Modernity has been working since the sixteenth century in western Europe at what Mr. Gauchet has described as the “exit from religion,” adding that Christianity alone has been able to gain the historical position of “the religion of the exit from religion.” It is indeed the case that the other great religions have not felt, as Christianity has, the intellectual, political and legal necessity to revise their theological foundations radically. Islam in particular has not only been shielded from the fundamental (...) criticisms of intellectual and scientific modernity, but the managers of the sacred have formed alliances with nationalist movements engaged in the anti-colonialist struggle to legitimize wars of liberation and post-independence one-party states. It is true that Islam's mechanisms of state control first came into play in the period of prose-lytism of the new religion, chiefly between 622 and 632; but state control turned into the complete takeover of the irreducible autonomy of the religious domain (the spiritual sphere) by all the states that emerged after the 1920s (Ataturk's radical experiment) and even more so after the post-1945 liberations. (shrink)

In the article by A. Kolodnyi "Religious phenomenon in the changes of its components" it is emphasized the need for the structuring of religion as a phenomenon to distinguish its internal and external structure, to depart from the dominant distinction in religion only four of its components, since under new conditions of its functioning there appeared new structural components of the religious complex.

This study aims to determine the motive that led to the establishment of Juche by Kim Il Sung amidst the influence of communism and its transformation into religion in North Korea. North Korea is a communist country dictated by Kim Jong-Un of the Kim dynasty and known for its cruelty. The country underwent several changes from Marxism-Leninism to familism to determine its strength in Juche. This ideology that acts as a religion was influenced and strengthened Kim Jong Il to Kim (...) Jong-Un and built by shifting the concept of marxism-Leninism to construct a new understanding of Juche. It will be demonstrated that this ideology was influenced by Confucianism, Christianity, Nationalism, Chinese Communism, and Russian Communism. In the modern era, imperialism was used as an ideological tool to restrict backwardness. This theory allegedly helped Kim Il-Sung establish a unitary, one-person rule over North Korea. ‘It will be examined whether Juche ideology is a tool the state has used to convince people of their government. Pronouncements, an intentional religion in which the people were to believe that their Ruler was a supreme human or an ideology that morphed into a religion’. It will be demonstrated that, when they started honoring Kim as their god, no other religion was permitted.Contribution: This research offers readers an understanding of the value of humanity in the binding ideology of Juche. However, the Juche Ideology can serve as a missiological bridge towards mission goals, which require the experience of spiritual, physical, and social liberation. (shrink)

The “Trypillian altars” are important and diverse group of Eneolithic religious objects discovered by archaeological science during the last century in the vast territory of the Cucuteni-Trypillian cultural community. To date there has been a considerable accumulation of information which is in need of a proper systematization and religious understanding of this phenomenon. Trypillian altars, as elements of the Trypillian religious system, have so far remained outside the scope of comprehensive study. However, they are undoubtedly of (...) great importance as a source of information on the ritual and mythological system not only of the Cucuteni-Trypillian community, but of prehistoric societies in general. The altars discovered in Ukraine during the excavations of the Nebelivka Temple (Trypillian culture) in Kirovohrad region of Ukraine are of particular importance for the study, as they are among the largest temple altars of their time in the entire oikonomia of the ancient world, and their design and iconography are well preserved. These sacred objects are also the earliest type of altars in world history that were part of the celebration of archaic temple rites (approximately 4000-3900 BC). The paper deals with typological, iconographic, chronological and ideological questions concerning Trypillian altars from the territory of modern Ukraine, Romania and Hungary. The function of altars in places of worship—sanctuaries and temples of the Trypillians, as well as in domestic and public spaces—is of particular interest. As a result, the religious and social function of the “Trypillian altars” is revealed by the author of the paper. (shrink)

Religious phenomenon as a complex whole consisting of a set of elements, united by different interconnections and separated from those that surround them with certain boundaries, is formed and operates in a clearly defined historical, time-space continuum. Depending on this, in it in its own way individually and socially life experiences are displayed, the system of emotionally-shaped representations and experiences, norms of human existence is preserved.

