Since 9/11, and even more so with the atrocities committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, violence in the name of God is predominantly perceived as a “different” kind of violence, which triggers more “absolute” and radical manifestations than its secular counter parts. In its first part, this article will challenge this so called exceptionalism of religious violence by questioning the neat divide b...

Religion is of global significance, and its study requires explanations from cognitive science. Currently, the cognitive science of religion consists of researchers working in an array of disciplines, employing diverse methods, including, among others: experimental research and modelling in psychology and neuroscience, and historical, archaeological, and comparative studies of religious cogniti...

Religion is as old as mankind. Primitive man had primitive religions and he worshipped the elements of nature like sun, earth, air, cloud, water etc. Advances in civilisation led to institutionalised religions. The basic characteristics of all religions are similar. There is firm belief in a higher, unseen controlling power. Religion appears to be a psychological necessity for mankind. However,...

European demographers rarely study religion as a determinant of contemporary demographic behaviour. One reason could be the secularisation observed in European countries, implying that the effect of religiosity has been diminishing. This paper aims to show that religion can have an important impact on ideals, intentions and behaviour related to fertility. First we discuss recent trends in relig...

The spatial structure of population subgroups is important for many reasons. Information on the spatial concentrations of people in particular groups may be used for guiding government policy and is central to understanding issues such as differential access to resources. In addition, any geographical analysis of populations is partly a function of the spatial scale of variation of subgroups of...

Adaptationists explain the evolution of religion from the cooperative effects of religious commitments, but which cooperation problem does religion evolve to solve? I focus on a class of symmetrical coordination problems for which there are two pure Nash equilibriums: (1) ALL COOPERATE, which is efficient but relies on full cooperation; (2) ALL DEFECT, which is inefficient but pays regardless o...

The objectives of this study were to identify predominant themes in religion, illness and death in the life histories of families and examine the relationship between religion creeds, illness and death in the discourse of families that have an ill person. The theoretical framework used in this study was Symbolic Interactionism and the method was Oral History. Participants were seventeen familie...

Evidence is presented that bears on 9 hypotheses about the link between religion or spirituality and mortality, morbidity, disability, or recovery from illness. In healthy participants, there is a strong, consistent, prospective, and often graded reduction in risk of mortality in church/service attenders. This reduction is approximately 25% after adjustment for confounders. Religion or spiritua...

This paper examined the influence of religion on the adoption of female sterilization, using data from the 1992/93 Indian National Family Health Survey. The influence of religion at both individual and district levels was examined, and a multi-level modelling methodology was used for assessing community variations in the influence of religion on the adoption of sterilization. Individual religio...