Tonycurzonprice's Favorite Links on religion from Diigo

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Editorial comment - Spiritual solace

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:14:27 -0000

Incentive effects of religion. Could it be that power promises to sort things out, and state religion is hoped to be an insurance policy for power when they don't turn out?

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Catholics and Protestants alike are less depressed when bad things happen to them – for example, when they lose their jobs. Religious belief provides comfort in troubled times.

Tags: economics religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

60-70

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:37:45 -0000

One's acceptance of and position towards a supernatural being, towards an ultimate reality and its manifestations involve a multidimensional process comprising attitudes, beliefs, emotions, experiences, rituals, the community and the feeling of belongingness. Hill and Hood19 argue that `any construct as complex as religion is likely to be multidimensional in nature' `because religion deals with people's ultimate concerns and provides both personal and social identity within the cosmic or metaphysical background.'

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Glock²² has also contributed to the discussions on the conceptualization of religious orientation by proposing a five-dimensional model²³ of `conceptual framework for the systematic study of differential commitment to religion.' Glock argues that despite the great variety of details, all world religions share general areas in which religiosity is manifested. These are the five core dimensions of religiosity: `the experiential', `the ritualistic', `the ideological', `the intellectual', and `the consequential'. According to Glock²⁴, the `experiential dimension' of religiosity refers to the achievement of direct knowledge of the ultimate reality or to the experience of religious emotions in the form of exaltation, fear, humility, joyfulness and peace. The `ideological dimension' gives recognition to the fact that all religions expect that the religious person should hold certain beliefs to which followers are expected to adhere. The `ritualistic dimension' includes specific religious practices expected of religious followers to perform either individually or communally. Among them prayer, worship, pilgrimage and feasting can be mentioned. The `intellectual dimension', in Glock's framework, is constituted by the expectation that the religious person should have some knowledge about the basic tenets of his/her faith and its religious scriptures. The `consequential dimension', on the other hand, encompasses man's relation to man. This means that the `consequential dimension' includes religious prescriptions, which determine the attitudes of the adherents as a consequence of their religious belief. Glock argues that these are the core dimensions of religious commitment being shared by different religions of the world.

One's acceptance of and position towards a supernatural being, towards an ultimate reality and its manifestations involve a multidimensional process comprising attitudes, beliefs, emotions, experiences, rituals, the community and the feeling of belongingness. Hill and Hood¹⁹ argue that `any construct as complex as religion is likely to be multidimensional in nature' `because religion deals with people's ultimate concerns and provides both personal and social identity within the cosmic or metaphysical background.'

Tags: religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

Russia's festive days: tides of history | openDemocracy

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:49:49 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Most Russians themselves did not care as long as they could stay at home, as they had for many years past. But for the new Russian state, the problem of November was emblematic of its difficulty from the start. The older generations that had lived through Soviet times could hardly forget the rituals of their previous life. Meanwhile, the new generation faced with the hardships of a painful transition had more important concerns than to demand new rituals and celebrations. As a result very few people were even aware that the name of the 7 November holiday had changed; or (for example) that the whole nation was supposed to celebrate Russia Day on 12 June.

Tags: calendar religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

FT.com / Asia-Pacific - Roh meets Kim in Pyongyang

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:24:34 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Mr Roh will also visit the Pyeonghwa car factory near Pyongyang, a joint venture with the Unification Church led by Reverend Moon Sun-myung and he will also go to the Kaesong industrial complex, a group of Southern factories on the northern side of the border.

Tags: korea religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

Sonitus Sanctus: Free Catholic MP3 Links: Atheism Debate - "We'd be better off without religion"

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 04:18:24 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Atheism Debate - "We'd be better off without religion"

The proposition "We'd be better off without religion" was debated in Westminster on March 27;

Speaking for the motion: Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor A.C. Grayling and Christopher Hitchens.

Speaking against: Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Professor Roger Scruton and Nigel Spivey. The debate was chaired by Joan Bakewell

Tags: religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

MICKY: MILITANT ATHEISTS

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:31:34 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Last week, I attended a debate organised by Intelligence Squared, an organisation devoted to high-level public argument. The subject was so popular that, instead of the usual venue, the Methodist Central Hall in London had to be hired. More than 2,000 people crammed in. The motion was "We'd be better off without religion".

