Educational achievement is positively correlated with religious devotion. However, those religious sects which are more devoted have, on average, lower levels of education. Evangelical Protestants, for example, have the highest level of religious devotion but the lowest level of educational achievement. Previous research explains this by proposing that education enhances the gains to social int...

This article explores the signi cant role played by religious groups in the legitimation of the Former Shu founded by Wang Jian in the chaotic early tenth century. Whereas the Daoist priest Du Guangting attempted to legitimate the regime on religious grounds, the Buddhist monk Guanxiu employed his literary talent to depict the military ruler as a savior in a tumultuous age. This article also su...

The United States has a long history of religious influence on public policy: the anti-slavery movement, progressivism, prohibition, civil rights, abortion, school vouchers, school prayer and nuclear disarmament are all issues that have involved religion and religious groups in policymaking. In recent decades, the number of religious interest groups (as well as interest groups in general) has g...

Six million migrants from over 170 countries have resettled in Australia since 1945 ensuring religious diversity is now a hallmark of Australia's population. However, not all religious groups are perceived in the same way. In this paper, we explore how representational processes differentially essentialise religious groups, in particular how some groups are ascribed an underlying nature that ir...

We argue that a central function of religious attendance in the contemporary U.S. is to support a high-fertility, monogamous mating strategy. Although religious attendance is correlated with many demographic, personality, moral, and behavioral variables, we propose that sexual and family variables are at the core of many of these relationships. Numerous researchers have assumed that religious s...

PURPOSE The present study aims to examine the association between religious involvement and mental disorder (anxiety disorder, mood disorder, alcohol use disorder) in a general Chinese population, and explore connections between religious belief and mental disorders in the Hui and Han ethnic groups. METHOD Data were examined from a representative sample of 2,770 community-dwelling adults in t...