Religion played a prominent role in the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945–1952) that followed the brutal Pacific War (1941–1945). Officially, the occupiers were to promulgate religious freedom, separate religion from the state, and encourage the Japanese people to develop a ‘desire for religious freedom’. Promulgating religious freedom was the easy part. Separating religion from the state withou...

Religion is increasingly acknowledged to be a cultural dimension which affects economic outcomes in different regards. This contribution focuses on religion’s possible impact on the shadow economy. Different dimensions of the religious markets are taken into account. These dimensions refer to the overall degree of religiosity, the specific impact of different religions, religious competition or...

Conscientious objection (CO) is the refusal to obey laws due to moral, religious or belief principles. The ideologies or religions underlying laws or constitutions have been seldom analyzed. Scientific Ethics finds that constitutions and laws have implicit or explicit ideological elements that are imposed on citizens, and denies or forbids others that lead citizens to CO. Ideological analysis i...

E conomics and environmentalism are belief systems that shape their adherents’ way of thinking about the world. We might just as accurately characterize them as secular religions, which most theologians count as real religions (see, for example, Tillich 1963), but many people prefer to regard them as competing belief systems. Many (not all) economists and environmentalists thus function in the ...

Until recently the theoretical structures of psychiatry and psychology were based on the observations of a rather limited range of mental phenomena and human experiences. Very little systematic and serious attention was given to a variety of phenomena that have been described over centuries within the framework of the world's great religions, as well as temple mysteries, mystery religions, init...

exclusivism is among the matters of dispute among the theologians and advocates of religions, which has since long ago been of interest to the christian theologians and emphasized by them and now is facing various challenges. in this writing, only their out-religious reasons, such as referring other religions to christianity, the resurrection of jesus and similar issues are presented from major...

The sacred texts of five world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism) use similar belief systems to set limits on sexual behavior. We propose that this similarity is a shared cultural solution to a biological problem: namely male uncertainty over the paternity of offspring. Furthermore, we propose the hypothesis that religious practices that more strongly regulate fema...

In changing and uncertain times, humanity looks toward spirituality for tranquility and peace. Historically angels have been at the forefront of bringing comfort and understanding from God. The Greek word angelos means messenger and is the origin of the modern English word angel. In monotheist–the worship of one Godreligions, angels are often mentioned in stories as being intermediaries between...

one of the important theological issues in many religions - and most importantly in abrahamic religions - is ‘angelology’, especially the recognition of ‘archangels.’ this study focuses on one of the angels called ‘raphael’ and compares his significance and duties in the three religions: judaism, christianity and islam. in addition, it is examined whether raphael equals the islamic angel ‘israf...