This essay seeks to contribute to work on moral agency of religious women through the creative naming of a dynamic that is emerging in recent scholarship. Drawing on fieldwork in Iran in 2004, I argue that prominent models of agency based on autonomy, heteronomy, and theonomy are unable take into account both religious influence on and individual creativity of women's actions. I propose the neo...

Social psychological researchers have found that most conceptual structures can be primed, i.e. activated unobtrusively and exert an influence on subsequent behavior without the participant’s awareness of this influence. I investigated whether exposing people to words related to a punishing God or a forgiving Christian could influence subsequent moral judgment. Participants completed a ’scrambl...

Historically, religion and religious belief have often been credited as the source of human morality. But what have been the real effects of religion on prosocial behavior? A review of the psychological literature reveals a complex relation between religious belief and moral action: leading to greater prosocial behavior in some contexts but not in others, and in some cases actually increasing a...

Various versions of legitimacy theory predict that a duty and obligation to obey legitimate authorities generally trumps people's personal moral and religious values. However, most research has assumed rather than measured the degree to which people have a moral or religious stake in the situations studied. This study tested compliance with and reactions to legitimate authorities in the context...

This article chronicles the impact on sexuality policy in the United States of the rise of the Religious Right as a significant force in American politics. Using a case study analysis of abortionreproductive rights and sexuality education, it narrates the story of how U.S. policy debates and practices have changed since the 1970s as sexual conservatism rose in prominence and sexual progressives...

Various versions of legitimacy theory predict that a duty and obligation to obey legitimate authorities generally trumps people’s personal moral and religious values. However, most research has assumed rather than measured the degree to which people have a moral or religious stake in the situations studied. This study tested compliance with and reactions to legitimate authorities in the context...

Contemporary philosophy of religion is often focused, at a theoretical level, on the epistemic value of religious doctrines, and at a practical level, on the possible impact of organized religion on secular society and politics. However, the cultic dimension of religion, such as prayer, religious service, ascetic practices, and other rituals, is considered as completely “irrational” and incompr...

End-of-life organ donation is controversial in Islam. The controversy stems from: (1) scientifically flawed medical criteria of death determination; (2) invasive perimortem procedures for preserving transplantable organs; and (3) incomplete disclosure of information to consenting donors and families. Data from a survey of Muslims residing in Western countries have shown that the interpretation ...

OBJECTIVE Few studies have investigated the association between religion and suicide either in terms of Durkheim's social integration hypothesis or the hypothesis of the regulative benefits of religion. The relationship between religion and suicide attempts has received even less attention. METHOD Depressed inpatients (N=371) who reported belonging to one specific religion or described themse...