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The confrontation between good and evil, in the 20th century, had frightening proportions. Through a twisted logic, ideologically and “scientifically” reasoned,there have been destroyed spiritually, morally, socially and economically the destinies of many people, ethnicities and countries. For some people the psychical and physical salvation from the terror of the materialistic-atheist utopia was assuming a spiritual life
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Suppression of religious institutions during the Soviet regime might have caused the former Soviet population to substitute religion with paranormal belief, and therefore it is important to study paranormal belief in relation with religiosity and spirituality, in the light of the Soviet Union. The participants (N=229) were from five post-soviet countries (Russia, Georgia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Kazakhstan). Participants completed an online survey consisting of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS) plus the Ghosts subscale from Manchester Metropolitan University paranormal belief scale (MMUpbs), Spiritual Perspective Scale (SPS) and the abbreviated version of Springfield Religiosity Scale (SRS). Participants reported low religiosity, while paranormal belief was moderate, and spirituality was high. Spirituality was a significant predictor for paranormal belief, while no relation was found between religiosity and paranormal belief. The article discusses the possible explanations for such results.
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The Christian family is nowadays confronted with an avalanche of information provided by the digital media. In order to walk on a healthy developmental path, the preschooler needs a calm environment to live in and two parents that love each other. Digital technology raises a great deal of challenges for the adults. They are forced to search for the latest information related to the effects of digital media on their children. Self-discipline has become mandatory for a today’s parent. Children learn from their parents how to behave in the family and within society. Emotional development is connected with the adults’ ability to love them unconditionally. A Christian parent is called to be extremely vigilant. The power of bad influence that the media has on children’s thoughts cannot be neglected. It also affects their attention and capacity to learn. Teaching children how to limit their use of technology constitutes a step in the development of their will. Protecting their minds from ugly thoughts is a task that parents are supposed to carry out during early childhood. The Christian teaching about watchfulness is the starting point of this educational endeavor.
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It is not clear whether religions are on the rise or fall today. The present study investigated whether personality trait factors can predict the combined growth of religious affiliations and non-affiliations (i.e., the number of people who self-identify with a religion or do not identify with any religion) across socio-cultural contexts through an analysis of online survey data collected from 111 countries and 4,270 individuals. In a multiple-discriminant analysis, religion self-reports constituted three independent dimensions. Religious affiliations and nonaffiliations (whether a person identifies as a member of a specific religion or identifies him/ herself as an atheist or agnostic) formed separate clusters along one axis, while on the other two, they did not. Across countries, religions’ growth rates significantly predicted the trait factor configuration classifying religious affiliations (seeing oneself as a member of a specific religion) differently from non-affiliations (seeing oneself as an atheist or an agnostic). The personality profile grouping affiliations together with non-affiliations had a non-significant relationship with religions’ growth rates. In sum, although self-identifying with no religion (i.e., agnosticism and atheism) might not replace affiliating with a religion in the short run, it can show a non-significant trend toward competing with adhering to most popular religions. The results may have implications for understanding the impact of religious pluralism on religions’ growth rates and the different growth trends associated with the complexity of religious affiliations.
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The paper focuses on the cognitive value of psychological knowledge about the human mind and personality development in children, adolescents and adults. It is argued that axiological engagement of developmental psychology means reference to its object of study with truth-value judgments about it. The understanding of human development entails an axiological engagement with it that is directed towards truth. Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz wrote about the significance of the anti-irrational stance in our cognition and in our actions guided by cognition toward reaching planned desirable ends within our human social world. Ajdukiewicz has pondered the epistemic value of being true or false with our knowledge; any utilitarian or pragmatic considerations or uses of it notwithstanding. It is assumed by him that one should preserve an anti-irrational stance in order to decide on the difference between true and false beliefs. It is argued that the science of psychology reduces the value of cognition to utilitarian and pragmatic values and knows next to nothing about how to identify truth and falsity of beliefs. This assertion implies an urgent need to find out how children, youth, and adults learn to deal with epistemic values of their beliefs. One should put aside the positivistic and empiricist theory of human cognition in order to open a space for a new proposal in developmental psychology. It deals with the relation of reference of beliefs of human subjects to the objects of their cognition in their social world and argues for the return to the notion of ideals in psychology in order to investigate their indispensable role in human mind and personality development.
