Search Results (619)

Under the ideas of ‘hinges’ and ‘pictures’, as these relate to deep disagreement, Wittgenstein’s view of religious belief is a multifaceted challenge to conceptions of thought-world relations. In this article, I discuss Cora Diamond’s analysis of this challenge. Diamond herself is not particularly interested in hinges; I try to understand why. I first bring in a discussion between Michael Williams and Duncan Pritchard on how to read On Certainty. This allows me to identify Diamond’s perspective on deep disagreement and pictures: she concentrates on making sense, and not directly on knowledge. To further clarify her perspective, I introduce Hilary Putnam’s reading of the Lectures on Religious Belief, which proposes a cognitivist view of religion as ethics, centering on the notion of picture. Although Diamond is close to Putnam, for her, the most important challenge posed by religious belief lies not with epistemological issues of rational versus arational grounds of belief, or cognitivism versus non-cognitivism in ethics, but rather in making us drop the Fregean (and Tractarian) idea of the thinkableness of all thoughts, making place for ‘irreplaceable pictures’. I end by suggesting that Diamond’s analysis sheds light on often uncontested assumptions about the natures of thought and communication. Full article

(1) Background: This article aims to understand the forms and elements through which the inhabitants of the city of Medellin have configured their subjectivity in the context of the application of neoliberal policies in the last two decades. In this way, we can approach the frameworks of understanding that constitute a fundamental part of the individuation processes in which the incorporation of their subjectivities is evidenced in neoliberal contexts that, in the historical process, have been converging with authoritarian, antidemocratic and neoconservative elements. (2) Method: A qualitative approach with a hermeneutic-interpretative paradigm was used. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 inhabitants of Medellín who were politically identified with right-wing or center-right positions. Data analysis included thematic coding to identify patterns of thought and points of view. (3) Results: Participants associate success with individual effort and see state intervention as an obstacle to development. They reject redistributive policies, arguing that they generate dependency. In addition, they justify authoritarian models of government in the name of security and progress, from a moral superiority, which is related to a negative and stigmatizing perception of progressive sectors and a negative view of the social rule of law and public policies with social sense. (4) Conclusions: The naturalization of merit as a guiding principle, the perception of themselves as morally superior based on religious values that grant a subjective place of certainty and goodness; the criminalization of expressions of political leftism, mobilizations and redistributive reforms and support for policies that establish authoritarianism and perpetuate exclusion and structural inequalities, closes roads to a participatory democracy that enables social and economic transformations. Full article

Background: Amid growing concerns about climate crisis and its psychological toll, understanding how people find meaning through their connection to nature is increasingly important. The first aim of this study is to examine the association between Nature Relatedness (NR) and Meaning in Life (MIL). The second aim is to investigate if gender moderates this association and to explore how Jewish traditions influence gender differences in this relationship. Methods: A multi-methods design was employed. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling of prominent Jewish community figures, followed by snowball sampling via informant referrals. Thirty-five participants completed the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) and the NR Scale. Two questions provided qualitative insights into participants’ personal interpretations and culturally grounded meanings of NR and MIL in the context of climate change and Jewish traditions. Results: Hierarchical multiple regression analyses assessed the main effects of NR and gender, as well as their interaction, on MLQ subscales. NR positively correlated with the MLQ Search dimension, indicating that individuals with stronger NR actively seek meaning in life. Gender moderated this relationship: NR did not correlate with MLQ Presence overall, but higher NR was linked to greater MIL presence among female participants. Thematic analysis of qualitative responses revealed gender-based variations and emphasized the role of Jewish teachings in connecting NR to cultural and religious practices. Conclusions: The findings point to the importance of cultural, religious, and gender factors in shaping the relationship between NR and MIL in a time of climate change crisis, offering implications for positive mental health research and culturally sensitive interventions. Full article

The impact of soundscapes in religious architecture on public psychology has garnered increasing attention in both research and policy domains. However, the mechanisms by which temple soundscapes influence public emotions remain scientifically unclear. This paper aims to explore how soundscapes in temple architectures designated as World Natural and Cultural Heritage sites affect visitors’ experiences. Considering visitors with diverse social and demographic backgrounds, the research design includes subjective soundscape evaluations and EEG measurements from 193 visitors at two World Heritage temples. The results indicate that visitors’ religious beliefs primarily affect their soundscape perception, while their soundscape preferences show specific correlations with chanting and human voices. Furthermore, compared to males, females exhibit greater sensitivity to emotional variations induced by soundscape experiences. Urban architects can enhance visitors’ positive emotional experiences by integrating soundscape design into the planning of future religious architectures, thereby creating pleasant acoustic environments. Full article

