The relationship between religiosity and educational attainment is an important question in the sociology of religion literature. It is widely contested whether the natural outgrowth of the spreading rational worldview and the increase of educated people can account for the decline of religious adherence. Is there any other explanation for the different opportunities of religious and non-religi...

The positive relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction is well-established. This relationship is, however, likely to vary across cultural contexts and different religious affiliations. Furthermore, research is needed to uncover why religion is relevant for life satisfaction. Addressing these issues, we investigate what dimensions of being religious play a role in the life satisfact...

BACKGROUND International guidance for advance care planning (ACP) supports the integration of spiritual and religious aspects of care within the planning process. Religious leaders' perspectives could improve how ACP programs respect patients' faith backgrounds. This study aimed to examine: (i) how religious leaders understand and consider ACP and its implications, including (ii) how religion a...

We present a detailed survey of how different US faith communities view origins science, particularly evolution and Big Bang cosmology. We find a striking gap between people’s personal beliefs and the official views of the faiths to which they belong. Whereas Gallup reports that 46% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago, we find that only ...

Semantic couplets in the Nahuatl language can function as discourse markers that have the pragmatic function of building identities among speech communities. The subsistence of these linguistic structures in present day institutional discourses points to similarities, not only in social, religious but also in linguistic practices of speech communities that are distant in time. Semantic couplets...

In Israel, genetic screening and testing are widespread and are on the rise. The socialized medical system, the governmental National Program for the Detection and Prevention of Birth Defects, the central registry of genetic disorders, and the availability of medical genetic units influence the extensive utilization of genetic services. Israeli society is a complex one-ethnically, religiously, ...