Tags: religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

Reviving the Invisible Hand: The Case for Classical Liberalism in the Twenty-first Century: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 04:16:58 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

One of Lal’s most significant contributions to economic science is his recognition of cosmology as a factor endowment. This recognition enriches institutional theory by explicitly introducing religion and superstition into institutional settings and further illuminates the problems of path dependency. There have been great civilizations in the past, but none produced the Promethean growth that came with capitalism. The older agrarian civilizations grew extensively to the limits of their natural resources, but they lacked the innovation and creativity for the kind of intensive growth that capitalism generated. The reason for this lack is not that our ancestors had no instinct for enterprise, but that they were constrained by social norms and communal bonds and, as Lal asserts, by prevailing cosmological beliefs that suppressed individualism.

The second papal revolution occurred when Pope Gregory VII asserted the power of the church over that of the king or the emperor in the eleventh century. Lal argues, following Harold J. Berman (Law and Revolution [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983]), that this revolution set in place all the legal concepts and institutions needed for commerce.

Tags: economics religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

Revue ESPRIT

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 04:27:19 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

mars/avril 2007

Effervescences religieuses dans le monde

Tags: europe islam religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

On Religion: The Leisure of Worship and the Worship of Leisure | jackmiles.com: Jack Miles Online

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 03:30:00 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Man asks of religion, "What is it for?"
Religion asks of man, "What are you for?"

Tags: consumerism leisure religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

SpringerLink - Journal Article

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 03:18:42 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Abstract Most versions of secularization theory expect advanced modernity to weaken religion. In contrast, this chapter argues that two different dimensions of contemporary society affect religion in opposite ways. Rising levels of human security and well-being are assurned to drive towards religious decline, while growing cultural diversity is assumed to push towards religious growth. These two hypotheses are simultaneously investigated, using world wide data for 50 000 respondents from 37 countries with a predominantly Christian heritage. As dependent variables, two dimensions of religious involvement which relate to two core aspects of secularization theory are analyzed: church-oriented religious involvement and preferences for a religious impact on politics. The findings from three different analytical strategies demonstrate that each of the two religious orientations is positively related to the cultural diversity, and also that each of them is negatively related to human security and well-being. Furthermore, the results also indicate that the religious changes which took place between 1981 and 1999/2000 are negatively related to human well-being and security, and positively to cultural diversity. Thus, a set of comprehensive analyses of one and the same set of world wide data indicate that human security and cultural diversity affect religious involvement in opposite ways. It seems too simplistic, therefore, to view modernization as a universal cause of religious decline.

Tags: diversity religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

Should Science Speak to Faith? -- [ DEBATE ]: Scientific American

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 05:09:35 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

I do not think we will rid humanity of religious faith any more than we will rid humanity of romantic love or many of the irrational but fundamental aspects of human cognition. While orthogonal from the scientific rational components, they are no less real and perhaps no less worthy of some celebration when we consider our humanity.

Dawkins: As an aside, such pessimism about humanity is popular among rationalists to the point of outright masochism. It is almost as though you and others at the conference where this dialogue began positively relish the idea that humanity is perpetually doomed to unreason. But I think irrationality has nothing to do with romantic love or poetry or the emotions that lie so close to what makes life worth living. Those are not orthogonal to rationality. Perhaps they are tangential to it. In any case, I am all for them, as are you. Positively irrational beliefs and superstitions are a different matter entirely. To accept that we can never be rid of them—that they are an irrevocable part of human nature—is manifestly untrue of you and, I would guess, most of your colleagues and friends. Isn’t it therefore rather condescending to assume that humans at large are constitutionally incapable of breaking free of them?

Tags: dawkins humanism love meaning religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

CANOE -- CNEWS - Weird News: Priests to get soccer tournament in Rome

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:04:40 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

"The purpose is really to reinvigorate the tradition (of sport) inside the Christian community," CSI president Edio Costantini told Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday, crediting Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state and an ardent Juventus fan, with the idea.

"Sport is a magnificent tool for bringing the young together ... Aside from physical training, a soccer match can serve as a (means to) personal, social and spiritual growth," Costantini said.

Tags: religion sport

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

markvernon.com - Philosophy and Life Blog - incorporating the philosophy of friendship blog

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:50:31 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

But this is surely a key characteristic of comtemporary proselytizing atheism: a desire to assert control over the world, manifest in an intellectual mission to force all human experience into rational or empirical categories - a mission that is inspired by the power of science as seen in technology - and that is born of a frustration with their 'unenlightened' fellow human beings who persist in seeing human experience as set against a horizon of ultimate mystery. Hence the modern atheist can be compared to the ancient gnostic - in claiming access to enlightened categories of knowledge into which all should be initiated.

Tags: gnosticism rationalism religion

Posted by: tonycurzonprice