Is it possible to talk about God without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? The article begins by reviewing how, in attempting to answer this question, traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. After arguing that recently developed theories of metaphor seem better able to shed light on the nature o...

The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding of what women in their early 20’s are thinking about abortion and the different factors that influence a woman having an abortion. Also, this study is looking for a correlation between whether or not these women’s religious views are affecting their views on abortion. Another factor we are looking for in this study is how those women who ...

BACKGROUND Child mortality estimates in Beirut are presented for the late 1970s and the mid 1980s, and changes in socio-religious differentials of mortality across time are investigated. METHODS Baseline information was obtained from maternity registries in Beirut in 1984 and 1991. Age of mother, number of children ever born and number of children alive, hospitalization class (1, 2 or 3 withi...

BACKGROUND The connection between religion/spirituality and deviance, like substance abuse, was first made by Durkheim who defined socially expected behaviors as norms. He explained that deviance is due in large part to their absence (called anomie), and concluded that spirituality lowers deviance by preserving norms and social bonds. Impairments in brain reward circuitry, as observed in Reward...

The paper analyzes the relation between religious beliefs, religious participation and social cooperation. In particular, we focus on religions that instill beliefs about the connection between rewards and punishments and social behaviour. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously, analyze their e¤ect on social interactions in society and identify a "spiritual" as well as a "materi...

Ethno-religious conflict in multi-cultural societies has been one of the major causes of loss of life and property in recent history. In this paper, we present and analyze a multi-agent game theoretic model for computational study of ethno-religious conflicts in multi-cultural societies. Empirical factbased research in sociology and conflict resolution literature have identified (a) ethno-relig...

Past research argues that religious commitments shape individuals’ prosocial sentiments, including their generosity and solidarity. But what drives the prosociality of less religious people? Three studies tested the hypothesis that, with fewer religious expectations of prosociality, less religious individuals’ levels of compassion will play a larger role in their prosocial tendencies. In Study ...

Researchers have found that religious affiliation, religious attendance, religious beliefs, and prayer are associated with teen sexual attitudes and behavior.(Wallace & Williams, 1997; Whitehead, Wilcox, & Rostosky, 2001) Holding strong religious beliefs and praying are linked to reduced sexual activity among adolescents (Meier, 2003; Resnick et al., 1997) and teens (girls in particular) from m...

This study investigated the effects of religious education on student religious identity over and above parent religiosity by examining student perceptions of two aspects of teacher functioning: teacher caring and teacher as role-model. We posited that effects of these variables on students' religious identity are mediated by student perceptions that the school provides a non-alienating religio...