Academic literature on the topic 'Religiousness – Public opinion'

AbstractCompared to the European countries, the sociologic research related to religiousness and religious affiliation ranks Romania among the most religious countries, this aspect being proved also by the active positioning of the Church in society, especially in the public space. The verification of the phenomenon may be done also through our research theme, which has a content focused on social work, whose result may be used accordingly. There are publications in the field of social work also containing chapters about the Church as an institution, describing the specific activities with social character (either of philanthropy, or of empirical assistance, or even professionalised social work). Nevertheless, most papers mention the Church only in the description of some historical aspects of social work in Romania. Our topic is new because a research similar to ours has not been conducted in Romania yet, in our opinion, as in all bibliographic sources used in the writing of our paper he have found no research approaching such topics. The entire scientific endeavour starts from the formal systematic and non-systematic collaboration already existing between Churches and DGASPCs, but in order to scientifically validate this hypothesis we chose to conduct also a quantitative analysis of the data collected through a questionnaire with closed questions. The main purpose of our paper is the highlighting of the specificity of the interaction between the Church and the social work practice in Romania, through the existing partnership links between the State and the Church.

In the last decade and a half the process of desecularization has been undoubtedly verified in Serbia. Not only that the changes have been verified in the religious complex in general, but in traditional religious groups in particular as well. The revival of religiousness and people?s attachment to religion and church have been clearly proved in all aspects of religious life: in the areas of religious identification, doctrinaire religious beliefs and ritual religious practices. It should also be noted that in times of extremely turbulent political and social changes in the Balkans, all traditional religious complexes, orthodox, catholic and Muslim, began forming close ties with political and state, public and binding domains, which was absolutely unthinkable of a decade and a half ago. Which leads us to the crucial question: can religion make a contribution to the process of integration coming form the surrounding countries as the imperative of foreign powers on one hand, and as the striving of the majority of population in all the post socialist countries in the Balkans on the other hand, or will it only cause damage and interfere with the process of integration of those societies into the European commonwealth of nations? This article discusses different opinions that view the traditional complexes of religion, language and nation as disruptive factors of modernization of the Balkan countries, as well as completely opposite opinions based on the experiences of traditional Islamic societies in which religion is not a factor that hinders their rapid modernization.

The growing political influence of religious communities and beliefs, the growing presence of religious discourse in public sphere require a rethinking of the role of religion in modern society. A number of mutual accusations in a metaphysical way of thinking leads to the fact that the whole philosophy of the XX century turns out to be a philosophy thinking in a “post” situation. Formation of the “post“ states is entirely explained in the field of social philosophy, which tries to “keep pace with time”, but the intrigue lies in the fact that in the first place these transformations touched the most fundamental and “eternal” field of philosophy – ontology. After Heidegger's thesis on the ontoteological structure of metaphysics, the discourse at the end of metaphysics and post-metaphysical philosophical thinking not only inevitably affect the problem of theology, but connect the problems of updating philosophy and theology in the XX-XXI centuries as well.Along with the decline of metaphysics as a system philosophy that is able to propose a coherent, unified, well-grounded picture of immutable structures of existence, the very possibility of philosophical refutation of the existence of God is exhausted. It defends the possibility of religious experience. The pluralism of the post-metaphysical era eliminates the possibility of any theoretical distinction between metaphorical and non-metaphorical languages. On the other hand, the famous statement by F. Nietzsche about the death of God, which is inscribed in the context of the critique of metaphysics, symbolically means the final decay of the religious way of thinking and the flowering of secularization, which means the rejection of appeals to other levels of being, except in the focus of today and everyday life. The specificity of hermeneutics, which is practiced by Caputo and Vattimo, is directly related to the key moment in the constructs of both thinkers – the concept of weakening thinking. For Vattimo, a weak thought (pensiero debole) refers to the gradual weakening of being, which turned the modern philosophy from its "obsession" with the metaphysics of truth to the local rationality and awareness of the hermeneutic nature of any truth. There are two aspects of weakening opinion. The first process – the weakening of being – from the objective metaphysical structure to the interpretation (“events” in the Heideggerian sense). It is described in the Nietzschean language of nihilism, which means the historical process, within which objectivistic claims of metaphysics, absolute grounds have become false (or reduced to “nothing”), weakened, and replaced by “prospects” or interpretative schemes. The second process is the weakening of God in the world, described in the language of the apostle Paul in terms of subtlety – kenosis, which is a paradigmatic expression of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, birth and death of Jesus. Kenosis is not a one-time event that took place in the life and death of Jesus, but the continuing history or tradition initiated by this event. This process is called “secularization” by Vattimo, which doesn’t mean a rejection of God, but a kind of “transcription” of God in time and history (saeculum). Thus, nihilism and kenosis are parallel processes. Nihilism is the devastation of being in an interpretative structure; kenosis is the ascension to nothing of God as transcendental deity. Kenosis is understood as transcription, translation or transfer of God into the world, a means to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. This idea, the political correlation of which is non-authoritarian democracy, and the epistemological correlate, is a Gadamer's understanding of dialogue.On the positive side Vattimo’s “weak thinking” and the ontology, seek to be hermeneutical and nihilistic in the spirit of the Heideggerian ontology. Vattimo's philosophy seeks to save ontological discourse without making it metaphysical in the traditional sense. To speak more specifically, this philosophy recognizes the world of symbolic forms, the world of action, recognizes different practices, perceiving them as different languages of the mind. Describing postmodernity as a “more enlightened Enlightenment”, where there is no longer a dream about pure objectivity, Caputo emphasizes that the modern rebirth of religion returns its original meaning – faith, not less form of knowledge. Therefore, religious truth is characterized as truth without knowledge, and modern religiousness as “religion without religion”.By reducing the ontological and theological thought there is a convergence of theology and philosophy, which now do not contradict each other, but are found in some new space, which we call post-secular philosophy.

