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...

The article provides a philosophical analysis of the content and essence Zoroastrian religious traditions associated with agriculture. influence these elements is emphasized in Khorezm oasis, cradle Zoroastrianism.

Objective: Our goal was to develop a comprehensive measure of religious involvement for those affiliated with monotheistic religious traditions that fully captures the centrality of religion in life. Methods: A convenience sample of female caregivers of those with chronic disabling illness, recruited from North Carolina and California, completed a questionnaire including a new 10-item scale cal...

Currently the demand for transplant organs far outstrips the supply in the UK. This problem is even more severe for the Asian population, who have been shown to be disproportionately over-represented on transplant waiting lists in some regions of the UK. Several commentators have suggested that religious and cultural traditions may be the major determinant preventing Asians from donating organs...

We address the problem of cultural diversification by studying selection on cultural ideas that colonize human hosts and using diversification of religions as a conceptual example. In analogy to studying the evolution of pathogens or symbionts colonizing animal hosts, we use models for host-pathogen dynamics known from theoretical epidemiology. In these models, religious content colonizes indiv...

Around the world, there appears to be a growing concern with spirituality in the general public as well as among scholars. Whether one looks at the list of best-selling books, searches the Web, watches contemporary movies or TV shows, or reads general-interest magazines, one quickly finds evidence of this trend. And one sees religion and spirituality (mixed with nationalism and ethnic tensions)...

cosmological argument has been one of the most significant philosophical and theological arguments in religious traditions of different religions. in the western theo-philosophical tradition, there have been both different interpretations and numerous criticisms presented about this argument. in this article, the most important of those arguments and their criticisms are both taken into conside...