Other Religion Commons^™

A Bridge Between Earth & Sky: How The Natural World Shaped The Civilizations Of Ancient And Early-Modern Persia, Sophia Cabana

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This project seeks to investigate the ways in which nature shaped the culture of ancient Persia through technology, architecture, agriculture, and art. Furthermore, this project investigates how the symbols and mentalities of ancient Persia were carried forward into the early-modern period. Achaemenid Persia and Babylon are studied as societies which influenced one another and combined to create the foundation of Persian culture as it is currently understood, which then combined in later centuries with other Middle Eastern and Central Asian cultural movements to produce the Safavid and Mughal Empires. The Safavids and Mughals imitated and revived Persian culture in order …

Cultivating An Ecospiritual Imagination, Brighid Fitzgibbon

Master of Arts in Humanities | Master's Theses 1936 - 2022

Ecospirituality synthesizes aspects of ecology, spirituality, and feminism, emphasizing reciprocity and relationship. It can be seen as a spiritual expression of environmentalism, offering hope and ways to cope during the Anthropocene. During this era of heightened uncertainty and grief related to ecological collapse, one key capacity, imagination, will serve humanity as it recalibrates and restructures in response to the climate crisis. This textual analysis, creative research, and reflection will explore the process of cultivating anecospiritual imagination, a relational mindset supported by embodied experiences such as rituals and contemplative practices that honor a reciprocal relationship between humans and the …

Living In This World: A Social History Of Buddhist Monks And Nuns In Nineteenth-Century Western China, Gilbert Zhe Chen

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation relies on about 600 legal cases from the Ba County Archive that survive from the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century to investigate the social life of ordinary Buddhist monks and nuns. Although they played a crucial in maintaining the survival and proper functioning of Buddhism at the local level, they have remained significantly understudied. This dissertation adopts a bottom-up approach to investigate ordinary monastics’ involvement in various socioeconomic activities. By shifting the analytical focus from elite monks to their more mundane counterparts, this study illuminates how deeply ordinary monastics were embedded in their communities. The shift also …

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 …

Can Churches Change A Neighborhood? A Census Tract, Multilevel Analysis Of Churches And Neighborhood Change, David E. Kresta

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the role of local churches in neighborhood change, analyzing the relationship between Christian churches and changes in household median incomes from 1990 to 2010 in the census tract in which each church is located. Based on a nationally representative sample of churches from 2006 and 2012, the study uses hierarchical linear modeling and statistical matching techniques to analyze how key church characteristics such as social service involvement, social capital generation, residential patterns of attendees, and demographic composition are related to changes in neighborhoods. Two primary research questions were addressed: 1) How have patterns of church location changed …

The Relationship Between Religious Background Of Those Who Disaffiliate From Religion And Presence Of Anxiety, Timothy B. Sellers

Honors College Theses

Religion plays a significant role in the personality and worldview of a many individuals. It can provide one with personal benefits such as coping mechanisms, a framework for meaning-making, and a source of motivation, while also providing social support through connections with others having the same religious beliefs. The removal of said benefits through disaffiliation from a religious identity may lead to distress or anxiety. While much research has been done sociologically regarding the increasing number of people who do not affiliate with a religious group, much less has been done to analyze the individual experience of religious disaffiliation and …

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] …

Conjurer La Révolution : Sorciers, Païens Et Justice Sociale Dans La France Contemporaine, Alexandra Rivera

Scripps Senior Theses

Witches and pagans have long faced historical persecution from the Catholic church and other patriarchal systems of power. In the eyes of mainstream society, they have been reduced to fragments of ancient history and entertaining media stereotypes. Real practitioners of witchcraft and paganism have remained fairly marginalized and trapped in the shadows, but this is starting to change. Witches and pagans have begun to involve themselves in large-scale political movements, combining spiritual power with direct action. While this phenomenon has a longer track record in the United States, in France it is extremely new. France is a country that has …

The Third Space: The Meeting Of Jew And Christian In The Act Of Remembering, Restoring, And Reconciling - A Case Study Of The Matzevah Foundation, Steven D. Reece

Dissertations

Problem

Due to long-standing religious, racial, and cultural tensions, a complex and challenging relationship exists between Jews and Christians. The resulting breach isolates and separates these two faith groups from each other. Consequently, they struggle to interact and engage in meaningful dialogue, which could repair the breach and lead to forgiveness and reconciliation. Dialogue bridges the gap between Jew and Christian allowing them to meet in the third space—the liminal space of the Jewish cemetery in Poland. Jews and Christians may deal with the evil of the past through what researchers term as "loving acts."

Method

This study was conducted …