This paper investigates the cultural landscapes established by nineteenth-century German immigrants in South Australia and the southern Riverina of New South Wales, with particular attention to settlement patterns, architectural traditions and toponymic transformation. German immigration to Australia, though numerically modest compared to the Americas, significantly shaped local communities, especially due to religious cohesion among Lutheran migrants. These settlers established distinct, enduring rural enclaves characterized by linguistic, religious and architectural continuity. The paper examines three manifestations of these cultural landscapes. A rich toponymic landscape was created by imposing on natural landscape features and newly founded settlements the names of the communities from which the German settlers originated. It discusses the erosion of German toponyms under wartime nationalist pressures, the subsequent partial reinstatement and the implications for cultural memory. The study traces the second manifestation of a cultural landscapes in the form of nucleated villages such as Hahndorf, Bethanien and Lobethal, which often followed the Hufendorf or Straßendorf layout, integrating Silesian land-use principles into the Australian context. Intensification of land use through housing subdivisions in two communities as well as agricultural intensification through broad acre farming has led to the fragmentation (town) and obliteration (rural) of the uniquely German form of land use. The final focus is the material expression of cultural identity through architecture, particularly the use of traditional Fachwerk (half-timbered) construction and adaptations such as pug-and-pine walling suited to local materials and climate. The paper examines domestic forms, including the distinctive black kitchen, and highlights how environmental and functional adaptation reshaped German building traditions in the antipodes. Despite a conservation movement and despite considerable documentation research in the late twentieth century, the paper shows that most German rural structures remain unlisted and vulnerable. Heritage neglect, rural depopulation, economic rationalization, lack of commercial relevance and local government policy have accelerated the decline of many of these vernacular buildings. The study concludes by problematizing the sustainability of conserving German Australian rural heritage in the face of regulatory, economic and demographic pressures. With its layering of intangible (toponymic), structural (buildings) and land use (cadastral) features, the examination of the cultural landscape established by nineteenth-century German immigrants adds to the body of literature on immigrant communities, settler colonialism and landscape research. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most influential and rapidly developing phenomena of our time. New fields of study are being created at universities, and managers are constantly introducing new AI solutions for business management, marketing, and advertising new products. Unfortunately, AI is also used to promote dangerous political parties and ideologies. The research problem that is the focus of this work is expressed in the following question: How does the symbiotic relationship between artificial and natural intelligence manifest across three dimensions of human experience—philosophical understanding, educational practice, and pastoral care—and what hermeneutical, phenomenological, and critical realist insights can illuminate both the promises and perils of this emerging co-evolution? In order to address this issue, an interdisciplinary research team was established. This team comprised a philosopher, an educator, and a pastoral theologian. This study is grounded in a critical–hermeneutic meta-analysis of the existing literature, ecclesial documents, and empirical investigations on AI. The results of scientific research allow for a broader insight into the impact of AI on humans and on personal relationships in Christian communities. The authors are concerned not only with providing an in-depth understanding of the issue but also with taking into account the ecumenical perspective of religious, social, and cultural education of contemporary Christians. Our analysis reveals that cultivating a healthy symbiosis between artificial and natural intelligence requires specific competencies and ethical frameworks. We therefore conclude with practical recommendations for Christian formation that neither uncritically embrace nor fearfully reject AI, but rather foster wise discernment for navigating this unprecedented co-evolutionary moment in human history. Full article

During the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, China underwent a period of broad-based economic and societal transformation. Among the cultural forces at play, the Christian culture has significantly impacted the trajectory of Chinese history. At the time, responding to a distinct socio-political environment, Western missionaries employed a variety of religious methodologies to pursue the goal of proselytizing. As part of missionary efforts, they introduced Western scientific and cultural knowledge into China alongside Christian doctrines, coinciding with a period of political and cultural transformation and development in China. Accordingly, this influx of new ideas from the West had a far-reaching impact on Chinese society. This paper focuses on the Chinese translation of Euclid’s Elements, examining the intercultural dissemination of Western mathematical knowledge through missionary activities. Furthermore, the study also elucidates the positive impact of Western mathematics carried with religious efforts on the Chinese traditional mathematical system via presenting a comparison of paradigms in mathematics. Finally, this study argues that the translation practice by Christian emissaries from the West in the natural sciences during the Ming and Qing Dynasties engendered novel intellectual currents, thereby facilitating the development of a contemporary Chinese knowledge framework and a shift in religious research toward comprehensive perspectives. Full article

