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This chapter contains sections titled: Religion and Morality are not Isomorphic or Commensurable The Durkheimian Stream: Obligation, Commitment, and Ritual Performance The Weberian Stream: Practice and Religious Values A Brief Ethnographic Invitation Conclusion Acknowledgments References

The origins of religion and of complex societies represent evolutionary puzzles . The 'moralizing gods' hypothesis offers a solution to both puzzles by proposing that belief in morally concerned supernatural agents culturally evolved to facilitate cooperation among strangers in large-scale societies . Although previous research has suggested an association between the presence of moralizing gods and social complexity , the relationship between the two is disputed , and attempts to establish causality have been hampered by limitations in the availability of detailed global longitudinal data. To overcome these limitations, here we systematically coded records from 414 societies that span the past 10,000 years from 30 regions around the world, using 51 measures of social complexity and 4 measures of supernatural enforcement of morality. Our analyses not only confirm the association between moralizing gods and social complexity, but also reveal that moralizing gods follow-rather than precede-large increases in social complexity. Contrary to previous predictions , powerful moralizing 'big gods' and prosocial supernatural punishment tend to appear only after the emergence of 'megasocieties' with populations of more than around one million people. Moralizing gods are not a prerequisite for the evolution of social complexity, but they may help to sustain and expand complex multi-ethnic empires after they have become established. By contrast, rituals that facilitate the standardization of religious traditions across large populations generally precede the appearance of moralizing gods. This suggests that ritual practices were more important than the particular content of religious belief to the initial rise of social complexity.

Objective and Background We used qualitative methodology to explore forgiveness motivations and processes in an ethnically, economically, and geographically diverse sample of 198 highly religious Christian, Muslim, and Jewish families in the United States (N = 480). Prior research has identified several significant relational implications and outcomes of forgiveness. However, there is a need for additional research on forgiveness processes and motivations among highly religious families. Method Families were interviewed jointly through a semistructured interview protocol. Analysis was conducted using thematic and team‐based coding procedures. Results Core themes included (a) “Why forgive?”: Relational, religious, and spiritual motivations; (b) “What enables state forgiveness?”: Relational, religious, and spiritual processes; and (c) The role and development of trait forgiveness (forgivingness). Conclusion Findings highlight the relational, religious, and spiritual motivations and processes present in forgiveness and the role religious/spiritual beliefs and practices play in those processes. Additionally, findings illustrate participants' value of the virtue of forgivingness and reported religious and relational processes that helped in developing the trait of forgivingness. Implications We offer several questions that can be used as a starting point for practitioners to work within the worldview of religious clients to empower individuals, couples, and families to forgive.

The question of whether a God is needed to justify or ground moral facts is mooted by the fact that true moral facts exist in all possible universes that contain rational agents. This can be demonstrated in three stages. First, it is necessarily the case that true moral facts can only be described as the imperatives that supersede all other imperatives. Second, it is necessarily the case that for any rational agent there will always be true hypothetical imperatives that supersede all other imperatives. And third, if there are true hypothetical imperatives that supersede all other imperatives, they are then, necessarily, the only true moral facts. As this follows for any rational agent in any possible universe, the presence of God is irrelevant to the existence of moral facts. God could be more capable of identifying those true moral facts, but he cannot author or ground them. And though a God could casuistically alter moral imperatives by altering the corresponding physics, he is constrained in what he can make true this way by moral fundamentals that are always necessarily true. God is therefore not necessary for there to be moral facts.

This article clarifies the relationship between moral personhood and moral management in ethical leadership from a Confucian perspective. Drawing from four Confucian classics, this study integrates the leader’s ethical values and activities undertaken to promote virtues in followers. The harmonisation of moral personhood and moral management is facilitated by two cardinal Confucian beliefs: innate human nature and moral self-cultivation. From a Confucian viewpoint, all human beings are endowed with a good nature that enables them to become virtuous persons and leaders. Ethical leaders subdue their selfish desires and extend their natural moral feelings of true goodness, righteousness, propriety and wisdom to others. Moral personhood and moral management are inseparable because to cultivate oneself morally is to help others to become moral persons. By synthesising moral personhood and moral management, a Confucian worldview of ethical leadership contributes to leadership studies in two main ways: safeguarding against the leader’s abuse of power, and advancing organisational change through path-shaping.

Straipsnyje jėzuito, paleontologo, filosofo ir teologo bei mistiko Pierre Teilhardo de Chardino (1881 – 1955) filosofinės bei teologinės pažiūros analizuojamos atvirosios katalikybės kontekste. Tai vienas iš dviejų katalikybės tipų greta pažodine dogmos “extra ecclesiam nulla sallus” intepretacija pagrįstos tradicinės katalikybės. Jos atžvilgiu atviroji katalikybė charakterizuotina pretenzijos laikyti katalikybę vienintele išganymą teikiančia religija, išreiškiamos išoriniais tikėjimo ženklais, atsisakymu, katalikiškąjį ekskliuzyvumą įžvelgiant katalikybės dvasinėje galioje. Teilhardo gyvenimas ir idėjos šiame straipsnyje analizuojami kaip vienas radikaliausių ir dėl to iliustratyviausių atvirosios katalikybės atvejų XX amžiuje. Didelis dėmesys skiriamas Teilhardo evoliucinės krikščionybės koncepcijos susiformavimo biografinėms prielaidoms – pasaulėžiūrinių antinomijų (traukos dvasiai ir materijai, tikėjimui ir mokslui) – dvasinės ir intelektualinės motyvacijos bei pastangų pasiekti savo pasaulėžiūrinį vientisumą, atskleidimui. Išryškinami teilhardiško pasaulėvaizdžio sinergetiniai aspektai, t. y. pasaulio kaip save organizuojančios sistemos su centru (tašku Omega, tapatinamu su Kristumi), keičiančiu sistemą ir kintančiu sistemos augimo išdavoje, bruožai.

