When we think about the relationship between the brain and Judaism there are many possibilities to explore, ranging from the practical to the esoteric. Over the past twenty years there has been a growing development in this field, which some have referred to as neurotheology. Broadly speaking, neurotheology is a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to understand the relationship specific...

Many theories of religion tend toward a naturalistic, sociological, Durkheimian framework. While these theories have pointed out important dimensions of religious experience, they risk reducing the human experience of religion to a purely social or psychological phenomenon, without taking seriously the claims of religious adherents themselves. How can we begin to work toward a unique theory of ...

Similarity of religious beliefs and practices among friends, or network-religion autocorrelation, is a common aspect of many social networks. Network-religion autocorrelation is important because it strengthens plausibility structures (Berger 1967), or the combination of beliefs and strong social ties to others who share those beliefs. Plausibility structures support sacred umbrellas (Smith 199...

Empirical studies have identified significant links between religion and spirituality and health. The reasons for these associations, however, are unclear. Typically, religion and spirituality have been measured by global indices (e.g., frequency of church attendance, self-rated religiousness and spirituality) that do not specify how or why religion and spirituality affect health. The authors h...

We introduce a simple uniform structure of elementary Φ-unitary matrices. Elementary Φ-unitary transformations are the extentions of Householder transformations in real and complex spaces with a definite or an indefinite inner product induced by a nonsingular signature matrix Φ. The extentions are found useful in the computations of complex matrices or special structured matrices. For two (comp...

Despite his well-known criticisms of popular religion, Hume refers in seemingly complimentary terms to ‘true religion’; in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, his character Philo goes so far as to express ‘veneration for’ it. This paper addresses three questions. First, did Hume himself really approve of something that he called ‘true religion’? Second, what did he mean by calling it ‘true’?...

When we study the history of life, it easy to see that life has evolved over time. The fossils of creatures that lived before us faithfully record the innovations and changes leading to the diversity of life that we observe today. The history of religion is much shorter, yet it too has left a fossil record revealing some of the innovations and changes leading to the diversity of religions which...

I began my study of religion as a hobby years before I formally entered the academic world. During my informal studies I never gave much thought to just what religion is. I gleaned the bookstore shelves in sections marked " Religion, " never considering why some books appeared on these shelves and others appeared on the " New Age and Occult " section. My study of religion was simple — my concep...

OF THESIS THE EFFECT OF VICTIM RELIGION ON JUROR PERCEPTIONS OF HATE CRIMES The present study investigated mock juror perceptions of hate crimes in the courtroom, specifically whether a victim’s religion (Atheist, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim) influenced the likelihood that a mock juror would render a hate crime verdict. I employed a mock juror methodology where participants read an assault tri...