探花直播 of Cambridge - Religion

Endless Stories at Cambridge 探花直播 Library

sjr81 — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:05:11 +0000

Centuries-old Asian and African manuscripts go on display for the first time聽

Religious people coped better with Covid-19 pandemic, research suggests

fpjl2 — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 09:21:15 +0000

People of religious faith may have experienced lower levels of unhappiness and stress than secular people during the UK鈥檚 Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, according to a new 探花直播 of Cambridge study released as a working paper.

探花直播findings follow recently published Cambridge-led research suggesting that worsening mental health after experiencing Covid infection 鈥� either personally or in those close to you 鈥� was also somewhat ameliorated by religious belief. This study looked at the US population during early 2021.

探花直播 of Cambridge economists argue that 鈥� taken together 鈥� these studies show that religion may act as a bulwark against increased distress and reduced wellbeing during times of crisis, such as a global public health emergency.

鈥淪election biases make the wellbeing effects of religion difficult to study,鈥� said Prof Shaun Larcom from Cambridge鈥檚 Department of Land Economy, and co-author of the latest study. 鈥淧eople may become religious due to family backgrounds, innate traits, or to cope with new or existing struggles.鈥�

鈥淗owever, the Covid-19 pandemic was an extraordinary event affecting everyone at around the same time, so we could gauge the impact of a negative shock to wellbeing right across society. This provided a unique opportunity to measure whether religion was important for how some people deal with a crisis.鈥�

Larcom and his Cambridge colleagues Prof Sriya Iyer and Dr Po-Wen She analysed survey data collected from 3,884 people in the UK during the first two national lockdowns, and compared it to three waves of data prior to the pandemic.

They found that while lockdowns were associated with a universal uptick in unhappiness, the average increase in feeling miserable was 29% lower for people who described themselves as belonging to a religion.*

探花直播researchers also analysed the data by 鈥渞eligiosity鈥�: the extent of an individual鈥檚 commitment to religious beliefs, and how central it is to their life. Those for whom religion makes 鈥渟ome or a great difference鈥� in their lives experienced around half the increase in unhappiness seen in those for whom religion makes little or no difference.**

鈥� 探花直播study suggests that it is not just being religious, but the intensity of religiosity that is important when coping with a crisis,鈥� said Larcom.

Those self-identifying as religious in the UK are more likely to have certain characteristics, such as being older and female. 探花直播research team 鈥渃ontrolled鈥� for these statistically to try and isolate the effects caused by faith alone, and still found that the probability of religious people having an increase in depression was around 20% lower than non-religious people.

There was little overall difference between Christians, Muslims and Hindus 鈥� followers of the three biggest religions in the UK. However, the team did find that wellbeing among some religious groups appeared to suffer more than others when places of worship were closed during the first lockdown.

鈥� 探花直播denial of weekly communal attendance appears to have been particularly affecting for Catholics and Muslims,鈥� said Larcom.

For the earlier study, authored by Prof Sriya Iyer, along with colleagues Kishen Shastry, Girish Bahal and Anand Shrivastava from Australia and India, researchers used online surveys to investigate Covid-19 infections among respondents or their immediate family and friends, as well as religious beliefs, and mental health.聽

探花直播study was conducted during February and March 2021, and involved 5,178 people right across the United States, with findings published in the journal European Economic Review in November 2023.

Researchers found that almost half those who reported a Covid-19 infection either in themselves or their immediate social network experienced an associated reduction in wellbeing.

Where mental health declined, it was around 60% worse on average for the non-religious compared to people of faith with typical levels of 鈥渞eligiosity鈥�.***

Interestingly, the positive effects of religion were not found in areas with strictest lockdowns, suggesting access to places of worship might be even more important in a US context. 探花直播study also found significant uptake of online religious services, and a 40% lower association between Covid-19 and mental health for those who used them.****

鈥淩eligious beliefs may be used by some as psychological resources that can shore up self-esteem and add coping skills, combined with practices that provide social support,鈥� said Prof Iyer, from Cambridge鈥檚 Faculty of Economics.

鈥� 探花直播pandemic presented an opportunity to glean further evidence of this in both the United Kingdom and the United States, two nations characterised by enormous religious diversity.鈥澛�

Added Larcom: 鈥淭hese studies show a relationship between religion and lower levels of distress during a global crisis. It may be that religious faith builds resilience, and helps people cope with adversity by providing hope, consolation and meaning in tumultuous times.鈥澛犅�

Two Cambridge-led studies suggest that the psychological distress caused by lockdowns (UK) and experience of infection (US) was reduced among those of faith compared to non-religious people.聽聽

Getty/Luis Alvarez

People in church praying with covid-19 restrictions

Notes

* 探花直播increase in the mean measure for unhappiness was 6.1 percent for people who do not identify with a religion during the lockdown, compared to an increase of 4.3 percent for those who do belong to a religion 鈥� a difference of 29%.

