The paper focuses on the topic of conceptualizing religion in Czech society today from the perspective of the Study of Religions. The paper further develops and assesses in theoretical terms the findings of descriptive content analysis published by Veronika Hásová and Jan Váně (2014), who identified and quantified the frequency of variables of religiosity applied by researchers in the Czech Republic. The characteristics applied most frequently are categorized as functional characteristics (religious affiliation, church attendance) and substantive characteristics (belief in diverse religious phenomena) of religiosity. Results and conclusions of the analysis of religiosity in the Czech Republic depend heavily on how the functional and substantive characteristics of religiosity are conceived and formulated. The functional characteristic of religious affiliation conceived in terms of church membership results in a low measure of religiosity and supports the conclusion concerning the purported irrelevance of religions and religious identities in the Czech society today. Other surveys based on different conceptualizations of religious identities reveal the relevance of religion as far as the attitudes and values of respondents are concerned. Topics connected to religions and religious identities continue to be discussed within the public sphere of Czech society, e.g. through the media. As far as the substantive characteristics of belief in religious phenomena are concerned, the specification of the subject of such belief is of vital importance. As surveys of religiosity reveal, respondents relatively often declare their belief in or reliance on phenomena connected with alternative religiosity or spirituality. The ways of conceptualizing religion in Czech society today often ignore the dynamics of religious change in modern societies and do not take into account changes in the perceived content and functions of religious phenomena. Critical examination of the variables of religiosity leads towards a re-examination of conclusions concerning the purported irreligious or secular nature of Czech society today
The article shows the Bohemian lands in the 17th century as mediated by travelogues of English provenance, in particular travel diaries written both for personal use only and to be later published. Attention is mainly focused on the religious situation in Bohemia and Moravia and its transformation in the studied period in the context of the denomination of the English visitors. The paper further briefly describes individual travellers from England, who would come to the European continent for various reasons and would also visit the
Kingdom of Bohemia as part of this trip.
The paper deals with the different ways in which 20th century Hindi writers introduced the theme of religion into their work. A selection of authors has been made in order to highlight some important issues connected with religion. As may be expected, basically two points of view are to be found, depending on the ideological stand of the writer – either politically committed or committed to man. Thus, whilst religion is deemed by one author to be a factor which divides communities, it is considered by another to be an important tool for exploring the human soul.
In the article “Cheminement d’un humaniste” the author presents the results of her research on a small treatise Kitāb al-isrā’ ilā maqām al-asrā (Nigh Journey). She established a critical edition of the text in Arabic on the basis of a comparison of the limited number of manuscripts available in Dār al-Kutub al Masrīyya in Cairo. She then translated “Kitāb al-isrā’” into Polish. Kitāb al-isrā’ is one of the most important early works, written by Ibn Arabi after his great visionary experience in Fez, in 1198. It describes in rhymed prose his mystical ascension, meeting in the spiritual realities of the prophets in the seven heavens and being brought to the fullest realization of his own reality. Ibn Arabi’s ascension is a dream, a vision of a heart. These divine events determine the way forward for his ultimate role as the perfect man (insān kāmil) or the Seal of Muhammadian Sainthood.
In the contemporary world, characterised as it is by globalisation, the idea of nationalism has been losing its appeal. However, recent Islamic movements have evolved somewhat differently, with Islamic moral and religious fervour initially leading to Muslim "internationalism". During the 1970 and 1980s, radical political Islam became integrated to some extent into "globalising" trends, but gradually it has become more pragmatic and "nation-oriented" leading to the creation of national political movements. Muslim "internationalism" has continued to influence terrorist groups that have abandoned any reference to national roots.
The article argues that the role of T. G. Masaryk in Czech as well as Austrian society before 1914 can best be understood as an intellectual expert on religion. It analyzes letters sent to Masaryk by his followers in order to show, that the unusually far-ranging influence he commanded was based on his perception as a sincere champion of a new kind of religion, which transcended simple, anticlerical confrontation. This function of a religious intellectual expert could work precisely only because Masaryk did not specify what kind of religion he sought, but rather appeared as a "religious type", that very different – and conflicting – opinions could relate to.
This article deals with the issue of using concepts and categories in social sciences with particular focus on the concept of "religion". This concept has been critically analyzed by several authors, e.g. by Timothy Fitzgerald, Russell T. McCutcheon and Daniel Dubuisson. The category of religion is seen by its critics as a biased and manipulative socio-cultural construct, originating in the specific social and cultural environment of Western (Euro-American, Christianity-based) societies. However, the critique of the notion of religion as a socio-culturally constructed concept does not necessarily mean that the concept itself should be abandoned or that it is of no practical use for the description and analysis of non-Western social and cultural phenomena. This contention is evidenced with examples from the Japanese context. The notion of religion (shūkyō) cannot easily be proclaimed to be a Western import into Japan; it has older roots in Japanese history. The extent and content of this concept, as well as its place in a wider conceptual network, have certainly been transformed in the process of cultural exchange with different Euro-American environments but this does not imply that this concept is simply a tool of colonial powers, nor does it preclude its analytical usefulness.