Students' religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predicting whether they will accept evolution, yet college biology instructors teaching evolution at public institutions often have religious beliefs and cultures that are different from their religious students. This difference in religious beliefs and cultures may be a barrier to effective evolution educ...

The study examined how religious beliefs and practices impact upon medication and illness representations in chronic schizophrenia. One hundred three stabilized patients were included in Geneva's outpatient public psychiatric facility in Switzerland. Interviews were conducted to investigate spiritual and religious beliefs and religious practices and religious coping. Medication adherence was as...

Many nurses today are religious and sometimes there exist some religious motivations on becoming a nurse. They are often responsible through their care to assess and facilitate spiritual well-being, identify spiritual distress and to provide religious and spiritual care. Nurses need to understand their own spirituality and religiosity before they can successfully integrate them into their care....

Does religious involvement influence changes in physical health? We perform a longitudinal analysis of the effect of religious participation on functioning over a 12-year follow-up period, in a large, prospective, representative sample of elderly persons from New Haven, Connecticut, a religiously diverse community. To examine the possibility that disability or changes in disability may be affec...

BACKGROUND Holistic practice involves caring for the physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs of patients. Spiritual assessment is an important part of the patient's overall assessment. Religion is a component of spirituality and is supported by a recognisable formal system of beliefs. Religious beliefs might help patients in their search for meaning in life, especially in difficult ...

This paper uses a psychological/computational theory of emotional coherence to explain several aspects of religious belief and practice. After reviewing evidence for the importance of emotion to religious thought and cognition in general, it describes psychological and social mechanisms of emotional cognition. These mechanisms are relevant to explaining the acquisition and maintenance of religi...

Cinematic language is rich in examples of religious metaphors. One Japanese film that contains religious “tropes” (figurative language) is the 2008 human drama, Departures. This paper focuses on the analysis of religious metaphors encoded in select film shots, using semiotics as the theoretical framework for film analysis. The specific metaphors discussed in the paper are the Shinto view of dea...

Religion is a ubiquitous aspect of human culture, yet until recently, relatively little was known about its natural origins and effects on human minds and societies. This is changing, as scientifi c interest in religion is on the rise. Debates about the evolutionary origins and functions of religion, including its origins in genetic and cultural evolution, hinge on a set of empirical claims abo...

BACKGROUND Low back pain (LBP) is common among office workers. A number of studies have established a relationship between Christianity and physical and mental health outcomes among chronic pain patients. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the religious beliefs and practices of Buddhism and disability and psychological stress in office workers with chronic LBP. ...

In a recent article entitled, Requests "for inappropriate" treatment based on religious beliefs, Orr and Genesen claim that futile treatment should be provided to patients who request it if their request is based on a religious belief. I claim that this implies that we should also accede to requests for harmful or cost-ineffective treatments based on religious beliefs. This special treatment of...