The phenomenon of Eastern Christian rite has become an object of religious studies in recent years. This phenomenon is of interest to the scientific community because it is the result of the development of theological concepts, which, being theoretically expressed in collections of Christian dogmas and canons, have found their practical reflection in cultic church and extracurricular activities. Some historical events have been found in it. Investigating the rite, we can trace the peculiarities of the development of (...) society, the reflection of a certain era. (shrink)

Claudiu Herţeliu, Metode cantitative în studiul fenomenului religios (Quantitative Methods in the Study of Religious Phenomena), (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Napoca Star, 2009), 227 p.

RESUMEN: En el presente artículo se intentará demostrar que la libertad de conciencia y religiosa conforman un único derecho que tienen como fin proteger las creencias e ideologías de las personas, independientemente de su carácter religioso o secular. Por ende, se sostendrá que la fórmula adoptada por el sistema jurídico colombiano de promover el fenómeno religioso es contraria al principio de igualdad porque privilegia una visión del mundo teísta frente a otras visiones, también válidas en un Estado constitucional y pluralista (...) como el colombiano.ABSTRACT: In this article we will try to demonstrate that the freedom of conscience and religion constitute a single right that have as a purpose to protect the beliefs and ideologies of people, regardless of their religious or secular character. Therefore, it will be argued that the formula adopted by the Colombian legal system to promote the religious phenomenon is contrary to the principle of equality because it privileges a view of the theist world against other visions, also valid in a constitutional and pluralist state like Colombia.PALABRAS CLAVES: libertad de conciencia, libertad religiosa, estado laico, neutralidad religiosa, separación KEYWORDS: freedom of conscience, religious freedom, secular state, religious neutrality, separation. (shrink)

What kind of affective phenomenon is religious zeal and how does it relate to other affective phenomena, such as moral anger, hatred, and love? In this paper, I argue that religious zeal can be both, and be presented and interpreted as both, a love-like passion and an anger-like emotion. As a passion, religious zeal consists of the loving devotion to a transcendent religious object or idea such as God. It is a relatively enduring attachment that (...) is constitutive of who the zealot is, and it expresses itself in a distinctive set of mental and behavioral dispositions. Most importantly, it motivates uncompromising actions and involves intense, hot, and deep emotions. As an anger-like emotion, religious zeal is an occurrent affective state of mind that is intentionally directed towards a specific object, characteristically a person or group of persons. It condemns the violation of a religious norm that is taken to be of absolute validity and general applicability. It motivates an action aiming at vengeance and retaliation, and it involves intense and hot feelings of hostility towards its object. I argue that rather than reducing the complex phenomenon of religious zeal to one of these two manifestations, we should reflect upon the question of how the two distinct conceptualizations relate to each other. (shrink)

Resumen En este trabajo se realiza un análisis exploratorio sobre lo que se ha venido concibiendo como un nuevo campo del saber científico desde hace algunas décadas, nos referimos a la neuroteología. También se pretende entender hasta qué punto la filosofía naturalista contemporánea puede estar vinculada con la neuroteología -sobre todo cuando el naturalismo implica, en la mayoría de los casos, un reduccionismo que conduce al materialismo-, teniendo en conside ración que en las distintas áreas neurocientíficas tiene lugar un fisicalismo, (...) esto es, una reducción de las propiedades o procesos cognitivos a meros procesos cerebrales e interacciones neuronales, que, gracias a la tecnología, hoy pueden ser visualizados por distintos instrumentos y técnicas.In this work an exploratory analysis is carried out on what has been conceived as a new field of scientific knowledge for some decades, we refer to neurotheology. It is also intended to under- stand to what extent contemporary naturalistic philosophy can be linked to neurotheology - especially when naturalism implies, in most cases, a reductionism that leads to materialism -, taking into account that in the different neuroscientific areas it has instead a physicalism, that is, a reduction of cognitive properties or processes to mere brain processes and neural interactions, which, thanks to technology, can now be visualized by different instruments and techniques. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn modern societies, religious practice, and belief, is said to be on the decline, especially among the younger generation. However, a strong ecological consciousness is gaining ground. It rests on a conception of good and evil, of sin and expiation, on a history of fall and salvation, regulating practices, beliefs and hopes. To what extent can it be viewed as a form of religion?