Walter Henry Medhurst’s translation of The Shoo King (尚書/書經) represents the first complete English rendering of this classic Chinese text. However, limited attention has been given to how Medhurst navigated the tension between Confucian thought in The Shoo King and his own religious beliefs, as well as his treatment of this tension in comparison to James Legge, Joseph de Prémare, Walter Gorn Old, and his interpretation in contrast to Cai Shen’s annotated edition of The Shoo King. This study adopts a “history of the book” approach to examine how Medhurst, as a Protestant missionary, translated key Confucian anthropocentric concepts, including “Ren” (仁), the Doctrine of Mind-Nature, people-centered governance, and religious ideas related to the divine. Through extensive textual analysis and comparison with other scholars’ translations, this study finds that Medhurst adhered to the principle of textual fidelity, striving to minimize the interference of his religious stance with the original meaning of Confucian philosophy. His translation of terms varied according to the context, especially reflecting the shift in The Shoo King from the idea of “Heaven’s mandate is inviolable” to “Heaven is not trustworthy.” Additionally, he enhanced the communication of the original text’s meanings through paratextual elements such as illustrations and footnotes, while retaining Cai Shen’s historical background interpretations and significantly reducing the philological commentary, presenting a “concise and focused” annotation approach. These findings highlight Medhurst’s unique contribution to the cross-cultural transmission of the Confucian canonical text. Full article

Why have thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Zhuang Zi, across different cultures, sought something beyond the self? Whether through God, nature, or abstract ideals, the longing for transcendence has been a recurring theme across philosophical and religious traditions. This impulse reflects what Aldous Huxley termed the “perennial philosophy”—the idea that all spiritual traditions share a common metaphysical core. Within this framework, Emerson and Zhuang Zi offer remarkably similar insights into the transformative power of silence and stillness. For Emerson, these quiet states connect the individual with the Over-Soul, a universal spirit that transcends the ego. For Zhuang Zi, they enable alignment with the Dao, the natural flow of the universe. In both philosophies, silence and stillness serve as transformative practices that dissolve the boundaries of the self and open it to a deeper, more unified reality. By comparing Emerson’s Over-Soul and Zhuang Zi’s Dao, this essay shows how both thinkers suggest that true peace arises not from striving but from surrendering to the quiet depths of being. Their shared emphasis on contemplative stillness reveals its enduring value as a spiritual practice across diverse philosophical landscapes. Full article

Vajrayāna teaching places the guru outside space and time, while simultaneously manifest in the teacher’s physical body. Those who regard Danzanravjaa primarily as a Buddhist teacher even today have his poems as a potent source of his teaching and consequently as a catalyst for their own spiritual development. But what can we hear across two centuries, and how can we actively listen to his religious teaching through his singular, aphoristic, and complex poetics? And to what extent can we understand today his nomadic perspective on Buddhist teaching in order better to understand the particular nature of Mongolian Buddhism? This paper will examine Danzanravjaa’s poetry in both Mongolian and Tibetan through the intertwining outer, inner, and secret levels of Tibeto-Mongolian Vajrayāna Buddhism, listening to how his poetic language and down-to-earth themes might have spoken to his contemporaries, as well as how they might speak to us today. In doing so, it presents Danzanravjaa’s poetry in a different light—not in terms of nineteenth century literature but as actionable spiritual wisdom from a teacher who, like any other, presents his own direct apprehension of Buddha nature in a challenging, personal style. Full article

The One Health approach is rapidly gaining the attention of the scientific community worldwide and is expected to be a major model of scientific reasoning in the 21st century, concerning medical, veterinary and environmental issues. The basic concept of One Health, that humans, animals and their environments are parts of the same natural world affecting each other, is rooted in most ethnic as well as in many religious traditions. Despite this unity and for historical reasons, medical, veterinary and environmental sciences developed independently. The One Health concept tries to reunite these and many other relevant sciences, aiming at a deeper understanding of the interconnection between the natural world, humans and animal health. The dynamic interplay between a host’s microbiome, the microbiomes of other hosts, and environmental microbial communities profoundly influences the host health, given the essential physiological functions the microbiome performs within the organism. The biodiversity of microbiomes is broad and complex. The different areas of the skin, the upper and lower respiratory systems, the ocular cavity, the oral cavity, the gastrointestinal tract and finally the urogenital system of pets and humans alike are niches where a multitude of microorganisms indigenous and transient—commensals and pathogens, thrive in a dynamic antagonistic balance of populations of different phyla, orders, genera and species. The description of these microbiomes attempted in this article is not meant to be exhaustive but rather demonstrative of their complexity. The study of microbiomes is a necessary step towards the One Health approach to pets and humans. Yet, despite the progress made on that subject, the scientific community faces challenges, such as the limitations of studies performed, the scarcity of studies concerning the microbiomes of cats, the multitude of environmental factors affecting the results and others. The two new terms proposed in this article, the “familiome” and the “oikiome”, will aid in the One Health theoretical analysis as well as in its practical approach. The authors strongly believe that new technological breakthroughs, like Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), will significantly help to overcome these hazards. Full article