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Previous research has demonstrated that a positive subjective relationship with God was associated with better mental health outcomes. On the other hand, it has been known that childhood traumas are the strongest risk factors for almost all common mental disorders. For that reason, investigating the relationship between childhood traumas and God image and the factors that mediate this relationship is crucial for the clinical works conducted with the religious clients who report a history of childhood trauma. Based on the Freud’s projection theory, the early researchers investigating the psychological factors underlying the formation of God image proposed that image of parents might mediates the god image. Their studies revealed inconclusive results. As an alternative to the projection theory, some researchers suggested that the God image was self-referenced. Their research showed that high self-esteem was positively related to image of a loving God and negatively related to image of a rejecting God. The studies comparing these two explanations found that God image was more self-referenced than parent referenced. The attachment theory provides a theoritical framework to integrate these two positions. Studies based on the attachment theory revealed that secure attachment was associated with a loving God image while the insecure attachment was related to a distant and controlling God image. The childhood traumas which are the focus of this study are the experiences that are likely to destroy early attachment pattern and lead to an insecure attachment style in which the self, others and in turn God are perceived in a negative way. Majority of the studies examining the link between childhood traumas and God image demonstrated that the individuals exposed to childhood traumas perceived God as distant, cruel, cold, punishing, unjust and frightening in their adulthood. However, the research investigating the impact of childhood traumas on the adult survivors’ God image has mainly focused on Western Judeo-Christian samples. Despite the prevalence of childhood traumas in Muslim communities, Muslim samples are underrepresented. In addition, it was thought that the self-esteem was the most important factor that mediates the relationship between childhood traumas and positive psychological outputs. Many studies supported that childhood traumas were associated with low self-esteem. However, recently, some criticisms were raised to the concept of self-esteem which has some negative consequences like narcissism, selfcenteredness, lack of interest and prejudice towards others. Instead, the concept of self-compassion was proposed. The concept of self-compassion includes a nonjudgmental and warm attitude towards oneself in the face of pain and suffering, and evaluating negative life events as being a part of shared human experience. The studies investigating the relationship between childhood traumas and God image have mainly focused on attachment styles and self-esteem as explanatory factors but ignored the concept of self-compassion. For that reason, in this study, we investigated the relationship between childhood traumas and God image and the mediating role of self-compassion in a sample of Muslim Turkish university students. The data was collected through online questionnaires. Five hundred two participants who were reached through the convenience sampling method, completed Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form, God Perception Scale and Self-Compassion Scale Short Form. With PROCESS v3.5 macro extension in IBM SPSS 22, a bootstrapping procedure with 5000 resamples was performed to test mediation models. Findings revealed that all childhood trauma forms predicted negative God image. In addition, all childhood trauma forms predicted low selfcompassion level. Finally, mediation analysis showed that self-compassion partially mediated the relationship between all forms of childhood trauma and God image. The results were discussed in the light of existing literature. Many studies have shown that selfcompassion-based interventions are highly effective with the clients exposed to traumatic experiences. Based on the findings of the present study, it was emphasized that self-compassion-based interventions would contribute to a more positive God image which is one of the important coping resources after stressful life events for religious individuals.
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This article theorises ideations of “the people” in a comparative reflection on Latin-Christian theologies and typologies of time and secularised appropriations thereof in right-wing as well as far-right movements in Europe and the United States of America. Understanding the world in grand narratives of “good” and “evil” emerges from Christian eschatological hope: the hope of the restoration and renewal of the cosmos and the final defeat of evil prophesised in association with the return of Christ. However, this language of good and evil becomes detached from the wider corpus of Christian belief and theology. In its secular expression, it may attach the good to an abstract and normative account of “the people”, who are defined in contrast to a range of others, both internal and external to the nation. Secular iterations might further echo the stratification of present, past and future through a sacralisation of the past and a dramatization of the future. The context of contemporary right-wing and far-right movements poses a series of questions about the relationship between belief and belonging, the acceptability of the secularization of Christian traditions and theologies, and the extent to which Christian communities can legitimately associate with right-wing movements.
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In the following paper, our goal is to present an overview of the sociologic, didactic and religious meaning of the word „value” starting from its base concepts and its configuration. Nowadays the term „value” is intensively used, by being a key concept in areas such as philosophy (the topic of study of axiology, for example, are the values and the value judgement), sociology and psychology. This word is used to denote objects, situations, actions and events (abstract ideas that embody social ideals), as well as to describe their properties: meaning, normativity, utility, and necessity. Given the polysemy of this lexeme, we will make a brief review of its semiotic grid by keeping its perception and influence over the fundamental acts of the human.
