BACKGROUND End-of-life decision making constitutes a major challenge for bioethical deliberation and political governance in modern democracies: On the one hand, it touches upon fundamental convictions about life, death, and the human condition. On the other, it is deeply rooted in religious traditions and historical experiences and thus shows great socio-cultural diversity. The bioethical disc...

MDST123 Escaping Purgatory: Music and Devotion in Medieval Europe This course will explore the creative expression of religious belief in the music, poetry, literature, art, and architecture of Medieval Europe. We will begin with the everyday experience of monks, nuns, poets, and street musicians. What role did music play in their lives? Was it limited to religious practice and secular festival...

Anthropological interest in giving, including religious charity, has grown in recent years. However, studies of philanthropy have largely been confined to activities relating to humanto-human sociality. By contrast, this article explores conceptions of giving and acts of charity from the perspective of interactions between the living and the dead. Drawing on Buddhist traditions and popular ritu...

Use of elemental mercury in certain cultural and religious practices can cause high exposures to mercury vapor. Uses include sprinkling mercury on the floor of a home or car, burning it in a candle, and mixing it with perfume. Some uses can produce indoor air mercury concentrations one or two orders of magnitude above occupational exposure limits. Exposures resulting from other uses, such as in...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to add to the understanding of humility-based economic development and entrepreneurship among the Amish – a religious group – in the USA, whose culture values asceticism, frugality, thrift and work, as well as humility. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents an ethnographic research study. Findings – Amish adults teach their young that work is pl...

s of the articles in Arabic Sources of Tolerance and Intolerance in Islam by Ibrahim Kalin Healing Interreligious Relationships by Leo Lefebure Disagreeing to Agree: A Christian Response to A Common Word by James Cutsinger Religious Diversity and Harmonious Living: The Indian Story and Challenge by Michael Amaladoss Jews and Muslims: Why They Have More in Common than They Realize by Robert Eise...

Buddhism currently enjoys the reputation of being one of the leading voices in a chorus that sings the praises of religious tolerance and perhaps even of pluralism. It is open to question, however, whether this reputation is deserved. The purpose of the present article is to examine whether the teachings of classical Buddhism have a contribution to make to the jubilation over religious pluralis...

Prior research has identified a number of antecedents to infant mortality, but has been focused on either structural (demographic) forces or medical (public health) factors, both of which ignore potential cultural influences. Our study introduces a cultural model for explaining variations in infant mortality, one focused on the role of community-level religious factors. A key impetus for our st...

BACKGROUND The national program for the prevention of Down syndrome includes screening (using the triple test) and invasive diagnostic tests in women at risk for a Down syndrome pregnancy. However, despite the program, the majority of Down syndrome infants are born alive (approximately 1/1000 live births). OBJECTIVES To determine whether the relatively high incidence of Down syndrome at birth...

While Indonesia’s burgeoning private television industry has prospered through the country’s democratic transition and the rise of popular Islam, it has remained ideologically constrained by many of the content restrictions established during Suharto’s New Order era. One area in which producers have broken these norms is in the field of religious imagery, and the adaptation of religiously-theme...