Religion and morality.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: McKay R
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4345965 | biostudies-other | 2015 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
Similar Datasets
Project description:Depression is the leading cause of illness and disability in adolescence. Many studies show a correlation between religiosity and mental health, yet the question remains whether the relationship is causal. We exploit within-school variation in adolescents' peers to deal with selection into religiosity. We find robust effects of religiosity on depression that are stronger for the most depressed. These effects are not driven by the school social context; depression spreads among close friends rather than through broader peer groups that affect religiosity. Exploration of mechanisms suggests that religiosity buffers against stressors in ways that school activities and friendships do not.
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Project description:Religion is increasingly significant in UK society, and is highly significant for many patients and primary care practitioners. An important task for the practitioner is to ensure that the place of religion in the patient/practitioner relationship is treated with the same ethical seriousness as every other aspect of that relationship. The article finds the 'four principles of biomedical ethics' to be applicable, and recent GMC guidelines to be consistent with the four principles. The article applies the four principles to the particular case of practitioners wearing religious symbolism.
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Project description:The article published by Prof. Antonio Neviani in 1896 offered us an interesting opportunity to discuss about the teaching of human evolution in schools today. Already at the end of the nineteenth century, Neviani complained about the fact that the teaching of the theory of evolution was not present in schools. Here, we present the thought of Neviani and we invite to reflect on the prohibition, still present in some countries, of the teaching of Darwin's theory. (www.actabiomedica.it).
| S-EPMC7233782 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThere is a heated debate about whether health professionals may refuse to provide treatments to which they object on moral grounds. It is important to understand how physicians think about their ethical rights and obligations when such conflicts emerge in clinical practice.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey of a stratified, random sample of 2000 practicing U.S. physicians from all specialties by mail. The primary criterion variables were physicians' judgments about their ethical rights and obligations when patients request a legal medical procedure to which the physician objects for religious or moral reasons. These procedures included administering terminal sedation in dying patients, providing abortion for failed contraception, and prescribing birth control to adolescents without parental approval.ResultsA total of 1144 of 1820 physicians (63%) responded to our survey. On the basis of our results, we estimate that most physicians believe that it is ethically permissible for doctors to explain their moral objections to patients (63%). Most also believe that physicians are obligated to present all options (86%) and to refer the patient to another clinician who does not object to the requested procedure (71%). Physicians who were male, those who were religious, and those who had personal objections to morally controversial clinical practices were less likely to report that doctors must disclose information about or refer patients for medical procedures to which the physician objected on moral grounds (multivariate odds ratios, 0.3 to 0.5).ConclusionsMany physicians do not consider themselves obligated to disclose information about or refer patients for legal but morally controversial medical procedures. Patients who want information about and access to such procedures may need to inquire proactively to determine whether their physicians would accommodate such requests.
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Project description:Abstract Frontline officials (such as mayors and commissioners) are responsible for local-level responses to the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States. Their actions and attitudes, either in support of or opposition to public health recommendations, have resulted in widespread variation in local-level pandemic response. Despite evidence that religion significantly impacts the general public’s response to the pandemic, the influence of religion on officials’ behaviors and attitudes is unknown. Using a unique, two-wave, representative survey of frontline officials, we examine how religion influenced officials’ reported personal health behaviors (mask wearing, social distancing) and attitudes toward institutional reopenings. Results show high levels of compliance with public health recommendations, but religious nationalism negatively influences all outcomes. Other religious factors, like affiliation and attendance, vary in their influence and even work differently among officials compared to the general public. Frontline officials are key for understanding how religion influences the pandemic and state action more generally.
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Project description:Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high gods to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity: animism, belief in an afterlife, shamanism, ancestor worship, high gods, and worship of ancestors or high gods who are active in human affairs. We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high gods who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait "high gods" stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion.
