Belief and Rationality In recent years deep questions have been raised not only about what constitutes rational justification for religious beliefs, but also about the relevance of standard notions of justification to the analysis of a believer’s relation to her beliefs. Indeed, the net tendency of the Anglo-American discussion since (roughly) 1983 has been to say that religious persons can be ...

Religion is a popular topic to be considered as one of the major factors that affect people’s lifestyles. However, religion is one of the social factors that most economists are very careful in stating a connection with economic variables. Among few researchers who are keen to find how religions influence the economic growth, Barro had several publications with individual religious activities o...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship among spiritual and religious beliefs and practices, social support, and diabetes self-care activities in African Americans with type 2 diabetes, hypothesizing that there would be a positive association. METHOD This cohort study used a cross-sectional design that focused on baseline data from a larger randomized control tria...

In this paper we o¤er a new theory of religion. Our theory relies on the assumption that individuals in society have di¤erent beliefs about the statistical relation between their actions in a strategic social interaction (speci…cally, a Prisoner’s Dilemma) and uncertain events that a¤ect their utility. This heterogeneity of beliefs allows for the endogenous emergence of religious institutions; ...

OBJECTIVE Historical and contemporary research has posited links between eating disorders and religious asceticism. This study aimed to examine relationships between eating disorders, religion, and treatment. METHOD Qualitative study using purposeful sampling, applying audiotaped and transcribed depth interview, subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. RESULTS Participants wer...

Past research has found a robust effect of prejudice against atheists in largely Christian-dominated (belief-oriented) samples. We propose that religious centrality of beliefs vs. practices influences attitudes toward atheists, such that religious groups emphasizing beliefs perceive non-believers more negatively than believers, while groups emphasizing practices perceive non-practicing individu...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To examine the extent to which antecedent variables and appraisals differentiate levels of hope in women during treatment for breast cancer. DESIGN Descriptive, correlational. SETTING Two large midwestern urban areas. SAMPLE 73 Caucasian women between the ages of 20-73 with first-time diagnosis of breast cancer; recruited through five physician offices; within three mon...

This is a study of risk perception in relation to New Age (NA) beliefs, including traditional folk superstition and belief in paranormal phenomena, as well as use of alternative healing practices. Data were also obtained on trust dimensions and on personality and psychopathology variables, as well as religious involvement. It was found that four factors accounted for the investigated NA beliefs...

spiritual beliefs can help people find meaning of life, and can also influence their feelings, behaviors and mental health. the present research studied the relationship between basic religious beliefs (human, existence and god) and five personality factors: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness.one hundred seventy eight students of islamic azad university in tor...