This study focuses on Xizi-belief (惜字信仰) and provides a comparative analysis of the religious philosophies of Tianming (天命) and Tianli (天理), using the Hunan region as a case study. Through anthropological methods and fieldwork, this study explores how Classical Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism shape and guide word-cherishing behaviors based on the conceptual philosophies of Tianming and Tianli. The Tianming conception views characters as revelations of heavenly destiny. Through religious rituals, people cherish words to honor heaven and seek to change their destinies through heavenly forces, reflecting worldly desires and spiritual pursuits and emphasizing heaven with personhood. In contrast, the Tianli conception sees words as carriers of moral and natural laws. Guided by Confucian ethics and the concept of karma and retribution, it influences people’s moral norms and behavioral practices, reflecting the metaphysical moral law of a just and righteous heaven. Both conceptions not only involve the worship and protection of words but also profoundly embody a deep understanding and pursuit of the order of the universe, moral norms, the ethics of life, and the meaning of life. This study reveals three modes of influence: the religious philosophy integration model, the ritual practice model, and the architectural embodiment model. These models emphasize the positive impact of Xizi-belief on ethics and social life, prompting people to demonstrate positive guidance in human behavior through reverence for Tianming (mandate of heaven), adherence to Tianli (principle of heaven), and respect for nature. Under the guidance of classical religious ethical principles, the spread of Xizi-belief and the practice of Xizi religious ceremonies promote the harmonious development of individual virtues and social order, achieving harmony between humans and the universe.

Abstract The article examines the international thought of the British economist Barbara Ward (1914–1981) through her spatial imagination. It argues that Ward used categories such as East, West, North and South to discuss existing cleavages in world political and economic affairs. Through an examination of her political thought from the late 1930s to the late 1960s, the article shows how these spatial imaginaries were influenced by imperial and civilizational hierarchies. Moreover, the article argues that these divisions were, for her, a rhetorical tool to advance her vision of world unity, discussed through the notions of “spaceship earth” and “planetary community”. In her writings on economic growth and equality, Ward emphasized the importance of spirituality and ideas and identified the spiritual foundation of the proposed new planetary order with Christianity, a religious creed which supposedly provided a unifying universal morality. Ward’s work demonstrates both the promises and profound contradictions of planetary visions rooted in Western-centric moral frameworks. Her legacy invites critical reflection on how efforts to imagine planetary community can unwittingly reproduce the very inequalities they aim to overcome.

In a society that is increasingly secularizing, understanding why and how individuals’ worldviews change is important; yet those processes remain only partially understood. Developing deeper insights into worldview dymics has the potential to improve both our understanding of secularization and the support offered to people experiencing the challenges associated with deconversion. This study used Reflexive Thematic Alysis to explore data from 20 semi-structured interviews with ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses in the UK, investigating why participants left the organization and how their worldviews changed during their deconversion. We found participants left due to the cumulative effects of intellectual doubts, social experiences, and identity conflicts. The deconversion process was usually slow, difficult, and painful; it was also complex, idiosyncratic, and embedded in the participants’ social and cultural contexts. To help understand these processes of worldview change, a systemic stage model was developed by drawing on the wider academic literature. This model suggests that individuals experiencing crises sometimes perform existential exploration that can lead to various forms of resolution (including deconversion, when conflicts cannot be adequately reconciled within one’s existing religious group) that often have long-term consequences for both them and others. These findings suggest that individuals struggling with various forms of spiritual crisis should be supported sensitively as they explore the existential beliefs available to them and their potential consequences. Researchers studying secularization, deconversion, and other types of spiritual transformation should also be sensitive to both the complexity and heavily contextualized ture of these processes for the individuals experiencing them.

One of the harder lessons offered by history is that only the first half of the revolution seems worth carrying out. This study examines how, contra Christianity, which spells out the fate of revolution in its entirety, Gnosticism stands as a symbol for revolution arrested and immortalized in its most radical phase. It shows that Gnosticism is a revolution that structurally renounces the prospect of phenomenal victory in exchange for the eternal preservation and constant renewal of its revolutionary energy. I do so by examining how, rejecting worldly victory, the critical spirit of Gnosticism seeks its minimal and sole embodiment in the individual (the individuated, the indivisible, the residue). I argue that, by building the court of radical inwardness as its theater for enacting what I call the “politics of world loss,” Gnosticism invents the noumenal as that impossible space for enacting the quintessentially phenomenal, i.e., the political.