Religions, Volume 14, Issue 8

Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947), a prominent figure in modern Chinese Buddhism, produced a voluminous collection of poetry abounding with diverse classical Chinese images. Notably, the “lamp and candle” (dengzhu 燈燭)...

The concept of logos takes on a new and interesting connotation through Christian revelation. The logos—word, discourse, reason—becomes human-divine flesh. Moreover, God, who is Word, needs human words to explain and reveal himself to hum...

Dohās, vajragīti, and caryāgīti are key terms associated with the poetic writings of the Mahāsiddhas. This study focuses on Apabhraṃśa dohās, their commentaries, Tibetan translations, and collections containin...

How should we understand the relation between God and morality? This article aims to address this question by constructing a theistic metaethical theory informed by postphenomenological mediation theory. According to postphenomenological mediation th...

COVID-19 has taught us that whom one surrounds oneself with has a profound influence on one’s well-being. In that light, does whom we worship with matter as well? John Calvin would in fact argue that the people we physically worship with have a...

Individuals with religious or spiritual problems experience depressive and anxiety symptoms, together with changes in cognitive style and coping. These problems are associated with altered frontal asymmetry (left greater than right) during the proces...

This paper considers the experience of miracle through the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Although he is often considered an anti-religious thinker, I argue that Nietzsche actually puts forth a positive conception of miracle because of its indispen...

While the origin and etymology of the name Beelzebul have received some scholarly attention, very little attention has been given to the more basic question of why the scribes would choose this particular name for their accusations, or why Jesus woul...

Muslims are Finland’s largest and fastest-growing religious minority. In Finnish state schools, the number of pupils studying Islamic religious education (IRE) has almost doubled in a decade, and IRE has its own national curriculum, which is ba...

Drawing on Foucault’s theoretical framework of “space and power”, this paper examines the discursive construction of “knowledge” in the context of Chinese Buddhist education. It traces the historical transformation of Chinese Buddhist education from...

This paper explores the perspective on peace-making of the contemporary Chinese Buddhist monk Jinghui 淨慧 (1933–2013), whose views have garnered esteem among Chinese Buddhists but have received limited attention from scholars. Jing...

The works of Aristotle left an indelible impression on Arabic philosophy after the translation movement. While many philosophers accepted the works of the revered First Teacher (Al-Mu‘allim al-awwal), as Aristotle was designated, others sought...

This article examines the figure of Thomas Müntzer in Marxist historiography, as well as the “utopianisation” of Müntzer in Ernst Bloch’s 1921 study on Thomas Müntzer as Theologian of the Revolution. I review some of the differences in Martin Luther...

Maybe the most divisive topic of the Heideggerian reception is whether the question of God is part of the disclosure of being in Heidegger’s thinking, or if Heidegger rather obscures the phenomenological inquiry on God by way of his questions o...

In the 11th–12th centuries, extreme ascetic practices reappeared in Western Europe, in particular, the wearing of hauberks and heavy iron chains, associated with penitence and eremitism. This article discusses the charisma of three ascetic sain...

In this article, using the example of the Russian Arctic, we analyze how the anti-cult movement creates the conditions for the discrimination and suppression of religious minorities. The anti-cultist (anti-sectarian) fears and phobias of the Russian...

This paper addresses the problem of coherence, i.e., whether the internal and external dimensions of li (礼 rituals, rites, and the observance of them) are compatible. This problem stems mainly from Mencius’ seemingly conflicting statemen...

The term rihlah, which means ‘commercial journey in summer and winter’ in Surah Quraysh, holds a special position in the vocabulary of the Qur’an. This term corresponds to a significant aspect of the real politics in the sīrah...

This study aims to investigate the ritual of a peculiar scripture entitled Chinshō yasha-hō 鎮將夜叉法 (Ch. Zhenjiang yecha fa. “Tantric Ritual of Chinshō Yakṣa”). The Japanese deity Chin...

The Thai forest tradition, or Thai northeastern forest tradition, which originated from King Lama IV’s religious revolution, is one of the most important meditation practice traditions in Thailand. This tradition aims to achieve final liberatio...

The early Tokugawa period witnessed the establishment of anti-Christian policy as a significant agenda. In 1647, Sessō Sōsai, a Zen monk, undertook the task of delivering sermons in Nagasaki, aiming to convert the local population to Buddhi...

This essay compares key essays on Buddhism by B.R. Ambedkar and Jürgen Habermas vis-à-vis the issue of Buddhism, wealth, and privilege, and the respective statements again to what the Buddha taught, from a Theravada perspective. In doing...

In Italy, the debate regarding the presence of crosses and crucifixes in public places is long-standing and involves their detractors, supporters and defenders. Over time, these conflicting positions have gained media resonance, becoming a sociopolit...

This paper will show that sporting institutions that police the boundaries of women’s sports do so to keep sportswomen constrained in ways that men’s sports and male athletes are not. This paper explores three methods that sporting establ...

