Although the contribution of immigration and religious switching to the changing religious landscape in Canada seems well established, we lack knowledge on the religious switching of immigrants. In this study we address if and to what extent immigrants to Canada change religion after their arrival. We use data on religious affiliation and other demographic characteristics from the 1981, 1991 an...

An analytic cognitive style denotes a propensity to set aside highly salient intuitions when engaging in problem solving. We assess the hypothesis that an analytic cognitive style is associated with a history of questioning, altering, and rejecting (i.e., unbelieving) supernatural claims, both religious and paranormal. In two studies, we examined associations of God beliefs, religious engagemen...

As a theologian working in Western Europe, religious plurality is unavoidable for me. It seems that our context can no longer be identified in terms of secularization. Competing worldviews and complementing religious stories dictate the religious landscape (and increasingly so, due to migration and global communication). The religions present in my country, however, are not monolithic and stabl...

Researchers often expose participants to a series of words (e.g., religion, God, faith) to activate religious concepts and observe their subsequent effects on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This research has revealed many important effects of experimentally manipulated religious cognition in domains ranging from prosocial behavior to prejudice. However, it is not exactly clear what...

This study examines if religious participation in China is associated with cognitive functioning among the oldest-old and whether positive psychological feelings and leisure activity engagement explain the association, and gender moderates the association. Logistic regressions were used to analyze the Chinese Healthy Longevity Survey. A significant negative association between religious partici...

Th is article presents a theoretical framework for religiocentrism that is suited to cross-religious comparisons between Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Religiocentrism is defined as the combination of positive attitudes toward the religious ingroup and negative attitudes toward religious outgroup(s). Empirical research proves the relevance of the construct ‘religiocentrism’ among Christian, Mu...

Our 2005 representative national survey (2,972 interviews) shows an overwhelmingly common and strong religious intolerance towards Western churches that are legally deemed “non-traditional” and are commonly perceived as foreign to Russia. Most Russians would not let Western groups build churches, establish religious schools, or engage in other basic religious activities in their hometowns. West...

One of the resolutions adopted by the July-August 2004 56th session of the United Nations Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (www.un.org/news/press/docs/2004/ hcrn110/doc.htm) was the call for a working paper on ‘Discrimination against leprosy victims and their families’. The term ‘discrimination’ embraces most, but not all, facets of the concept and impact of leprosy...

The most basic element in accessing safety food is the audit. Food factories and suppliers regularly undergo inspections within scope of quality management safety. These audits include requirements set by current legal regulations as well issues stipulated social compliance standards. In this respect, although content mainly covers issues, there may be occupational health safety, environment, c...