The article reviews the works of Ukrainian and foreign researchers, the object of which was the phenomenon of «civil religion» in the context of harmonization of relations between church, state and society.

From a problem that concerned only a small number of people, migration has become a constant concern both nationally and internationally. The concrete realities in different regions have become over time subjects of analysis and reflection in order to find solutions that meet the many theoretical and practical issues raised by migration. In Romania people are increasingly discussing about migration and its implications on all sectors of human life. In this context, the Romanian Orthodox Church is called by his priests, (...) to contribute to the integration of people of other nationalities, cultures and beliefs that are established here and at the same time, to help her spiritual children living and working in different parts of the world to preserve and to confess their Orthodox Christian faith. Moreover, it should take care of their families in the country and to contribute to the education of children, whose parents are away, in the spirit of the Christian tradition. (shrink)

Known numerous attempts to find in religion such characteristics that would not be the sum of its features, but would lead to the disclosure of its essence, nature and functionality. In general, these attempts helped to clarify the subject field of the categories of academic religious studies, which system reflects the religious phenomenon in its completeness and integrity, internally recognized certainty. As for the system itself as a logical-epistemological device for religious search, it places particular emphasis (...) on the category "religion" - the center of connections and relations of a specific way of man's entry into the world. (shrink)

Islam is not only a religious system that boils down to dogma and worship, but is a set of principles and norms that underpin the organization and activities of the authorities and regulate the behavior of Muslims. The status of a Muslim consists of two interconnected components: his rights and responsibilities as a believer and as a subject of civil relations. A special and main feature of Muslim law, as a part of Islam, is the interaction of religious (...) and secular, rational and irrational, spiritual and material, mainly as a system of legal norms, which is an important element of the Islamic way of life. (shrink)

The formulation of the problem is that neither religious nor scientific, or worldview, appear in real life as something self-sufficient. They depend on each other. Analysis of recent research on this issue assumes self-sufficiency as a subjective.

Monograph A.Aristova "The phenomenon of religious deviation: theoretical essays".

For centuries pilgrimages are present in Christianity. For Catholics, the importance of devotions and visits to the Marian sanctuaries is indisputable. The number of visitors and pilgrims to these temples make the local economy an important destination of religious tourism. In order to understand the economic determinants of religious tourism, two sanctuaries were studied, namely, Aparecida and Fatima. Given the large collection of statistical information of the Portuguese Sanctuary, it was verified through the Vector Autoregressive model that Gross (...) Domestic Product and Unemployment have a causal unidirectional relation with the pilgrimages. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag model revealed that an increase in Gross Domestic Product and international arrivals in the short term positively impacts the number of pilgrims. Through the Ordinary Least Squares regression, significant statistical relationships between climatic factors and visitors in the Sanctuary of Fatima were found. The Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average forecast method was applied to the number of monthly visitors to the Sanctuary of Aparecida and to the number of pilgrims in the Sanctuary of Fatima, the results show a strong seasonality and that the first and last months of the year are periods of low demand. The results of this study allow a new look at religious tourism in the Marian context, the empirical results allow those responsible for establishing public policies, tourism agents and the administration of the Sanctuaries to direct their actions. Measures planned and executed jointly between the various agents can benefit residents, visitors, pilgrims, the tourism sector, the local economy and the Sanctuaries themselves. (shrink)