Abstract Background Previous studies have investigated various factors that can determine the attitudes of the citizens considering genetic testing. However, none of them investigated how these attitudes may differ between the Visegrad countries. Methods In this cross-sectional study a questionnaire developed by Dutch researchers was translated and used in Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Poland. In each country 1000 adult citizens were asked on the topics of personal benefits regarding genetic tests, genetic determinism, and finally, the availability and usage of genetic testing. Multivariate robust regression model was created including several possible influencing factors (such as age, sex, education, marital status, religiousness, and having a genetic test within the nuclear family) to identify the possible differences between the four countries. Results The Hungarian citizens had the most positive opinion on the personal benefits of genetic testing followed by the Czech, Slovak and Polish. All differences were significant in this regard. Considering genetic determinism, the Slovak citizens had a significantly firmer belief in this issue compared to the Hungarians. No other significant differences were observed in this domain. On the topic of the availability and use of genetic testing the Hungarian citizens had the most accepting opinion among the four countries, followed by the Czech citizens. In this domain the Polish and Slovak answers did not differ significantly from each other. Conclusions Significant differences were observed even when considering various confounding effects. As the underlying reasons for these discrepancies are unknown, future studies should investigate this enigma among the four countries.

The article deals with topical issues of religious diversity in the framework of the religious situation in modern Russia.
 The article analyzes important indicators of the religious situation. They include public sentiments created by the subjective perception of the country's population of their religiosity and non-religiousness, in the context of the realization of the freedom of conscience right.
 Additional indicators of the religious situation are the following: inter-religious, inter-denominational relations and relations between believers and non-believers; the state and nature of public opinion in relation to religion.
 The criteria for the "complexity" of a religious situation have been determined through delineating of 1) internal and 2) external circumstances that create the conditions for the tension of the religious situation. The first group (1) includes: the degree of satisfaction / dissatisfaction of believers and groups of believers with the implementation, provision and protection of their rights and interests; instability and unsettledness of inter-religious and ethno-religious relations; the presence of contradictions and conflicts within religious associations. The second group (2) includes: the condition of state-religious relations associated with the implementation of legislatively enshrined principles and norms in the sphere of freedom of conscience by state and local authorities; the degree of mutual trust, loyalty, law-abidingness of religious associations; the state of public opinion in relation to religion, its adequate / inadequate expression by the media; the presence of conflicts between believers and non-believers, as well as the nature and intensity of missionary activities of religious organizations.
 The study of the religious situation, its comprehensive and objective analysis, serve as the basis for information support of state-religious relations and as help in the implementation of the principles of the state's religious policy in the practical activities of the authorities and administration.
 Using the example of a number of religious organizations, it will be shown that their persecution, especially of religious minorities, does not strengthen the security of the country, but, on the contrary, creates a number of quite serious risks for the stable functioning of society both “inside” the state and internationally. Considered through the prism of various models of state-religious relations, the religious situation in the country seems to be most favorable (both for the state and for religious organizations of various types) when there is religious freedom and the corresponding state-religious relations.

Abstract Background End-of-life decisions are highly complex socio-normative and ethical phenomena. The goal of this study was to provide an assessment of public opinions in Israel concerning aspects of end-of-life decisions. Methods An online cross sectional study was performed in February 2020. The primary tool including items pertaining to death assistance and truth telling to patients. A sample of 515 participants representative of the adult Israeli population was obtained. Results The majority of participants (71%) supports telling the entire truth to patients even in harsh conditions. Support for truth telling decreases with affiliation to religion, with as little as 40% support among ultra-orthodox. People with vocational education are the least supportive of truth telling. Concerning doctor assisted death, almost half (49%) of the sample were supportive. Opposition is positively associated with religiosity, with 90% of ultra-orthodox and 58% of religious participants opposing doctor-assisted death, compared to only 18% among seculars. Non-Jews were 3.35 times (95%CI: 1.90, 5.91) more likely to oppose doctor assisted death than Jews (p < .0001). An Interrelationship analysis crossing between attitudes revealed that the largest group (39%) was comprised of participants who support both (“autonomists”). Conclusions Israelis are overwhelmingly supportive of truth telling to patients. In contrast, Israeli public opinions on doctor assisted death are divided. For both attitudes, religiousness plays a crucial role as a catalyst for conservatism and opposition to change. Almost a half of the public is also supportive of an autonomist approach that would allow patients to decide on ending their own lives.