The text analyzes interreligious organizations and movements in Brazil based on the concept of the pluralist principle. It aims to systematize, based on observations of practices and studies of documents from prominent inter-religious experiences in Brazil, the degree of incidence of efforts to deepen democracy; defend human rights and the rights of nature; provide citizenship; appreciate ethnic, sexual, and gender diversity; and other effective decolonial forms of counter-hegemonic social articulation in these groups. Among the results, we present theoretical bases that show that it is necessary, for social analyses, to pay special attention to the articulation of the intersection between religious groups’ capacity for dialogue and the challenges surrounding social agendas that reinforce decolonial socio-religious perspectives. The profile of some inter-religious experiences within the scope of the research is also indicated. Full article

The paper offers a reinterpretation of Wittgenstein’s 1938 lecture on religious belief and challenges a prominent view that it commits Wittgenstein to a form of non-cognitivism and/or that it reflects a lack of understanding of religious practices. It further argues that the lecture is not in tension with Wittgenstein’s later views on the nature of philosophy. Full article

This article offers a Thomist response to Brian Leiter’s Why Tolerate Religion?, challenging his claim that religion does not merit distinct legal protection. While Leiter assumes religion to be epistemically irrational—defined by existential consolation, categorical demands, and insulation from evidence—this article draws on John Finnis’s interpretation of Saint Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) to reconstruct religion as a basic good of practical reason. It proposes a three-tiered model of religion—as human quest, natural religion, and revealed religion—which clarifies religion’s internal structure and civic relevance. Developing this model against Leiter’s critique, this article shows that religion, so understood, can be legally protected even on Leiter’s liberal terms, through both Rawlsian and Millian frameworks. The article also extends its argument to “second-wave” law-and-religion controversies, illustrating how a Thomist framework illuminates debates about ideological establishments, identity politics, and public reason. Through original syntheses and rigorous normative analysis, this article advances a conceptually fresh and publicly accessible model of religion for law and public policy. It also speaks to pressing constitutional debates in the U.S. and Europe, thus contributing to transatlantic jurisprudence on religious freedom and the moral purposes of law. Religion still matters—and must be understood—not as conscience, but qua religion. Full article

The proliferation of African diaspora churches, especially over the last four decades in Europe and the West, has not gone unnoticed. Over this period, there has been a planting and transporting of independent churches as well as branches of Pentecostal and charismatic churches from sub-Saharan Africa to the West. First-generation members of these churches have often been the pioneers, leaders, and custodians of the church culture and practices from their motherland. These first-generation members continue to hold on to liturgy and practices from ‘home’ (Africa) and seek to replicate them as authentic spirituality and spiritual formation practices. A significant part of the rise of these churches are the second-generation members who have a fluid identity and are finding newer ways to assimilate their parents’ socio-cultural and religious practices with that of their present ‘home’ European/Western nations. For these emerging-generation members, their parents’ culture, which is largely based on an African worldview, continues to shape church liturgy and practices. An integral component of the church’s liturgy and practical ministry is prayer. Prayer in its various forms plays a significant part in both personal and collective worship. This paper examines the impact of emerging generations on the dynamics and praxis of prayer in the Church of Pentecost UK. Prayer holds a significant place in the lives of these emerging generation members and forms part of their socio-religious identity. Against this backdrop of prayer from a generational and liturgical viewpoint, we explore the nature, dynamics, and context of the prayers of the emerging generation members of the Church of Pentecost, UK. We examine areas of continuity and discontinuity and explore how Western influences and modernisation have influenced the prayer language and style of the younger generation. Through participant observations and lived experiences, we argue that though prayer is central to the worship of the younger generation, there are significant variations between the generations within the broader framework of style, language, and content. Full article