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was one of the most distinguished thinkers and scientists of our time. He fits into no familiar category for he was at once a biologist and a paleontologist of world renown, and also a Jesuit priest. He applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science. (...) The Phenomenon of Man, the first of his writings to appear in America, Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. When published in France it was the best-selling nonfiction book of the year. (shrink)

There is consistent evidence that everything coming out from the religious/spiritual phenomenon bends us most harshly. And that occurs regardless of the form religiousness or spirituality takes in practice or theory, despite the broad range of embracing religious concepts and creeds from atheism to fanatism, or moreover disregarding the impossibility of labeling as good or wrong these creeds from another perspective than the one that produced it. Many people adhere to religion for the sake of their souls, (...) but it turns out that regular participation in faith-based activities is good for the body and mind, too. Whether we are talking from a social perspective, or a psychological, mental, or bodily one, religious creeds and/or faith-based activities change us in a way or another, nearly for good and incessantly. Is that a good or a wrong thing? – the problem is that we cannot even assess this except from the same perspective that originates it, which makes even more difficult to analyze the religious phenomenon, especially for its better eventual management. Could this be a motif for lesser religious engagement in the civil societies characterized by a decreasing religious attachment? (shrink)

The article proposes an analysis of the recent best-seller “Da Vinci Code”, by Dan Brown. Several keys of interpreting the novel are sketched – from deconstructing the accuses of plagiarism and blasphemy to analyzing the role of feminism and new-age religiousness in the plot making. In the end, the author comparatively examines the novel and the Mel Gibson movie “The Passion of Christ”, in an attempt to better situate the figure of Christ in recent cultural products.

The economic advancement of any nation hinges significantly upon the phenomenon of tourism. Hence, the primary objective of this study was crafted to scrutinize the influence of religiosity, religious motivation, and cultural motivation on religious tourism, destination loyalty, and emotional attachment. Moreover, this research delved into the mediating role of religious tourism in elucidating the relationship between religiosity, religious belief, cultural belief, destination belief, and emotional attachment. Employing a cross-sectional research design, data were gathered from (...) respondents utilizing a 7-point Likert scale, comprising tourists from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), employing a simple random sampling technique. The study achieved a response rate of 75.12%. Analysis of the collected data was conducted utilizing Smart PLS 4. The findings substantiate the assertion that religious motivation, cultural motivation, and religiosity exerted notable impacts on religious tourism. Furthermore, religious tourism demonstrated a positive influence on both loyalty and emotional attachment. This study contributes to filling the void in the literature concerning research on religious tourism. (shrink)

This paper discusses John Hick’s response to the problem of religious diversity, based on the distinction between the Real itself and the way He is experienced and thought of by different religious communities. To this end, we divided this work into three sections in addition to the present introduction and the final considerations. In the first section we present the hickian concept of religious phenomenon and discuss the affirmation of him in favor of the ambiguity of (...) the universe; the second section is dedicated to the analysis of Hick’s defense of the rationality of religious belief and in the third section we present Hick’s pluralist hypothesis and some variations and criticisms of this hypothesis proposed by other authors. At the end we present some critical considerations about the success of Hick’s hypothesis to respond to the problem of religious diversity. (shrink)

