Religion And Schizophrenia The relationship between religion and schizophrenia is of particular interest to psychiatrists because of the similarities between religious experiences and psychotic episodes; religious experiences often involve auditory and/or visual hallucinations, and those with schizophrenia commonly report similar hallucinations, along with a variety of beliefs that are commonly...
Neuroscience Of Religion The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience, attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms. It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural, states. Proponents of...
Sigmund Freud’s Views on Religion Sigmund Freud’s views on religion are described in several of his books and essays. Freud regarded God as an illusion, based on the infantile need for a powerful father figure; religion, necessary to help us restrain violent impulses earlier in the development of civilization, can...
Theories About Religions This article covers theories about religions. Sociological and anthropological theories about religion (or theories of religion) generally attempt to explain the origin and function of religion These theories define what they present as universal characteristics of religious belief and practice. History From presocratic times, ancient authors advanced prescientific theories about religion. Herodotus (484 – 425 BCE) saw the gods...
Faith And Rationality Faith and rationality are two ideologies that exist in varying degrees of conflict or compatibility. Rationality is based on reason or facts. Faith is belief in inspiration, revelation, or authority. The word faith sometimes refers to a belief that is held with lack of reason or evidence, a belief...
Definition Of Religion The definition of religion is a controversial and complicated subject in religious studies with scholars failing to agree on any one definition. Oxford Dictionary defines religion as the belief in and worship of superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Others, such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, have...
Religious Conversion Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus “religious conversion” would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliating with another. This might be from one to another denomination within the same religion, for...
Hellenistic Judaism Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture. Until the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria in Egypt and...
Eastern Christianity Eastern Christianity comprises church families that developed outside the Occident, with major bodies including the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Eastern Catholic churches (that are in communion with Rome but still maintain Eastern liturgies), and the denominations descended from the Church of the East. Eastern...
East Asian Buddhism East Asian Buddhism or East Asian Mahayana is a collective term for the schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in East Asia and follow the Chinese Buddhist canon. These include the various forms of Chinese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, Vietnamese Buddhism, and Korean Buddhism. Besides being a major religion in...
Iranian Religions Iranian religions are religions which originated in Greater Iran. Background The beliefs, activities, and cultural events of the ancient Iranians in ancient Iran are complex matters. The ancient Iranians made references to a combination of several Aryans and non-Aryan tribes. Aryans, or ancient Iranians, worshiped natural elements such as the sun, sunlight and thunder, but they eventually shifted...
Freedom Of Religion Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom to change one’s religion or beliefs. Freedom of religion is considered by...
Western Religions The Western religions refers to religions that originated within Western culture, and are thus historically, culturally, and theologically distinct from the Eastern religions. The term Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) is often used instead of using the East and West terminology. Western culture itself was significantly influenced by the emergence of Christianity and its adoption as the state church...
Science Of Morality The science of morality may refer to various forms of ethical naturalism grounding morality in rational, empirical consideration of the natural world. It is sometimes framed as using the scientific approach to determine what is right and wrong, in contrast to the widespread belief that “science has...
![The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was completed in September 2012 and shows the farthest galaxies ever photographed. Except for the few stars in the foreground (which are bright and easily recognizable because only they have diffraction spikes), every speck of light in the photo is an individual galaxy, some of them as old as 13.2 billion years; the observable universe is estimated to contain more than 2 trillion galaxies.[1]](https://slife.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/header_Hubble-Extreme-Deep-View.jpg)
Cosmology Cosmology is a branch of astronomy concerned with the studies of the origin and evolution of the universe, from the Big Bang to today and on into the future. It is the scientific study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. Physical cosmology is the scientific study of the universe’s origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics,...
Buddhism And Science Buddhism and science have increasingly been discussed as compatible, and Buddhism has entered into the science and religion dialogue. The case is made that the philosophic and psychological teachings within Buddhism share commonalities with modern scientific and philosophic thought. For example, Buddhism encourages the impartial investigation of Nature (an activity referred to...
Science And The Concept Of Science This article covers the relationship between science and the concept of science. Despite the disasters, science and technology have brought to mankind and the mistakes of the purely scientific approach in seeking the truth, as well as the failure of science and technology to...
Science And The Catholic Church The relationship between science and the Catholic Church is a widely debated subject. Historically, the Catholic Church has often been a patron of sciences. It has been prolific in the foundation and funding of schools, universities and hospitals, and many clergy have been active in...
Conflict Thesis The conflict thesis is a historiographical approach in the history of science that originated in the 19th century which maintains that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science and that it inevitably leads to hostility. Most examples and interpretations of events in support of the...
Science and Religion In The Holy Book This article covers science and religion in the Holy Book (the Quran). Science regards as ‘scientific’ the facts established through empirical methods. Therefore, the assertions, which have not yet been established through observation and experiment, can only be theories or hypotheses. Science cannot...