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Project description:The sacred texts of five world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism) use similar belief systems to set limits on sexual behavior. We propose that this similarity is a shared cultural solution to a biological problem: namely male uncertainty over the paternity of offspring. Furthermore, we propose the hypothesis that religious practices that more strongly regulate female sexuality should be more successful at promoting paternity certainty. Using genetic data on 1,706 father-son pairs, we tested this hypothesis in a traditional African population in which multiple religions (Islam, Christianity, and indigenous) coexist in the same families and villages. We show that the indigenous religion enables males to achieve a significantly (P = 0.019) lower probability of cuckoldry (1.3% versus 2.9%) by enforcing the honest signaling of menstruation, but that all three religions share tenets aimed at the avoidance of extrapair copulation. Our findings provide evidence for high paternity certainty in a traditional African population, and they shed light on the reproductive agendas that underlie religious patriarchy.
| S-EPMC3382471 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionSuicide is a major public health concern and a leading cause of death around the world. How religion influences the risk of completed suicide in different settings across the world requires clarification in order to best inform suicide prevention strategies.MethodsA meta-analysis using search results from Pubmed and Web of Science databases was conducted following PRISMA protocol and using the keywords "religion" or "religious" or "religiosity" or "spiritual" or "spirituality" plus "suicide" or "suicidality" or "suicide attempt". Random and fixed effects models were used to generate pooled ORs and I2 values. Sub-analyses were conducted among the following categories: young age (<45 yo), older age (?45 yo), western culture, eastern culture, and religious homogeneity.ResultsNine studies that altogether evaluated 2339 suicide cases and 5252 comparison participants met all selection criteria and were included in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis suggested an overall protective effect of religiosity from completed suicide with a pooled OR of 0.38 (95% CI: 0.21-0.71) and I2 of 91%. Sub-analyses similarly revealed significant protective effects for studies performed in western cultures (OR = 0.29, 95% CI: 0.18-0.46), areas with religious homogeneity (OR = 0.18, 95% CI: 0.13-0.26), and among older populations (OR = 0.42, 95% CI: 0.21-0.84). High heterogeneity of our meta-analysis was attributed to three studies in which the methods varied from the other six.ConclusionReligion plays a protective role against suicide in a majority of settings where suicide research is conducted. However, this effect varies based on the cultural and religious context. Therefore, public health professionals need to strongly consider the current social and religious atmosphere of a given population when designing suicide prevention strategies.
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Project description:Northern Ireland has been and continues to be deeply divided on the basis of religion. This paper examines and compares contemporary fertility in the two communities given the sharp declines that have occurred in recent decades. The data are drawn from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study and cover 108,000 women aged 16-44 in the period 1997-2007. A logit analysis of births in the period is undertaken based on individual demographic data and also the characteristics of the locality in which the woman is resident. The effect of religion is measured by its individual marginal effect averaged over the total sample, over time and by the age of the woman. The estimated average marginal effect is 4 % of the probability of a woman having a birth over the entire period. The effect peaks when the woman is between 29 and 30 years and is stable over time. When the fertility behaviour of each religious group is compared separately with those women that came from the same background but had lost their religion, it is found to differ substantially. Thus, community background is rejected as a possible explanation of the difference in fertility between declared Catholics and Protestants. Although the fertility rates of former Catholics and Protestants appear to be converging, the size of these groups is relatively small. There is no evidence to suggest that the small but distinct difference in the fertility rates of the two religious communities is likely to change in the immediate future.
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Project description:Although religion is reported to be protective against suicide, the empirical evidence is inconsistent. Research is complicated by the fact that there are many dimensions to religion (affiliation, participation, doctrine) and suicide (ideation, attempt, completion). We systematically reviewed the literature on religion and suicide over the last 10 years (89 articles) with a goal of identifying what specific dimensions of religion are associated with specific aspects of suicide. We found that religious affiliation does not necessarily protect against suicidal ideation, but does protect against suicide attempts. Whether religious affiliation protects against suicide attempts may depend on the culture-specific implications of affiliating with a particular religion, since minority religious groups can feel socially isolated. After adjusting for social support measures, religious service attendance is not especially protective against suicidal ideation, but does protect against suicide attempts, and possibly protects against suicide. Future qualitative studies might further clarify these associations.
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