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In this paper we will try to identify the concrete ways in which John Locke describes the limits of toleration between different types of faith and its metaphysical foundations. From the beginning of his text A Letter Concerning Toleration, John Locke specifies that toleration is, first and foremost, a practical ideal and, secondly, a moral one. As such, toleration must be the essential feature of the true Church because in the field of religious faith any claimed superiority is in fact only the expression of the struggle for power and domination. A theoretical perspective on the idea of religious toleration is also recalled from Lockeˈs radical empiricism, which correlates man's identity with his appearance at birth, for the first time in the world, as a different form from others. Such a view is contrary to metempsychosis which could lead to innate ideas in the human soul about moral principles and especially about God, as Plato or Descartes believed.Starting from the principles of toleration, John Locke's idea was to find those elements through which a fundamental separation between the Church and the State could be achieved. But toleration ceases when the Church and the State merge discreetly until they can no longer distinguish the boundaries between them.We consider that the fundamental principle of religious toleration is based on the idea of reciprocity, i.e. toleration-to-toleration and intolerance-to-intolerance, as Locke stated. This principle is also an essential landmark for a moral law on religious toleration in the contemporary, global world.
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For about 2500 years we have been ontologizing the sacred, the divinity, which are now going through the general crisis of genealogy, new experiences of fatherhood etc., after passing through the alphabet, writing etc., which allowed their abstraction, their conception beyond appearances materials. The current crisis of reading is seriously damaging to the transmission of divinity. Religious information can be stored on chips, but ecstasy is reached through gestures and words. Digital, tele-presence, video sphere introduce optional, collages, diversities, diversions. The arrow of the Judeo-Christian time that was heading towards the Last Judgment is competed by the themes of the labyrinth, the wheels, the return to the circle, the eternal returns, full of events and deeds without laws of perspective... Those who detach themselves from the Christian world can produce pre-Christian mutations, humanity being invited to reintegrate into the chain of living things. To be a community of their own, we need something above, a superior, a transcendent... Anthony Giddens criticized the tendency to consider human history as a line (summed up in a unitary doctrine) simple, clear, homogeneous, law-abiding world, full of certainties. To opt for a model, for a theory with the claim of hegemony means to adopt a reductionist point of view for knowing the complexity of the world which is a historical and everyday construction of individual and collective actors, the condition and the result, the matrix and the result of intersubjective actions. Most acts reproduce social structures. Events break a continuity and disrupt the way we understand reality. The linearity of a trajectory does not exist without adhering to the ideas of destination and destiny. However, people’s existence and experience represent a series of elections at crossroads, where they make decisions. After celebrating the certainties, now take into account uncertainties, risks, and changes in the logic of urgency. The world of work in the industrial society framed the individual and offered him support and protection. In the conditions of destandardizing the course of life, they look for lost certainties, while facing persistent uncertainties.
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Survival and the collaboration between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the communist authorities has been one of the main subjects of research after 1990. The present biographical study, devoted to the life and work of one of the Orthodox prelates during the dictatorship, Antim Nica, attempts to render the atmosphere in the first decades of the communist totalitarianism, with emphasis on how difficult it was for clerics to survive in those times. Antim Nica began his ecclesiastical career during the military dictatorship (which doomed him in the eyes of the regime that followed), but managed to remain in the religious leadership at the cost of compromise. With all the many proofs of loyalty, the regime however assigned him only much later a bishop’s seat. In his new position, Antim Nica made no concession to administrative claims. Evantia Bozgan is a History teacher.
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This article aims to evaluate the types of customary marriage, the reasons that paved the way for its spread, the sociological approach of the people with statistical data, and the evaluation in terms of Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence). In the study, it has been tried to reach the right result by considering the social reasons and legal norms together. In order to correctly evaluate people's orientation to customary marriage, statistical data was used in the study, thus it was aimed to reveal the sociological dimension of the research. In the research, firstly, the definition of the concept of marriage, its elements, conditions and types were briefly explained and the conceptual, legal framework and imagination of marriage were drawn. Thus, the main concepts and norms in which the customary marriage will be evaluated and compared have been put forward. Afterwards, the definition of customary marriage, which is the main subject of the study, its types, the countries where it is spreading, statistical data, the reasons that paved the way for its emergence, and Islamic Fiqh from the classical to the present were made. As a result, customary marriage was performed in three different ways, two of which were permissible, one was not; It has been determined that the applicants for this wedding are generally those who want to have more than one marriage and the university students. It has been seen that this customary marriage has some positive and negative consequences, and those who look at its positive aspects are allowed, while those who consider its negative aspects are not. However, from the classical period to the present, it has been determined that it is permissible for the public to hide the two-witness marriage on the grounds that it fulfills the condition of announcement, even if it is demanded from the witness.