Same-sex practices are commonly medicalised in various global spaces. Some societies view same-sex practices as some form of disease that needs to be cured. In Africa, the influence of Christianity has prompted many communities to conclude that there are spiritual forces behind same-sex orientations and practices. Therefore, same-sex practices are demonised, and those identifying with these sexualities and gender identities are viewed as sick, or as having some form of mental illness. As a fast-growing and influential movement in South Africa, (...) Christianity plays a critical role in this narrative. Against this backdrop, this article examined how some Pentecostal pastors in South Africa use God-talk to propel the narrative that medicalises same-sex practices and how these pastors claim to have miraculous powers to heal these practices. Consequently, the gender and sexuality commonly accepted within African religiosity and spirituality are pushed to the peripheries. Therefore, it is argued in this article that the colonial-missionary discourses regarding African sexualities and genders are at play within the religious medicalisation of same-sex narratives. Thus, there is a need to problematise and transform this narrative. This act can contribute to delinking African genders and sexualities from Western repressions and subjugation agendas. The discussion moved from the premise of decoloniality while adopting a multidisciplinary approach that incorporated theology, gender and sexuality studies, psychology, health, and socio-political sciences. Again, the article used secondary literature analysis to examine this phenomenon and to gain a thorough understanding of how African Pentecostalism continues to use God-talk to medicalise same-sex practices in contemporary South Africa and the repercussions thereof.Contribution: The study contributed to the existing knowledge that addresses religious challenges faced by people identifying with non-normative sexualities and genders in Africa. This can contribute to the transformation of religious medicalisation of same-sex practices in South Africa, and elsewhere. (shrink)

This paper gives a first theoretical formulation to a religious phenomenon which has not received much attention in philosophical discourse so far despite appearing in different highly heterogeneous religions. Vicarious religious ordinance refers to cases in which a living or deceased fully mature human being is knowingly or unknowingly assigned a religious affiliation without their consent or the consent of their dependents. I shall first offer three real-world examples of vicarious religious ordinance from Mormonism, Islam, (...) and Shintoism and then raise some normative concerns. I suggest (i) that vicarious religious ordinance does not fit neatly into current debates about religious epistemology, especially the recent debate on religious disagreement. I argue (ii) that normative questions as to why vicarious religious ordinance elicits indignation in its ‘victims’ is not easily explained through adducing similar examples. This paper aims to motivate further coordinated research on this topic. (shrink)

Prior to Ukraine's accession to the Ukrainian SSR, there were two research religious institutions - the department of the philosophical problems of religion and atheism of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine B. Lobovyk, and since 1990 - Doctor of Philosophy A. Kolodnyi) and the Inter-republican Branch of the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences at the CPSU Central Committee. If the first institution was engaged in the study of the (...) peculiarities of the religious phenomenon in the diversity of its confessional manifestations and multifunctionality, then the second focused its attention on the problems of the survivability of religiosity in the conditions of socialism and defining ways to overcome it. This feature of research efforts is also reflected in the publications of the department and the branch. (shrink)

Religious nationalism is a complex topic fraught with sensitive questions. Does religion cause violence? Is nationalism a quasi-religion? Are the constant conflicts around the world really about religion, or is religion merely a form of false consciousness? Is religious nationalism primarily a powerful tool that political elites use to manipulate the masses? -/- Religious Nationalism: A Reference Handbook challenges dominant scholarly works on religious nationalism by identifying the preconceptions that skew analysis of the phenomenon dubbed (...) “religious nationalism.” The book utilizes a multidisciplinary approach that draws insight from theories of nationalism, religious studies, peace research, and political theory, and reframes the questions of religious nationalism within the perspectives of secularism, modernity, and Orientalism. In doing so, the authors enable readers to uncover their own presumptions regarding the role of religion in public life. The work also outlines connections between the analysis of the role of religion in conflict to thoughts regarding how religion may relate to processes of peacebuilding and conflict transformation, and further connects the discussion of religious nationalism to broader conversations on the so-called resurgence of religion. (shrink)

The approaching ways in religious phenomenon quantitative studies are, most of the times, based only on the evolution of adherent flows and population structure from a religious point of view. In this pape, an integrated statistical indicators system will be designed. The main purpose of the system is to enhance the quality and coherence of the religious phenomenon. The most important indicators from the integrated system are: context indicators (political, economical, socio-cultural, demographical), basic indicators, level (...) and structure indicators, participation indicators, resource indicators (spiritual, human and pecuniary), quality, efficiency and outcomes (religious freedom, social connections, international relationships). Designing a complete, coherent system of indicators is necessary for a correct approach in studying the religious phenomenon. Statistical indicators can supply quantitative data for the operational description of the religious phenomenon. The indicators’ system makes possible not only a descriptive analysis but also some advanced statistical techniques (e.g. regression and correlation method). (shrink)