**For those that religion makes little or no difference, the increase was 6.3 percent.聽 For those for whom religion makes some or a great difference, the increase was around half that, at 3 percent and 3.5 percent respectively.

*** This was after controlling for various demographic and environmental traits, including age, race, income, and average mental health rates prior to the pandemic.

**** 探花直播interpretation is from Column 1 of Table 5: Determinants of mental health, online access to religion. Where the coefficients of Covid {Not accessed online service} is 2.265 and Covid {Accessed online service} is 1.344. Hence the difference is 2.265-1.344 = 0.921 which is 40% of 2.265.

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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New, handwritten Maimonides texts discovered at Cambridge 探花直播 Library

sjr81 — Thu, 11 May 2023 15:41:27 +0000

900-year-old paper fragment verified as the handwriting of legendary philosopher Maimonides.

Catholic Church can curb carbon emissions by returning to meat-free Fridays

fpjl2 — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 09:58:57 +0000

In 2011, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales called on congregations to return to foregoing meat on Fridays. Only around a quarter of Catholics changed their dietary habits 鈥� yet this still saved over 55,000 tonnes of carbon a year, according to a new study led by the 探花直播 of Cambridge.

Researchers say that, in terms of CO2 emissions, this is equivalent to 82,000 fewer people taking a return trip from London to New York over the course of a year.聽

探花直播current Catholic leader, Pope Francis, has called for 鈥渞adical鈥� responses to climate change. 探花直播researchers argue that if the Pope reinstated meatless Fridays across the global church, it could mitigate millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases annually.

For example, they say that if Catholic bishops in the United States alone issued an 'obligation' to resist meat on the last day of the working week, environmental benefits would likely be twenty times larger than in the UK.

鈥� 探花直播Catholic Church is very well placed to help mitigate climate change, with more than one billion followers around the world,鈥� said lead author Professor Shaun Larcom from Cambridge鈥檚 Department of Land Economy.

鈥淧ope Francis has already highlighted the moral imperative for action on the climate emergency, and the important role of civil society in achieving sustainability through lifestyle change.

鈥淢eat agriculture is one of the major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. If the Pope was to reinstate the obligation for meatless Fridays to all Catholics globally, it could be a major source of low-cost emissions reductions,鈥� Larcom said. 鈥淓ven if only a minority of Catholics choose to comply, as we find in our case study.鈥�

Traditionally, the practice of refraining from meat one day a week saw many Catholics 鈥� and indeed large sections of the population in predominantly Christian countries 鈥� turn to fish on Fridays as a protein substitute.

探花直播overall Catholic share of the British population has remained largely stable for decades at just under 10%, say economists behind the study, published as a working paper awaiting peer-review on the Social Science Research Network.聽聽

Larcom and colleagues combined new survey data with that from diet and social studies to quantify the effects of a statement issued by the Catholic Church for England and Wales re-establishing meat-free Fridays as a collective act of penance from September 2011 onwards after a 26-year hiatus.

Commissioned survey results suggest that 28% of Catholics in England and Wales adjusted their Friday diet following this announcement. Of this segment, 41% stated that they stopped eating meat on Friday, and 55% said they tried to eat less meat on that day. For those who said they just reduced consumption, the researchers assumed a halving of meat intake on a Friday.*聽

People in England and Wales eat an average of 100 grams of meat a day, according to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). Researchers calculated that even the small reduction in meat intake by a section of the Catholic population was equal to each working adult across the whole of England and Wales cutting two grams of meat a week out of their diet.聽聽聽

探花直播team then calculated the carbon footprint for this tiny fall in meat consumption by comparing emissions generated from average daily diets of meat eaters and non-meat eaters in England and Wales. 探花直播average high protein non-meat diet, including foods such as fish and cheese, contributes just a third of the greenhouse gas emissions per kilo compared to the average meat eater.聽

Assuming the Catholics who did adapt their diet switched to high protein non-meat meals on Fridays, this equates to approximately 875,000 fewer meat meals a week, which saves 1,070 tonnes of carbon 鈥� or 55,000 tonnes over a year, according to researchers.