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The article emphasises on the irreplaceable upbringing and educational role of maktab in contemporary time, the time of transformation of family and the time of the crises of the family values where we are faced with numerous challenges on social networks as well as in public sphere. The empirical part of this article presents the results of a research on the attitude of imams and muallims regarding the challenges facing the maktab class in the region of Republic of Srpska. These results show the following as challenges facing the maktab class in Republic of Srpska: the reduced number of students as a result of migration of the population within the borders as well as of the immigration to the countries in Western Europe, low percentage of students who attend the class of religious studies in schools attending the maktab class, parents attitude which reflects the belief that it is sufficient for their children to attend the religious studies class in school, extracurricular activities that are organized in the time and days when maktab classes are scheduled, combined groups in maktab, and other challenges including the national identity crisis. The article also presents the opinions of the respondents to the research questionnaire regarding the solutions to these problems and those include: the education of imams, establishment of maktab centers in urban areas and within larger jamaats, organizing educational camps, strengthening the cooperation between imams and teachers of the religious studies class, etc.
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This study aims to determine the relationship between religious attitudes, psychological resilience and depression in Syrian adolescent individuals. The sample of the study consists of 216 Syrian individuals aged 13-18 residing in Elazig. The average age is 15,31. About 124 of the participants were female, and 92 were male. Personal Information Form, Beck Depression Inventory II, Religious Attitude Scale, and Child and Adolescent Resilience Scale were used to collect data. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Statistics software, version 22.0. In the study, the following results were obtained regarding the Syrian sample: there is a negative and significant relationship between depression and religious attitude levels; there is a negative and significant relationship between depression and psychological resilience levels; and there is a positive and significant relationship between psychological resilience and religious attitude levels. In addition, the research findings showed that resilience and religious attitudes explained approximately 20% of the total variance in the level of depression in Syrian adolescents.
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The aim of psychotherapy applied based on the data of modern psychology is to give the individual insight into the difficulties or troubles experienced, to increase the motivation of the individual to bring about changes in his thoughts and behaviors, and to help him find suitable ways for these changes. Bibliotherapy, which is one of the psychotherapy techniques, is a psychotherapy method that means making use of books in order to bring the right message to the right person or to deliver it to the right person. Similar to the purpose of psychotherapy methods, the purpose of all kinds of cognitive and affective social support such as spiritual/religious advice, religious teachings, or religious suggestions is to help and guide the person in the mourning process. People who read the stories in which the life stories of the prophets and/or personalities mentioned in the Qur’an and the events they experienced are told can make a share of these stories. In this way, the stories have a bibliotherapeutic function. The study was prepared with a qualitative method based on source scanning. First of all, the human mourning process and the function of religion in this process were mentioned, and some evaluations were made on the purpose of telling the stories in the Quran. Later, the message given in verses 62 to 80 of Surat Al-Kahf, which is described as the tale of the Wise Person-Moses in tafsir sources, was examined in depth. As a result, it has been concluded that if all religious advice and teachings in general and The Wise Person-Moses parable in particular are correctly understood and conveyed, it can assume a bibliotherapeutic function for the mourning clients.
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The “multi-crisis environment” of the contemporary society poses enormous demands on the individual who sometimes lacks effective approaches and resources to cope with them. People in critical situation need external help, but find it difficult to find it. It is an opportunity for the clergyman to get involved in conversation and solution- seeking. He or she is often one of the first to help with facilitation of communication with people around, to provide insight into the scope of the problem, to help him or her express emotions, to bolster his or her self-confidence, to activate sources of support in his or her environment, and to facilitate effective problem-solving. This researchbased study examines the impact of the stress caused by accompaniment on clergy.
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The fact that spouses profess different faiths is a major challenge for their life and for building a stable family. A closer examination of the reality of mixed marriages may be helpful in developing the pastoral care they need. The article shows what mixed marriages deal with in their spirituality, in the context of the existing doctrine, law and pastoral practice. It also discusses the shared values and expressions of Christian spirituality as well as areas where tensions or even crises may appear. The article is not only a recapitulation of the applicable laws and existing pastoral practice, but proposes some solutions, both pastoral and canonical.
