In the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos in Greece, the girdle (belt) of the Virgin bestows blessings on white ribbons for the wrists of infertile husbands and their wives, and this liturgy has resulted in natural conceptions for centuries. The procedure is economic and non-invasive, and therefore ideal for patients, but is unorthodox to contemporary medicine. In 1766 John Hunter advised a l...

African arts stem from their themes of symbolism, functionalism and utilitarianism, which describe African art as quite multi-functional. This however does not say that some African art does not have its underlying aesthetic import. In Africa, by virtue of their belief system, their spiritual practices have led to the creation of new artistic imageries. This is in the sense that their various a...

the present paper studies the introduction of atlal in two imra’ ul-qais and zuhayr bin abī sūlmā works of art. selection of these two poets has some reasons; one of them is that each opposes the other; while imra’ ul-qais is a bon vivant man but zuhayr is a god – fearing one. they both experience different conditions of life. the importance of this issue is their interactions with women which ...

Is it possible to talk about God without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? The article begins by reviewing how, in attempting to answer this question, traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. After arguing that recently developed theories of metaphor seem better able to shed light on the nature o...

INTRODUCTION Churches occupy an important social and cultural position in Madagascar. The sexual transmission of HIV raises controversies about the role that Churches can play in preventing HIV/AIDS. This cross-sectional survey investigated recommendations by religious leaders for condom use and other preventive strategies in the context of international guidelines. METHODS A questionnaire wa...

In creating an appraisal policy to support the documentation of a church, synagogue or other religious movement, an archives must decide whether to gloss over the religious aspect of its mission and seek to document itself as an organization which happens to be religious, or to attempt to engage the messy question of belief to document the faith group itself. This paper will examine the problem...