In addition to their central calculation, the researchers used a natural experiment approach across the United Kingdom to compare meat consumption in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where Catholic bishops did not attempt to reintroduce meatless Fridays, with that in England and Wales from 2009 to 2019.聽

Using NDNS diet diary data the team pinpointed mealtime changes on Fridays only, and found meat consumption fell by around eight grams per person in the 'treatment jurisdiction' of England and Wales following the re-establishment of the Catholic obligation, compared to the rest of the UK.

There could be many reasons for this dietary shift 鈥� meat intake has fallen across the country over this time 鈥� but the team argue the reduction at least partly resulted from the return of meatless Fridays. As such, they say that the carbon footprint calculations using a two-gram per week drop are likely to be conservative.

Researchers also tested for 'religious impacts' using longitudinal survey data that questioned UK Catholics on their religious lives. No discernible effect on either church attendance or strength of personal religious belief was detected over the period in which meat-free Fridays were reintroduced.

鈥淥ur results highlight how a change in diet among a group of people, even if they are a minority in society, can have very large consumption and sustainability implications,鈥� said co-author Dr Po-Wen She, a fellow of Cambridge鈥檚 Department of Land Economy.聽聽聽

Co-author Dr Luca Panzone from Newcastle 探花直播 added: 鈥淲hile our study looked at a change in practice among Catholics, many religions have dietary proscriptions that are likely to have large natural resource impacts. Other religious leaders could also drive changes in behaviour to further encourage sustainability and mitigate climate change.鈥澛�

For Christians, the practice of meat-free Fridays dates back to at least Pope Nicholas I鈥檚 declaration in the 9th century. Catholics were required to abstain from eating meat ('flesh, blood, or marrow') on Fridays in memory of Christ鈥檚 death and crucifixion.

However, fish and vegetables, along with crabs, turtles and even frogs, were permitted. 探花直播researchers point out that the practice was observed so fervently among some American Catholics that it led to the invention of the Filet-o-Fish meal by the burger chain McDonald鈥檚.

Even a small dietary change by a minority of UK Catholics had significant environmental benefits, say researchers, who argue that a papal decree reinstating meatless Fridays across the global church would save millions of tonnes of carbon a year.

If the Pope was to reinstate the obligation for meatless Fridays to all Catholics globally, it could be a major source of low-cost emissions reductions

Shaun Larcom

Ashwin Vaswani via Unsplash

Pope Francis in Vatican City

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Reinterpreting Newton and religion

zs332 — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 09:15:44 +0000

Rediscovered notebook adds new depth to our understanding of Isaac Newton's relationship with theology.

Opinion: Why scientists need to work more closely with faith communities on climate change

ta385 — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 11:15:00 +0000

I am used to sceptical looks when I talk to scientists about my work with religious communities. They have reason to see science as under threat from zealots: examples abound, from the treatment of Galileo Galilei to vaccine aversion. But faith communities can feel the same way about scientists. Even if they disagree on important topics, it鈥檚 both possible and essential to collaborate on urgent issues, such as the fact that large parts of Earth are becoming uninhabitable. In my view, this Easter, Passover or Ramadan is the perfect time to start.

I鈥檓 a political scientist who studies how religious groups respond to problems, from environmental crises to domestic violence to racism. Since 2013, I have worked with other researchers, some religious and some not, to explore climate science with communities of faith.

I鈥檝e seen the power of this approach: some 1,200 institutions have committed to divest from fossil-fuel companies, totalling US$14.5 trillion (拢10.5 trillion). One-third are faith-based organizations. Many, such as Operation Noah, are led by scientists. Similarly, the group Extinction Rebellion Muslims has built a transnational network with scientists and activists in Kenya, Gambia, the United Kingdom and beyond; they host 'Green Ramadan'聽seminars. Their efforts stalled plans for a luxury tourist resort that would have destroyed parts of the Nairobi National Park in Kenya. A co-campaigner, Maasai leader Nkamunu Patita, has been appointed to a government task force that will map wildlife-migration routes and be consulted in future development plans.

聽

This is the opening of an opinion piece published in Nature on 30 March 2021. This is open access and can be read in full here.

Dr Tobias M眉ller is a Junior Research Fellow at the Woolf Institute and an Affiliated Lecturer at Cambridge's Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS).

To make sufficient progress in the fight against climate change, scientists need to start聽taking聽religious groups more seriously as allies,聽writes聽Cambridge political scientist, Dr Tobias聽M眉ller,聽in Nature.

