Religious Education Problems in a Multi-Faith Society The idea of religious education presents few difficulties when the society is unambiguous about its religion, or where the majority of the population claims formal allegiance to the State Religion, However, in a society where such unanimity is not present then a solution is found in excluding religion from state schools, as in the public sch...

This article adds to recent literature in the study of religion and marriage by examining older couples’ use of religion as a cultural repertoire in enduring marriages. The study includes qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 43 married, Christian couples. Couples reported four predominant social contexts that gave sacred meanings to their marriage: prayer, worship services and sermo...

he relationship between medicine and religion belongs to the classical topics of medical history, in the studies of the so called early civilizations, mainly Egypt and Babylonia, of Greek and Roman antiquity, of the occidental and oriental Middle Ages and of the European early modern period. Yet about a century ago, preformed by enlightenment ideas on linear progress of humankind and often expl...

During their stay on death row, inmates have an abundance of free time with which they need to fill. Many inmates will turn to religion in order to preoccupy themselves. This research project set out to analyze the nature of religious coping among death row inmates. I propose that an inmate who is actively involved with their religion while coping will be able to cope with the social setting of...

The objective of this exploratory study was to identify how religion influences the survival of a group of cancer patients. The study consisted of an ethnographic case with the participation of six laryngectomized male and female patients between 51 and 72 years old, who had been operated on two to five years earlier. Data were collected by semistructured interviews and analyzed on the basis of...

No one has explored the implications of cognitive theories and findings about religion for understanding its history with any more enthusiasm or insight than Luther Martin. Although my focus here is not historical, I assume that I will be employing cognitive tools in ways that he finds congenial. In the paper’s first section, I will make some general comments about standard comparisons of scien...

Religion and medicine have a long, intertwined, tumultuous history, going back thousands of years. Only within the past 200-300 years (less than 5 percent of recorded history) have these twin healing traditions been clearly separate. This series on religion and medicine begins with a historical review, proceeding from prehistoric times through ancient Egypt, Greece, and early Christianity throu...

Studies concerning the relationship between religion and mental health have provided substantial evidence for the existence of a positive relationship. Nevertheless, it remains largely unclear which aspects of both religion and mental health take part in this relationship. The present study uses multiple measures of religion and of mental health to obtain a more refined view of this relationshi...

Twentieth-century philosophers of religion made strides forward in advancing sophisticated arguments about religious knowledge, language, experience and arguments for the existence of the theistic God. However, by the end of the century Anglo-American philosophers in particular tended to treat philosophy of religion as synonymous with a Christian account of the divine. Male and female philosoph...

BACKGROUND Religion is an important underlying determinant of HIV spread in sub-Saharan Africa. However, little is known about how religion influences changes in HIV prevalence and associated sexual behaviours over time. OBJECTIVES To compare changes in HIV prevalence between major religious groups in eastern Zimbabwe during a period of substantial HIV risk reduction (1998-2005) and to invest...