A mong the many famous maxims that have come down to us from the work of Adam Smith is: “The division of labor is determined by the extent of the market.” This statement captures an evolution frequently observed in the nature of businesses and jobs as economies and markets grow. In a small market, particularly in a preindustrial economy, goods were produced and sold in small shops. All stages o...

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...

Our study falls in line with the numerous studies providing a critique of the use of western diagnostic instruments for assessing trauma in a cross-cultural context. Our purpose has been to give evidence for the Tibetan torture survivors' degree of traumatisation and for their use of spirituality to overcome their difficult situation. In addition we wanted to question the use of our western met...

There is a deepening crisis between oppressed and disaffected religious groups such as Muslims in western societies and some of the principal sources of anti-oppression doctrines and movements.The centre-left seems not only to be dividing between those who see the contemporary minority–majority relations challenge to be the egalitarian inclusion of groups like Muslims, and those who see Muslim ...

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...

Background and aims: Religious Coping is known as a main resource influencing for adjustment and managing appropriately the problems and stressors, that it seems to be an inseparable component in mental health literature in recent years. This study was carried out to investigate the religious Coping and mental health in the students of the Qom University of Medical Sciences. Methods: In this de...