OBJECTIVE To examine the directionality of associations between self-reported religious importance or worship attendance and depression among adolescents, and to determine whether social supports or general self-efficacy are mechanisms of observed associations. METHOD A cohort (n = 976) of Canadian high school students were surveyed in Grade 10 (2000 to 2001) and 2 years later (2002 to 2003)....

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) abolished its total ban on religious activities in 1982. However, the distrust that the CCP feels for religions remains obvious today, and the religious restrictions in contemporary China remain tight. Conventional wisdom tells us that the official atheist ideology of Marxism-Leninism is the main reason behind the CCP’s distrust for, and restriction of, ...

Managing one’s identity across time and through major life changes is a key process in the life course. Yet, prominent theories of identity have not been adequately tested across age groups and through life transitions. Using longitudinal data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (N = 3,290), the basic hypotheses of identity theory are confirmed in explaining adolescents’ religious ide...

Previous literature on religion and sexual behavior has focused on narrow definitions of religiosity, including religious affiliation, religious participation, or forms of religiousness (e.g., intrinsic religiosity). Trends toward more permissive premarital sexual activity in the North American Christian-Judeo religion support the secularization hypothesis of religion, which posits an increasin...

Economics and Religion This paper provides an overview of the relationship between economics and religion. It first considers the effects of economic incentives in the religious marketplace on consumers’ demand for “religion.” It then shows how this demand affects religious institutions and generates a supply of religious goods and services. Other topics include the structure of this religious ...

Vaccination is considered to be one of the greatest public health achievements in the 20th century, which has helped to build a society free of vaccine preventable diseases and save lives of millions children across the globe (1). However, in the 21st century, pediatric practice in the western world witnesses an era of vaccination refusal (2). Pediatricians, infectious disease experts, and publ...

We propose an integrative cognitive neuroscience framework for understanding the cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief. Our analysis reveals 3 psychological dimensions of religious belief (God's perceived level of involvement, God's perceived emotion, and doctrinal/experiential religious knowledge), which functional MRI localizes within networks processing Theory of Mind regardin...

Religious belief in its most ideal form can be seen as a powerful force to create purposive transformations by transmitting ecologically positive habit of practice and attitudes of mind to succeeding generations that share similar religious beliefs. This concept assumes even greater significance on considering howmore than half of the world’s population embraces some sort of religious beliefs t...

Governments may also use religious soft power in pursuit of national interests and objectives. This article focuses on the role of religious soft power in the foreign policy of three states – the United States of America, India and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The main concern is to assess religious actors’ contribution to the foreign policy environment and agenda in each country. The idea of ...