Other Religion Commons^™

Spirituality As A Coping Mechanism For Academic Stress, Zurab Kherodinashvili

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Current research has emphasised the adverse effects of stress on well-being and mental health. This paper explores the aspect of stress and well-being in the college student population. Students face multiple stressors during their academic life, such as isolation from family, academic stress, social interactions, financial difficulties, love, and a list of requirements for their future careers. During this period, individuals develop skill sets, ideas, mental prototypes, and coping mechanisms that may be used as a guiding point and retrieved later in life. Coping is mobilizing ideas and behaviors to manage internal and external stressful events. It is a word …

As Fewer Young Americans Say They Believe In God, A Look At Why So Many Have Abandoned Religion And What Motivates Others To Keep The Faith, Briana Ellis-Gibbs

Capstones

Generation Z, defined by the Pew Research Center as those born after 1997, is the least religious generation yet, according to a recent report from the American Survey Center. More than one-third of Generation Zers are religiously unaffiliated, along with 29 percent of Millenials, those born between 1981 and 1996. On the other hand, only 18 percent of baby boomers and 9 percent of the silent generation claim no religious affiliation.

Though overall, Americans' belief in God has hit an all-time low, from nearly 90 percent in 2017 to 81 percent this year, according to a new poll by Axios …

Sikhs And Colonialism: A Study Of Religious Identity Across Time From Guru Nanak To The British Raj, Samrath S. Machra

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis deals with how a religious community shapes itself in the face of powerful external pressures. It explores ways the Sikh religion (code, creed, and cultus) was influenced by its encounters with the British Empire and in process, gave birth to a new combinative tradition. This paper will look at where the Sikh people located themselves during the Colonial period, to understand Colonialism’s imprint on the Sikh tradition. It traces the thread of contact throughout Sikh history and argues that British contact resulted in religious and cultural exchanges which reoriented Sikh creed, code, and cultus. The resulting combinative tradition …

Mutual Aid As Spiritual Tacit Knowledge Within Doukhobor Epistemology, Rachel L. Neubuhr Torres

University Honors Theses

The relationship between Michael Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge and religion is a topic that is rarely explored. Applying tacit knowledge to the study of religion and spirituality allows us to think about how we connect with the world and how we address the concern of what one feels to be true of their existence, or existential intuition. In the latter half of the 1800s the Russian prince turned anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, wrote extensively on the theory of mutually beneficial cooperation, or mutual aid, as being one of the most important factors of evolution. As Kropotkin began writing his series …

Saga Beyond The Gate: Chapter One, The Coming Of The Gate Ghost, Tristan B. Miller

MSU Graduate Theses

“Saga Beyond the Gate: Chapter One, the Coming of the Gate Ghost” explores performance sculpture used as religious ritual. My work emphasizes ritual, creation myths, relics, physical manifestations of lived religion, and the power of narrative belief. One often turns to religion, science, or spirituality, to seek answers to questions about being a conscious entity, and one’s journey to the end. This saga uses scripts from all three of these schools of thought, placing the world of the Gate Ghost into tangible reality, as a play on a stage. Artefacts represent objects of power and mystery. Characters embody morality tales, …

Digital Occult Library, Alexis Brandkamp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is a website, titled Digital Occult Library, hosted by the CUNY Commons and built with WordPress. The site address is:

digitaloccultlibrary.commons.gc.cuny.edu

It features (in this iteration) twenty-five unique pages with information on and discussion of occult and esoteric topics. It also hosts a forum that can be accessed and utilized by anyone, not just those registered on the Commons. The purpose of the site is to inform three types of interested parties on the highlighted topics: a general audience with no current knowledge of the occult, practitioners of esoteric traditions, and academics. Not only is the …

Exploring And Re-Envisioning The Significance Of Agrarian Consciousness In Theology With Specific Reference To Kerala, Jinto George

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Globalization has a great impact on present-day society. Everything and everyone relates to each other based on market value. The commodification of agriculture and food has led the world into a situation where one lacks intimacy and bond in the relationship. The impact of globalization has influenced the present Kerala community. The monocultural systems of globalization have influenced the community which has led the Kerala society into a commodified society. The commodification of agriculture and food has influenced the patterns of relationships in the Kerala society, especially in their ecological, human, and spiritual relationship.

