounters with supernatural beings, etc.). For example, ?bear?s day? shows the areal scheme of concentric circles, according to which the central place belongs to the terminological vocabulary, as far as the distance from the center is concerned, there are only rituals and beliefs associated with the ?bear? symbols of the holiday, and the wide range covers the extent of the legend of St. Andrew riding a bear. The paper concludes with a description of the geographic background in the ethnolinguistic dictionary Slavic Antiquities, whose main purpose is a reconstruction of old Slavic culture aided by the linguistic method of study of folk culture, i.e. the study of verbal expressions for a number of cultural phenomena (lexical and phraseological items).

Kulturowe przyczyny zmian w polskim imiennictwie osobowym (w ujęciu diachronicznym)

Changes in the fund of given names used in Poland, in their symbolism and motives of choice, are the consequence of changes in the area of spiritual culture (the symbolic one). They are connected with the great changes that occurred from the Middle Ages in the sphere of beliefs, declared values, and prevailing habits in the whole of Europe. The greatest change in the Polish fund of personal names, that concerned the exchange of the repertoire and symbolism of native given names to Christian ones, was associated with the radical conversion of traditional Slavic spiritual culture, under the influence of Christian culture, which spread to Poland in the Middle Ages (10th–15th century) from western Europe. Changes on a lesser scale, during the time of Reformation, were associated with the negative attitude of Protestants towards the cult of saints, contrary to Catholics who supported it. From the end of the 18th century, when Poland lost its independence, there have been noticeable patriotic attempts to partially restore the native, old, Polish given names. From the Middle Ages to modern times, names in use were strongly influenced and enriched by the names of literary protagonists and famous persons from European literary culture. In modern times, the reason for such a departure from religious motivations to secular ones of various kinds, when choosing a baptismal name, may be sought in the progressive secularization of the society in Europe, initiated by some intellectual and social trends of the Age of Enlightenment. In the repertoire of forenames recently given in Poland, their variable popularity is an observed phenomenon. Periodically, new, foreign given names will appear (in connection with the opening to the world) as well as different nicknames. With regards to motivation, aesthetic predilections prevail. Given names of Christian origin still hold a relatively strong position, firmly rooted in the Polish culture. The appearance of surnames, at first common ones, and legally binding from the 19th century onwards, has led to the lack of sole reliance on a given name in the identification and representation of a person. This is a very important change, caused by the development of civilization. Since then, in official relations, this function is performed by the name and the surname.

Family Caregivers’ Health in Connection With Providing Care

Our aim was to investigate connections between Swedish family caregivers' health and providing care for an ill relative by conducting a systematic search and synthesis of previous research. We analyzed 31 articles using first qualitative content analysis then hermeneutic analysis. Analysis resulted in three derived themes-sliding sideways into caregiving, caregiving in reciprocity, and caregiving in disintegration-and a main interpretation and conceptual model of Swedish family caregivers' health-caregiving in a sphere of beliefs. Results indicated that Swedish family caregivers' beliefs, experiences of reciprocity, or nonsupport, together with quality of interpersonal relationships and feelings of responsibility and guilt, have a profound impact on their health. These results point to the value and importance of nurses gaining an understanding of family caregivers' beliefs and experiences of reciprocity or nonsupport to effectively promote family caregivers' health.

Two spheres of belief in justice: extensive support for the bidimensional model of belief in a just world.

The purpose of this research comprising five studies (N = 666) was to further corroborate the bidimensional conceptualisation of the belief in a just world proposed by Lipkus et al. (1996). It was demonstrated that belief in a just world for the Self (and not for Others) was correlated to evaluations of the meaning of life. Belief in a just world for Others was significantly correlated to discrimination against the elderly, stigmatisation of poverty, and higher penal punitiveness, while belief in a just world for Self was weakly or not related to these variables. Together, these observations confirm the importance of the conceptual and psychometric distinction between these two spheres of the belief in a just world.

Death and Rebirth

LORD RAGLAN dedicates this book to the memory of A. M. Hocart, the most original anthropologist of this century, whose “Kingship” (Oxford, 1927) and “Kings and Councillors” (Cairo, 1936) are still less well known than they should be. “Kingship” is an analysis of the complex pattern of kingship in its prehistoric heyday, which can perhaps be correlated with Gordon Childe's 'urban revolution' (in “Man Makes Himself”), and in its modern survivals. Hocart points to a single origin of the institution and of the archaic culture of which kingship was the unifying symbol, in the fourth or third millennium B.C. in the Near East, and to its diffusion from there. Lord Raglan's “Hero” (1936) was an extension of Hocart's work and argued that myths of heroes all over the world exhibit the same pattern, a threefold repetition of the ritual life of the divine king covering his birth, his coronation and marriage, and his death. In “How Came Civilization” (1939) Lord Raglan developed some of the ideas which Hocart had thrown off and left uncompleted in his “Progress of Man” (1933), ably supporting the diffusionist hypothesis and giving particular examples of artefacts, like bows or the potter's wheel, or of techniques, like the domestication of animals or mummification. He ended with a striking chapter on the dominance of ritual in the 'archaic civilization', which is the foundation of ours to an extent which few of us begin to suspect. “Death and Rebirth” continues the argument in the sphere of beliefs about immortality and life after death. Death and Rebirth A Study in Comparative Religion. By Lord Raglan. Pp. vi + 106. (London: Watts and Co., Ltd., 1945.) 5s. net.