I am used to sceptical looks when I talk to scientists about my work with religious communities

Tobias M眉ller

漏 Peter Bowden

Unitarian Universalist and larger faith contingent taking part in the September 2014 People's Climate March in New York, USA

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Scriptures rarely a significant motivating factor behind violence, say researchers

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 15:06:14 +0000

When acts of violence are reported in London, New York, or the Middle East, people often wonder what role religion might have played. Especially if Muslims are involved, there can also be a tendency to point fingers at the Qur鈥檃n. These knee-jerk reactions are not very helpful, the authors of Scripture and Violence suggest, and can lead to increased polarization in society, as well as unwarranted animosity against Muslims and people of other faiths.

Bringing together scholars from the 探花直播 of Cambridge and other institutions around the world, the contributors to Scripture and Violence set out to clarify the relationship between violent-sounding passages from the Bible and the Qur鈥檃n and the actions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the real world. They concluded that there is much less cause for alarm than many people think.

Contrary to popular belief, scriptures are rarely a significant motivating factor when acts of violence occur, the researchers found. One researcher interviewed potential and actual ISIS recruits, and discovered that the Qur鈥檃n had not played a significant role in motivating them to join. A desire to be involved in 鈥渂ad-ass-do-goodery鈥� was much more influential.

Another researcher analysed Muslim debates about suicide attacks, and found that while some Islamic scholars had cited verses from the Qur鈥檃n to argue that suicide attacks are permissible in certain limited contexts, other Islamic scholars had used the Qur鈥檃n to argue that Muslims are prohibited from carrying out such attacks at all. These scholars all treated the Qur鈥檃n as sacred, but they disagreed about what actions were permissible. Political arguments were also much more prominent in the debates than discussion of the Qur鈥檃n, which played only a marginal role.

探花直播authors of Scripture and Violence also argue that there is no need to be afraid of scary-looking scriptural passages.

鈥淪ome people think that the best strategy for preventing violence is to pretend certain scriptural passages don鈥檛 exist,鈥� explains co-editor and New Testament scholar Julia Snyder. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 counterproductive. Instead, find out how people within these religious traditions actually understand these scriptures.

鈥淲hen the Qur鈥檃n or the Bible talks about violence, religious people most often understand that as linked to specific historical contexts. Or they say that very specific conditions would have to be met for violent action to be taken. They don鈥檛 think these passages call for violence now 鈥� even people who view their scriptures as the Word of God.鈥�

Clearing up misunderstandings about these issues will help overcome existing divisions within society, the researchers hope, and enable people of all faiths and none to focus on tackling urgent economic and social issues together.

鈥淎s lockdowns end and societies open up again, and as we seek to rebuild our communities together, it鈥檚 important not to let unwarranted anxiety about people of other backgrounds or religious faiths get in the way,鈥� emphasizes co-editor Daniel H. Weiss from Cambridge鈥檚 Faculty of Divinity. 鈥淭his is a great time to let go of polarizing and inaccurate ideas about how religion and scripture actually work. In fact, within these religious traditions, active grappling with tough passages can generate creative new solutions for dealing with present-day concerns.鈥�

According to the researchers, addressing fears about scripture and violence can enable people to recognize other prominent aspects of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scriptures 鈥� such as concern for the underprivileged and an emphasis on justice 鈥� and use scripture to reflect and debate together about what a good society would look like.聽

Scripture and Violence is available from 1 September 2020. Published by Routledge, the book includes contributions from international experts on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts and traditions, who discuss key issues in interpretation of the Bible and the Qur鈥檃n, and highlight the diverse ways in which Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities understand scriptural texts. A variety of contexts are visited, from British India to Nazi Germany, from the Jerusalem Pride Parade to American evangelicals and the US military, and from CNN to European university classrooms.聽

Many people misunderstand the relationship between religion, scripture and violence, a new book argues. Some people worry that scriptures such as the Qur鈥檃n and the Bible fan the flames of violence in the world today, while others insist that they are inherently peaceful. According to an international team of researchers, the reality may be more complicated than either set of people think.

Some people think that the best strategy for preventing violence is to pretend certain scriptural passages don鈥檛 exist. But that鈥檚 counterproductive. Instead, find out how people within these religious traditions actually understand these scriptures

Julia Snyder

slagheap

World Trade Centre 9/11

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World's oldest Korean Bibles at Cambridge 探花直播 Library

sjr81 — Wed, 22 May 2019 23:25:49 +0000

探花直播library is home to one of the most significant collections of early Korean bibles anywhere in the world.