God did not create a world …

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …

Windows Into The Unseen The Power Of Metaphor As Revealed By Paul Ricoeur And Moses Maimonides, Claire E. Molk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ambiguous language haunts countless fields of human inquiry. The solution to its confounding nature has repeatedly been to reduce language to its face-value, launching an endless search for the right meaning. This paper aims to examine two thinkers who reveal language to be a more complicated matter. Paul Ricoeur and Moses Maimonides demonstrate the importance of language’s complexity through close examinations of metaphor. While we find different understandings of metaphor, reflecting different metaphysics within each author’s study, both Ricoeur and Maimonides contribute to the notion that language’s complexity is not to be eliminated through literal readings, but engaged to open …

The Psychosomatic Journey Of Trauma And Its Healing: A Comparative Synthesis Between Scientific And Psycho-Spiritual Perspectives, Isabel Kelly

Pomona Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to create a comparative synthesis between scientific perspectives and spiritual perspectives of understanding the psychosomatic (mind-body) nature of trauma. In order to do so we will consider the works of Dr.Bessel van der Kolk, a world-leading psychiatrist in the field of trauma therapy who advocates for the use of body-oriented approaches to healing, and the works of Carl Jung and Donald Kalsched. Jung is considered one of the founding fathers of the field of Transpersonal Psychology, while Kalsched is a Jungian psychoanalyst who specializes in working with trauma patients. We will see that while …

Reshaping The Theology And Praxis Of Inculturation Through Interreligious Dialogue Between The Catholic Church And African Traditional Religion In Igboland, Nigeria, Cajetan Anyanwu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior to the advent of Christianity in Igboland, the people practiced Igbo Traditional Religion. They believed in a Supreme Being (Chukwu/Chineke) who has other smaller deities as messengers including Ala/Ani the most powerful deity on earth. They revered their ancestors, who, they believe, still relate to and communicate with the living. Thus, the concept of God as ultimate reality is a dynamic existential aspect of Igbo world-view. Categorically speaking, it was short-sighted for the European missionaries to claim that Igbo people had no knowledge of God or lacked religion before the introduction of Christianity in Igboland in the …

The Quest Of Vision: Visual Culture, Sacred Space, Ritual, And The Documentation Of Lived Experience Through Rock Imagery, Aaron Robert Atencio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This document will approach the multifaceted concepts that arise through the study of rock art and the cultivation of culture and belief through vision. Through this document the audience will encounter conceptual ideas regarding belief systems, ritual, experience, cognition, sacredness, and space/landscape — and how these are all essential dynamics that take place in the processes that cultivate the Shoshone visual culture. This document will employ an anthropological lens on the mentioned subject matters, while also approaching these concepts with an interdisciplinary curiosity of how they intermingle; creating a cohesive experience that focuses on these processes which empowered these people[s] …

To Dust You Shall Return: A Theological Argument For The Human Compost Movement, Sydney N. Ederer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research paper analyzes Catholic, Daoist, and Jewish beliefs on death, the body, the soul, afterlife, and after death rituals in order to build a connection between these beliefs and human composting practices. It uses these three religious traditions to find support for and recognize potential opposition against the human compost movement. These conclusions are in turn used to make a claim for human composting. Thorough research and a careful analysis of religious beliefs and traditions surrounding death and the body provides theological support for human composting as a recommended method for body disposal after death. Therefore, this research is …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

House God, Geneva Zane

Senior Projects Spring 2018

A study of faith and its many forms, ranging from the faith a child has in dreams to the God like status of a writer and Their creation.

Providential Capitalism: Heavenly Intervention And The Atlantic’S Divine Economist, Ian F.P. Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Providential capitalism names the marriage of providential Christian values and market-oriented capitalist ideology in the post-revolutionary Atlantic through the mid nineteenth century. This is a process by which individuals permitted themselves to be used by a so-called “divine economist” at work in the Atlantic market economy. Backed by a slave market, capital transactions were rendered as often violent ecstatic individual and cultural experiences. Those experiences also formed the bases for national, racial, and classed identification and negotiation among the constellated communities of the Atlantic. With this in mind, writers like Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, and Ukawsaw Gronniosaw presented market success …

Guru Nanak: Life, Lessons & Relevancy, Rajdeep Singh Dosanjh

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This senior project is centered on understanding the thought of Nanak the founder of Sikhism. It consist of historiography of Nanak, and understanding the core of Nanak's thought as centered around G-d's Immanence