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One of the pioneering works in the history of religious psychology in Turkey is the article titled "Observations of Religious Psychology in Anatolian History." This article was published on June 1, 1924 (Hijri-1340) in the 13th-14th issue of the Mihrap Magazine and was written by Hilmi Ziya ULKEN. The presentations in this work were created, taking into account current topics in the psychology of religion, based on both the Ottoman Turkish original and the contemporary translation of the article. With this study, a contemporary interpretation of this century-old Ottoman Turkish article was made to understand its intended message, and its relevance to the present day was addressed. In this article, Ulken examines the lives and some mystical experiences of two historical mystical figures by presenting historical sources. It becomes apparent from Ulken's article that the importance of mystical experiences in Anatolian culture has continued throughout its historical process. The Anatolian people have placed value on metaphysical and Sufi/mystical elements. Ulken attempts to demonstrate that the mystical experiences in Anatolia are rooted more in Shaman culture than Buddhist culture and that this tradition continued during the Ottoman era. What Ulken described a century ago in this article reminds us that the quest for meaning and spirituality in contemporary psychology of religion is universal. On the other hand, in the West, some individuals searching for spirituality have stated that they do not belong to any particular religious tradition, leading to debates about changing the name of psychology of religion to "spiritual psychology." However, Ulken's attempt to show that the quest for spirituality in Anatolia, although occasionally reflecting Shaman culture, is not independent of religious traditions, demonstrates that spirituality in Anatolia is not divorced from religion, in contrast to the West. In conclusion, when examining debates in Western psychology of religion, it is important to focus on the universality of the field and make better use of past works and historical figures in Anatolian culture, rather than simply imitating Western developments. This article by Ulken is one of the Works that can help in in this regard.
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Personality is the reflection of a person’s innate characteristics in attitudes and behaviors as a result of interaction with the outside world. The will achieve the consistency of a person’s attitudes and behaviours under the leadership of the mind. There are elements that control this will. Religion, both an internal and external phenomenon, is one of these elements. The controlling role of religion also plays an active role in the self-construction process. This role of religion is more effective in a person’s childhood and adolescence. In later periods, it is an element that people apply to in times of crisis. There are differences between genders in benefiting from the religious factor in the self-construction. The softness of female temperament makes her personality more open to religious factors. While this situation creates sincere submission in the woman, it also builds a holistic personality. For this reason, the effectiveness of women’s use of religion in self-construction and in times of crisis is an issue that needs to be researched to raise healthy personalities in the future. In the literature research, no studies were encountered that addressed female personality in the context of a private person. Therefore, with this study, we aimed to contribute to the missing field and to evaluate the effect of religion on self-construction as a positive controlling force. In this context, we examined the personality of Bezmialem Valide Sultan, whose life included periods under the influence of different beliefs, cultures, and traditions. We emphasized the role of religion in helping his personality reach a holistic and healthy structure in the various identities she acquired. We tried to scientifically reveal the effect of the religious factor on self-construction through the charitable foundations she established throughout her life. We have selected five examples of these charitable foundations. These are Vakıf Gureba Hospital, Dārü’l-Maʿārif, Dolmabahçe Mosque, Galata Bridge, and Terkos Lake. While the qualitative research method was used in the study, the technique of examining documents was used. As a result, it has been understood that the influence of religion is positive in self-construction through Bezmialem Valide Sultan and her charitable works. In this process, it has been observed that people exhibit consistent and permanent attitudes and behaviors when religion is the main factor controlling the will.
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The Life of Saint Mary of Egypt was written between 354 and 431 and initially attributed to Sophronius of Jerusalem. From the 6th century onwards, Eastern monks presented the story of the saint. In the West, it became known through Paul the Deacon’s translation of the Vita S. Mariae Aegyptiacae into Latin.Initially, Mary of Egypt led a lustful life, indulging in pleasures. Thanks to the help of grace and a determination to change, she embraced the severely austere life of a hermit, mourning her former sinful conduct for 47 years. The Mother of God for the penitent was a great help in this life and fighting carnal temptations. Mary became a model for St. Zosimus, who witnessed her holiness in the desert and the mystical states granted to her by God, including the gift of prophecy and levitation.The story of Mary of Egypt can be classified as one of the lives of the desert mothers, for this saint reflects the testimony of an ascetic path, that is, the total abandonment of the world in favour of seclusion in the desert. Some scholars believe that the Vita S. Mariae Aegyptiacae was written on the model of Jerome’s Vita S. Pauli monachi Thebaei.Mary of Egypt was a prominent figure in the female monastic tradition, but it appears from existing manuscripts that she was more celebrated in male monasteries. The figure of the hermit saint emphasises the woman’s independence: she is a teacher, a prophetess, a mystic who instructs the monk-priest, and who surpasses the man in Christian perfection.
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