فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 56 (تابستان 1389)

In Religious Studies, two broad types of claims or conclusions may be distinguished. In the first type, specific aspects of religion are explored and conclusions are limited to that particular aspect. In the second type, conclusions dealing with ‘religion in general’ are expressed in totalizing statements. The second type of conclusion, claiming to express something about ‘religion in general’ is usually of more farـreaching concern for believers than the first type. This study intends to explore the question of how believers should position themselves with respect to general statements issuing from the academic discipline of Religious Studies via its two main branches – i. e., the socialـscientific and the phenomenological approaches. Beginning with the observation that Religious Studies starts from an aspect of religion, the article scrutinizes the ‘transition from an aspect of religion to religion’ in the discipline. The following effectively summarizes what this study substantiates: No statement about religion in general or religion in particular (i. e. a specific religion) made by Religious Studies is trustworthy for believers.

There has been various perspectives regarding the function of religions in the past history; some say religion has a positive effect on society’s economics and some say it has a negative effect. Today the dominant view in this regard, even among the seculars, is the positive effect of religion on economical parameters such as production, consumption and environment. And some have distinguished between the teachings of different religions. The main question is of the economical function of the religion of Islam. Investigating the different perspectives, I have focused on the function of Islam regarding economics and especially production. My hypothesis is that Islam, due to its comprehensiveness, helps to achieve a pure life and presents schedule in small and large scale in the three fields of beliefs, ethics and laws. Guiding and directing the political attitudes of the Muslims in the various fields of production, distribution and consumption, and presenting a political system which provides human’s fortune in this world and the Hereafter, the mentioned schedule helps to create a developed and comfortable society and at the same time prevents consumerism and wastage.

The theory of the functions of religion in ethics is the opposite of secularism which denies the independence of the domain of religion and the domain of ethics. According to religious ethics, ethic is a part of religion and their relationship is absolute generality and peculiarity. It is for this reason that religion has many functions in ethics and this is the subject of this research.The most important functions of religion in ethics are as follows: religion supports ethics, religion guarantees fulfillment of ethics, it obligates ethical statements and provides its background, provides the main and subsidiary concepts for it, provides ethical concepts for the natural, sentimental, affective and instinctive tendencies, it pays attention to ‘good actor’ along with ‘good action’, explains and determines ethical vices and virtues, methods for ethical education, and the origin of ethical values, determines the goal of ethics, and is a source for understanding and inferring ethical commands.

A historical study of spirituality shows that human has always been associated with worship and it is universally present in human’s nature. Psychologists should pay a special attention to the religious background of Iran’s society when they encounter the psychological problems of the clienteles. Human’s religious attitude is one the cases which are less recognized by psychologists; such that less than one percent of the articles printed in psychology and psychiatry magazines are related to this subject (Larson and his colleagues, 1998). Trying to collect a good number of the above sources in the past years, I will investigate the researches, in Iran and outside Iran, about the relation between religion and spirituality and the health of psych, stress and melancholia, pathological attitudes, body health, educational attitudes, and …. The outcome of these researches show that religion and being obliged to religious beliefs, praying, fasting, participating in religious ceremonies and … have a positive effect on the health of psych. Taking into consideration the good effect of religion on the health of psych and also the amount of psychologist’s control, using these concepts in consultative approaches is discussed in this article, especially in the multi-dimensional and eclectic approach of Lazarus consultation. Finally some suggestions, restrictions and the prospect of applying this method are mentioned.

Islam is a right and realistic school which investigates and describes pain, suffering, problems and hard situations, no matter they are legislative or creative, based on reason and nature; it then gives enough suggestions to remove these sufferings. In the Islamic worldview, the roots of miseries and sufferings are analyzed and traced in legislative and creative structures; and “religious belief” – which is supported by reason, will, love and spirituality - has an important role in removing or reducing human’s miseries. According to the view of Martyred Motahhari, trouble and suffering ends up to perfection in Islamic knowledge and pains and miseries is a whip that helps human’s soul in the path of perfection. He believes blessing and torment are relative. This article investigates the cognitive-spiritual factors, based on the Islamic-theistic worldview and religious beliefs, which help to get released from misery and the also investigates the role of God’s trials in the excellence of His saints.

What is the function of Islam in relieving misery of loneliness and death? The present article investigates some of the factors which relieve miseries and shows the function of religion in treating them. The method of this research is descriptive-analytic by referring to the Holy Quran and the narrations, and the method of collecting information is library research. Islam treats the four kinds of feeling lonely and melancholia by changing human’s look to the world and strengthening his belief of the God’s presence. Reinforcing theism and practicing the social teachings of Islam helps to improve this problem. The roots of fear of death are as follows: the tendency to be eternal and have a permanent joy, being attached to this world, having little supply provided for the Hereafter and having a great number of sins. Having faith and good deeds helps to abolish these roots.

The present essay represent some of the preliminaries and necessities of Faith in view point of Rumi and Kierkegaard. Having a deep study on the works of Rumi and Kierkegaard, we come to realize that the both thinkers arrive at a same point in some principles such as faith and Poraxosym, faith and surrender, faith and will, etc…, and thy both consider these issues as integral requirement for Faith and pity. But What makes the opinions of these two thinkers divers, is their approach toward these subjects on one hand, and the subjects of Faith and wisdom on the other hand. In this regard, Kierkegaard believes that wisdom is neither a necessity for Faith nor its preliminary step, but it is out the subject of Faith. Therefore, not only the Faith and religious subjects are not rational, but also some religious subjects are transcendent (over- rational), and some other, which constitute the majority, are anti-rational. But, Rumi believes on wisdom as preliminary for Faith, and also considers these issues as over-rational and not anti-rational. This study has tried to make a comparative analysis on similarities and common point of these two thinkers believes and thought on faith, with reference to their works.

In last quarter of twentieth century, cultural transfigurations has impressed the milieu of religiosity. The most significant cultural changes in recent decades are: predominance of “narcississtic culture” by emphasis on individually self- realization, as well as subjective return and superficial sentimentalism which manifests itself in consumerism and inclination toward welfare and body. Religiosities and spiritualities, under these circumstances have been reclined qua “Popcornization”, “Commodification” and “Therapeutization”.There are manifold objections to cultural changes, such as extremist sentimentalism versus extremist rationality, self-contradictive structure of emotionalism, alienation, egoism hidden in narcississtic culture, inconsistence between humanistic claims of narcississtic culture and social facts, teleological ambiguity in narcissism, destructive results of individualism, advent of multitude short-sighted humans.Besides, we are able to critique Popcornization, Commodification and Therapeutization on the basis of Kantian philosophy defects and utilitarian philosophy faults. Likewise we can observe a deep reductionist view to human, an abatement in the influence of religion and spirituality, transforming of spiritual deeds into leisure time activities, and so on. All these critics confronts recent changes of religiosity and spirituality with fatal problems.