The cult and ritual sphere is an important component of the religious complex, which is usually understood as a collection of ritual acts related to the worship of supernatural reality and aimed at achieving the bond of the believer with the object of worship. As an inalienable attribute of the religious phenomenon, the cult was created along with its occurrence and is characterized by the complication of manifestation in the process of historical development. Having an amazingly wide (...) arsenal of expression, the ritual is usually formed on a specific religious basis and includes the cultural and artistic means of realization, ethnological features of embodiment, political and ideological factors of the order. In addition, at the level of interreligious interaction, the ritual ritual complex accumulates many elements of previous beliefs, symbolic and symbolic nature of which allows us to speak about the continuity of the religious tradition. In fact, this feature of ceremonial actions gives grounds to speak of a ritual ritual complex as a unique symbiotic entity, in spite of the fact that religious adherents are often considered to be an exclusive ritual, that is to say, the indisputable nature of their cult professed, whereas in the perception and appreciation of the wider public, associate with the top national achievements, sacred property. (shrink)

In this article studed comprehend of the religious phenomenon of Catholicism in religious-philosophy conception of the Metropolitan Alexiy. Ascertained that Alexiy approached to consider Catholicism from position of Orthodox ecclesiology his views incurred transformation and the main acceptance in the critique of Catholicism views decided by thinker to the conception of Primacy of the Pope and papocaesarism.

Today, in a Western secular context, the affective phenomenon of religious zeal is often associated, or even identified, with religious intolerance, violence, and fanaticism. Even if the zealots’ devotion remains restricted to their private lives, “we” as Western secularists still suspect them of a lack of reason, rationality, and autonomy. However, closer consideration reveals that religious zeal is an ethically and politically ambiguous phenomenon. In this article, I explore the question of how this ambiguity can (...) be explained. I do so by drawing on Paul Ricœur’s theory of affective fragility and tracing back the ambiguity of religious zeal to a dialectic inherent to human affectivity and existence itself. According to Ricœur, human affectivity is constituted by the two poles of vital and spiritual desires which are mediated by the thymos. As I show, this theory helps us to understand that religious zeal as a spiritual desire is neither plainly good nor plainly bad, but ambiguous. Moreover, it enables us to acknowledge the entanglement of abstraction and concretion that is inherent to the phenomenon of religious zeal. Finally, this theory helps us to understand why religious zeal, as one possible expression of the human quest for the infinite, is both a promise and a threat. In conclusion, human existence is tragic not in that we necessarily fail, but in that no matter which path we take with regard to our spiritual desires—that of affirmation, rejection, or moderation—we are and remain fallible. (shrink)

How should philosophy approach religious experience, which by definition surpasses its competence? Can philosophy do more than describe the religious experience without discussing its object? Can religion make genuine truth claims - especially when the prevalence of suffering and evil in the world seems to belie those claims? These are some of the basic questions raised in this engaging collection of essays by philosopher Louis Dupre. According to Dupre, a philosophical analysis of faith must take account of the (...) unique system of symbols in which it expresses its beliefs, rituals, and modes of worship. The justification of religious symbols has become a particular problem in an age that tends to separate the objective from the subjective, interpreting the former literally and denying objective reality to the latter. Dupre's essays on von Balthasar's theory of religious form and on the nature of ritual attempt to restore the original meaning of religious symbols, while integrating them with the modern emphasis on human creativity. "As this slim but remarkable book of essays makes abundantly clear, its author bids fair to have an influence that will last into the next century, at the last: there is something about his philosophy that seems not just nourishing for a day or hour but perennially satisfying. " - Commonweal "Dupr writes with the clarity of an analytical philosopher about the issues of experience dear to phenomenologists and with a depth of historical understanding and sensitivity to the life of faith that is rare now in philosophy. In short, this book is that all too unusual phenomenon, religious philosophy. It is done very well, indeed." - Theology Today " This is a wise and thought-provoking collection." - Modern Theology. (shrink)