The birth of modern aesthetics cannot be separated from the emergence of a new, non-dogmatic conception of religion and theology. Friedrich Schlegel advocated ‘art as new religion’ while Friedrich Schleiermacher developed a vision on reli...

Wuqian (1922–2010) was one of the most important modern Buddhist masters in the modern history of Sino-Indian Buddhist relations. In his early years, he studied all the major schools of the Buddhist tradition, focusing on Yogācāra phi...

After a difficult conquest under the Umayyads, the eastern Maghreb or Ifrîqiya region was turned into the western borderland of the Abbasid Empire in the second half of the 8th century, and its governance was soon delegated to the Aghlabid Emir...

The Epistle to the Hebrews contains several so-called “warning passages”. In these texts, the author of Hebrews warns the addressees that they may not tarnish their Christ-given identity through apostasy and leaving the Christ-believing c...

The objective of this manuscript is to reveal that the challenge in understanding the ethical consequences of a post-human condition characterizing trans-humanist ontology is linked to postmodern epistemology lacking any metaphysical and theological...

The problem of evil is one that has earned much attention in recent decades and is frequently used as a justification for atheism, and increasingly so due to the rise in popularity of secularism and atheism. How is the issue of theodicy considered in...

Russia’s war against Ukraine as a result of the Kremlin’s aggressive policy has caused a number of catastrophic material consequences, but most dramatically, the suffering of the Ukrainian people. Millions of people at risk of death were...

One of the most important areas of tension for diaconia in the Western European, German-speaking context is the demands of an interreligious and plural society. The social challenges to churches with their congregations and parishes, diaconal organiz...

By a close reading of Salomon Maimon’s 1794 Essay on a New Logic or Theory of Thinking, this article shows, first, how Maimon radically criticized his previous metaphysical systems while painstakingly reestablishing Kantian transcendental philo...

Muslims regard Islam as a complete code of conduct because it provides guidance in all aspects of life. Islamic teachings cover nearly all areas of knowledge, including medical sciences. Islam offers a unique perspective on how to treat wounds and il...

This paper explores recent transformations in Islamic pilgrimage patterns in Israel/Palestine. The meanings assigned to traditional Muslim sites, and the conduct and practices of the dwindling number of pilgrims who visit them, are the struggling vic...

Although the militant jihād remains one of the most popular topics in modern Islamic studies, most of the works focus on ideologies and actions, leaving out the popular perception of this phenomenon. Our study of the storylines about confronting...

Visualising a character in a narrative is a highly individual act; cognitive narratology suggests that individuals may construct character models depending on the information (frames) available to them. However, many of these frames are formed from k...

This article seeks to integrate the “Indian swami” with the “global guru” and reflects upon why Vivekananda’s teaching was conveyed so differently to different audiences. It argues that Vivekananda’s distinctive fo...

Writers anchored in the Christian mystical tradition generally present their spiritual experience as loaded with cognitive content bearing on things divine. The nature of this mystical knowledge, the way they receive it, and its effect on their exist...

The article gives a new explanation for why the Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma and argues that it is a middle position that both the theist and the atheist could accept. The argument is that both the will of God and the preferences of individua...

The problem of evil permeates contemporary theodicy, raising the question of how an omnipotent and benevolent God can allow its existence. Exploring this inquiry is inherently tied to investigating divine action, specifically the interplay between ti...

In the Chinese-speaking academic community, the topic of Confucian cosmopolitanism is intricately linked to the concepts of “Tianxia” and “Datong”, carrying significant political implications. This context arises from the tens...

This paper studies the views of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on religion and Christianity, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The analysis is based on Viktor Orbán’s speeches in Băile Tușnad,...

Using the figure of the ethnic Pathan/Pashtun as a trope in South Asian culture, this essay provides a genealogical account of the modern emergence of Hindu–Muslim “religious” conflicts played along the lines of nation-thinking in t...

This paper aims to explore the concept of rootedness in the final political reflections of Simone Weil. According to the French philosopher, rootedness represents “the most important and least recognized need of the human soul”. Weil goes...

In this article, I argue that the research field of religion and development and diaconal studies, the study of Christian social practice, share a common subject of inquiry: the social impact of religion. The field of religion and development investi...

This Special Edition includes articles discussing the many alternatives to the various forms of theism found among the majority of religious and some philosophical traditions [...]

This article examines the theoretical potential of the gender leadership model of women motivated by the Catholic religion in the context of its ability to socially and politically activate and its effectiveness in terms of assumed goals. Numerous st...

John Hare argues that Kant, in his Third Critique, offers an aesthetic argument for God’s existence that shares premises with his famous moral argument. Karl Ameriks demurs, expressing skepticism that this is so. In this paper, I stake out an i...

“Who can find a virtuous woman?” (Prov. 31:10 KJV). My entire life, I have heard and read messages about the “virtuous” woman, as depicted in Proverbs 31:10–31. Though many herald this character as the standard for godly...