Coasters, Cotton Candy, And Christ: Tracing The Function Of Faith And Fun In Dollywood, Tennessee, Blaire Sheppard Hamilton

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

More Than A Prophet: Jesus And Islam, Justin A. Farmer

Selected Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Proto-Feminism In Ancient Global Texts, Jody A. Dammann-Matthews

Global Honors Theses

This paper was written to explore the patriarchal interpretations of ancient global texts and to uncover erroneous interpretations of the texts highlighted. Two texts were chosen, the biblical story of Deborah and Jael and the story of Shaharazad. They were both analyzed and compared. In this work the stories were scrutinized through the lens of proto-feminism and the patriarchal interpretations that have been accepted through history. The interpretation of these texts have downplayed the proto-feminist aspects of the protagonists and the patriarchal interpretations applied to these texts have subverted and portrayed women in a negative rather than a positive light. …

Seeking A Comprehensive Worldview: The Religious Seeker In The Modern World, Michael Gregory

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Anecdotally, the casual observer of anthropological phenomenon may be led to believe that every human is basically the same. Indeed, many may assume that groups of people possess identical beliefs, religions, and expressions that hardly vary across different cultures and generations. Throughout the plethora of different cultures and the countless varieties of religious expression and experience it may seem that all of humanity is merely following the same lifestyles and worldviews as their parents and ancestors with very little change save for the gradual evolution in society. A religious studies scholar, or any scholar of the humanities, however, may notice …

The Problem Of Using Evil Against The Possible Existence Of God, Juan Rafael Torres

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis has two modules, which entail two different approaches about the problem of evil. In module one, which consists of chapters one and two, I consider the difficulties of defining `evil' and the case against the `logical problem of evil' respectively. Module two is a phenomenological and skeptical approach to the problem of evil. Specifically, it is a response to those that do not agree with Plantinga's arguments and it is a critique of the traditional paradigms about God, evil and ethics. For instance, I reject the so called category of "natural evils" and I categorize `evil' as a …

Gays And God Can Commune Together, Timothy Dustin Pepler

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Between Law And Justice: Kant, Derrida, And Religious Violence, Evgeni V. Pavlov

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although a number of approaches to the issue of religious violence are already available for academic consumption, this study attempts to approach the problem of the violent tension between religious principles and secular socio-political realities from a new perspective. We argue that religious violence is best conceptualized as a moment of crisis in the relationship between law and justice, considered as both intimately related (in Kant's analysis of the rightful condition) and peculiarly disjointed (in Derrida's reflections on the possibility of "justice beyond law"). We provide a preliminary account of the necessary conditions for a future theory of religious violence …

The Sedes Sapientiae: Orthodox Sculptural Images Of The Virgin Mary Derived From The Ancient Mother-Goddess Tradition, Carol King

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The Virgin Mary is rarely mentioned in the Bible yet legends about her abound throughout the centuries. Worship of the Virgin is recorded as early as the 3rd century, and soon thereafter visual representations emerged to serve as devotional objects for her patrons. Mary’s popularity among the people left the Church with a fundamental problem: they must either sanction her worship and bring the pagans into their fold; or they must diminish her role in salvation, totally rid Christianity of the female divine, and risk losing converts to older-world traditions. This dilemma was settled at the Council of Ephesus in …

The Concept Of Liberation In The Yoga Sutras Of Patañjali, Anna Rebecca Price

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The fundamental thesis of the analyst is that the ills or humanity are due to ignorance and more particularly to self-ignorance and that the way to self-healing is the way to self-knowledge.

The purpose of this thesis is to show how these Yoga sutras of Patanjali contain the methods for the regenerating and recreating factor in human life; and that these methods can be carried into present-day, practical living.

The Function Of The Priest And Of The Prophet In The Propatation Of Religion, Charles Ernest Davis

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

As one peers across the vistas of the past two types of holy men stand out with striking prominence and significance. The advance of religious thought and life has largely been due to the activities and contributions of these two, the priest and the prophet.

It has been the purpose of this research to seek to discover the particular functions of each of these, to show their correlation in producing religious advance, and to make certain suggestions as to how the values each has to contribute to the program of the modern Christian church may be more adequately realized.