The effects of heredity and the environment on the development of human being, which is a multidimensional being, have been discussed for many years. Studies on the religious development of man were also influenced by these discussions. In this context, in order to better understand the nature of religious development, some theories such as behavioral, cognitive or stage theories have emerged. In a sense, these theories have also identified the direction of religious development. However, many of these (...) theories did not address their religious development as a whole. This restricted the understanding of religious development. Therefore, this article has two main purposes. First, to bring the ecological theory which is the human development model proposed by Bronfenbrenner, which considers human development as a whole with the environment and events in which it lives, to the literature of our country's religion psychology. The second aim is that to contribute to a better understanding of the psychological foundations of religious development through the use of this theory. In this article where qualitative research method has been used, some quantitative study data have been used. In the article, the ecosystem, ecosystem, macrosystem, and the effect of each of the chronosystem on religious development is discussed. In this article, it is concluded that approach to religious development in the context of ecological theory can be useful.Summary: Human being is existentially open to development. The openness of human to development is not a choice but a requirement. Therefore, each individual must experience a developmental process in which physiological, psychological and sociological conditions are intertwined unless he has voluntarily terminated his existence. Psychologists, who are aware of this, attach a special importance to the phenomenon of development. Is heredity is more effective in human development, or the environment? This question is a result of the importance that psychologists attribute to development.Essentially, the roots of these debates on human development are based on the foundation of modern psychology. For example, Locke, one of the most important philosophers of the 18th century, rejected the idea of ​​Descartes, one of the 17th-century thinkers, that man came to the world equipped with all sorts of knowledge and skills. Unlike Descartes, Locke argued that the source of all human knowledge is based on experience. According to Locke, the mind of the newborn baby is an un scraped tablet = tabula rasa, but it is not only the normal knowledge but also the source of God's imagination.This perspective on human development naturally affected the problem of religious development. For example, Jung sought the basis of religious faith in the collective unconscious, referring to the hereditary foundations of religious faith in a sense. On the other hand, Pratt approached the problem of religious development on the basis of experience.In general, religious development studies carried out on more experienced grounds have brought some theoretical approaches. Goldman, for example, examined the course of religious development from childhood to adolescence. For him, religious thought is not that different from non-religious thought in terms of form and method. Fowler, on the other hand, expressed that faith is not always religious in terms of content and context, and has developed a theory of belief development that includes religious development. However, some religious development models brings a different perspective to the development of the religious phenomenon in Turkey have been developed. Three-stage religious development model developed by Karaca is one of them. According to this model, the process of religious development of human beings is completed through three stages: inner tendencies, awakening of religious interest and questioning, harmony and stability.The necessity of using multi-dimensional approaches to understand the human being is a multidimensional entity is undoubtedly a reality. For this reason, it can be stated that the diversity of the explanation models for the religious development phenomenon mentioned above is a richness. It is thought that looking at the phenomenon of religious development in terms of the ecological theory developed by Bronfenbrenner, will increase the wealth of the means to understand the phenomenon of religious development. In this context, the main aim of this article is to provide the literature on the psychology of religion in our country and to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of religious development in the context of the theory of ecological theory put forward by Bronfenbrenner in a holistic way.The qualitative research method has been used in this article, besides the explanations and analyzes, the data of the quantitative studies, which are not directly related to the subject, have also been utilized.The basic step of the ecological theory that Bronfenbrenner suggested is a structure in which many systems from family to political and cultural systems overlap to better understand human development. The microsystem, which represents the innermost layer surrounding the individual, expresses the basic structure in which the individual lives and interacts with other people, while the mesosystemincludes the developing individual and the home and the school, school and workplace. It includes connections between two or more microsystems or contexts. The ecosystem, which is an extension of the mesosystem covering both formal and informal structures and relationships, does not directly affect the individual; however, it surrounds the individual by influencing the current arrangements that the individual has been in. The part of the theory that expresses the attitudes and ideologies of the culture in which the individual lives is the macrosystem. The last link of the theory is the chronosystem. The chronosystem, which explains how socio-historical conditions, lifelong transitions and environmental events occur in a pattern, has an important place in the development history of the individual.Although human beings are born with capability for believing, this situation alone is not enough to complete the process of religious development in a healthy way. When considered in the context of ecological theory, the religious development of the individual is affected from the first degree of the microsystem which is in direct contact with his family, school, peer groups, religious groups and playgrounds. In addition, the mesosystem, ecosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem affect the religious development of the individual either directly or indirectly. However, it should be noted that the effects of these systems on religious development are always double polarized.In order to better understand the psychology of religious development in the context of ecological theory, it is thought that the cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that will be done with different groups in which the systems constituting the theory are effective will provide illuminating information about the subject. However, researchers, who will study religious development, are very careful when analyzing the relationships of the variables such as gender, age, civil status, education level, occupational groups and socio-economic level expressing the characteristics of the sample group in the experimental studies and used as independent variables. to be. Since, although the effects of these variables on the level of religiousness, the effects of these variables on dependent variables can be limited without considering the ecological theory. (shrink)

In this essay I try to motivate and formulate the main epistemological questions to ask about the phenomenon of religious disagreement. I will not spend much time going over proposed answers to those questions. I address the relevance of the recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement. I start with some fiction and then, hopefully, proceed with something that has at least a passing acquaintance with truth.

"PHENOMENON OF RELIGION" - under this name on June 20-21, 1996, the All-Ukrainian Colloquium, convened by the Department of Religious Studies and the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies took place at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The purpose of the colloquium is to discuss the topical issues of Ukrainian religious studies concerning the nature, essence and functionality of religion as a social and historical phenomenon.

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This paper discusses the familiar question of whether expressions of faith or conviction offered by religious believers really express their beliefs, in the standard sense of ‘belief’ used in philosophy and psychology. Some hold that these expressions do not express genuine beliefs because they do not meet the standards of rationality, coherence and integration which govern beliefs. So they must serve some other function. But this picture of ‘genuine belief’ is inadequate, for reasons independent of the phenomenon of (...) religion. Once we get a better picture of belief, we can see that religious beliefs conform to this picture, and that typical expressions of faith really are expressions of belief in the proper sense. (shrink)

After the fall of communism, there emerged the idea that ideology was extinguished, and that ideological conflict has been reduced to silence. The increasing importance of the new “spiritual rebirth” movements raises the question of the global phenomenon of the resurrection of ideologies on a religious basis. The experience of secularization involves a secularization of identity. We have chosen as an example the case of Marxism, with its attempt at a reconstruction of identity with the help of the (...) “disenchanting” of religion and the theorizing of the praxis. As a consequence of the crisis caused by the secularization of identity, today we are facing new religious movements. These are no longer important from the point of view of their tradition or past, but rather are important as religious ideologies that announce the possibility of the emer- gence of an ideological global conflict. (shrink)

Forty four years after the publication of Harvey Cox‟s The Secular City that celebrated “the progressive secularization of the world as the logical outcome of Biblical religion” (Newsweek)1, we almost feel the bones of religious fundamentalism cracking under the pressure of secularization. At the same time, however, the Hegelian dialectic holds ground as both refuse to be crushed by either; and any compromising stance only begets another rival; to the effect, that it can be said that fundamentalism is never (...) a phenomenon that may be extinguished. (shrink)