Hasil untuk "Practical religion. The Christian life"

Sara Seager, William Bains, Iaroslav Iakubivskyi et al.

Liquid is a fundamental requirement for life as we understand it, but whether that liquid has to be water is not known. We propose the hypothesis that ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DES) constitute a class of non-aqueous planetary liquids capable of persisting on a wide range of bodies where stable liquid water cannot exist. This hypothesis is motivated by key physical properties of ILs and DES. Many exhibit vapor pressures orders of magnitude lower than that of water and remain liquid across exceptionally wide temperature ranges, from cryogenic to well above terrestrial temperatures. These properties permit stable liquids to exist where liquid water would rapidly evaporate or freeze and outside of bulk phases as persistent microscale reservoirs-such as thin films and pore-filling droplets. In other words, ILs and DES can persist in environments without requiring oceans, thick atmospheres, or narrowly regulated climate conditions. We further hypothesize that ILs and DES could act as solvents for non-Earth-like life. Our hypothesis ex-tends to the idea that ILs and DES could enable prebiotic chemistry by providing long-lived, protective liquid environments for complex organic molecules on bodies such as comets and asteroids, where liquid water is absent. Based on the occurrence of DES-like mixtures as protective intracellular liquids in desiccation-tolerant plants, we propose that ILs and DES might be solvents that life elsewhere purposefully evolves. We review protein and other biomolecule studies in ILs and DES and outline planetary environments in which ILs and DES might occur by discussing available anions and cations. We present strategies to advance the IL/DES solvent hypothesis using laboratory studies, computational chemistry, planetary missions, analysis of existing spectroscopic datasets, and modeling of liquid microniches and chemical survival on small bodies.

Roy Bartle

The Belhar Confession is a modern confession that addresses issues of race, culture and socioeconomics. It originated from the Dutch Reformed Mission Church’s rejection of apartheid theology and has been adopted by other Reformed denominations, in and beyond Africa, alongside the historical Reformed confessions of the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards. This article examines whether the Belhar Confession can be subscribed without conflict alongside these historical Reformed confessions. Three common positions taken on confessional subscription are outlined: non-, quia and quatenus subscription. Then, the propositional compatibility of Belhar with the historical confessions is analysed, and potential conflicts in ecclesiology, as well as the doctrines of reconciliation and poverty, are identified. These potential conflicts are realised with quia subscription but are avoidable with quatenus subscription. Opsomming Die Belydenis van Belhar is ’n moderne belydenisskrif wat kwessies rakende ras, kultuur en sosio-ekonomiese geregtigheid aanroer. Hierdie belydenis het ontstaan uit die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Sendingkerk se verwerping van die apartheidsteologie en is deur verskeie gereformeerde denominasies, binne en buite Afrika, aanvaar, naas die histories gereformeerde belydenisskrifte van die Drie Formuliere van Eenheid en die Westminster Standaarde. Hierdie studie ondersoek of die Belydenis van Belhar sonder konflik saam met die histories gereformeerde belydenisskrifte onderskryf kan word. Drie algemene benaderings tot konfessionele onderskrywing word onderskei: nie-onderskrywing, quia onderskrywing en quatenus onderskrywing. Vervolgens word die proposisionele versoenbaarheid van die Belydenis van Belhar met die historiese belydenisskrifte ontleed, en potensiële konflikpunte rakende ekklesiologie, betreffende die leerstellings oor versoening sowel as armoede, word geïdentifiseer. Hierdie konflikte kom na vore by quia onderskrywing, maar kan vermy word by quatenus onderskrywing.   https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.90.1.2614

Beáta Balogová, Natália Vranková, Elżbieta Osewska et al.

The frequently occurring phenomenon of social jetlag is a current problem that stimulates the development of diseases. The starting point for determining social jetlag is time regulation. It is determined by three factors: social time; which determines the interactions and tasks that organize life; physical time regulated by the sun, and biological time; which controls physiology (circadian rhythm). The mismatch between internal time and the social schedule in concert with solar time quanties the social jetlag. At issue is the mismatch between the natural preferences of circadian rhythm and the demands of social life. This results in different times for waking and sleeping. These cause sleep debt, which portends fatigue, insomnia but also longer-term effects on cardiovascular function, obesity and diabetes rates. For social work students, this phenomenon is particularly important in relation to the nature of the work for which they are preparing. Sensitive perceptions of one’s own time preference for work and sleep are part of the self-care toolkit stimulating a reduction in burnout syndrome. The aim of this study is to identify the extent of social jetlag in social work students and to propose effective strategies for its optimization. The quantitative research strategy used predicts effective capture of this phenomenon. Through an original questionnaire distributed to Social Work students in the academic year 2023/2024, the extent of social jetlag was ascertained. The authors’ questionnaire was divided into three sections. These identified the hourly distribution of activities (sleep, wakefulness, and eating) on academic and free days, whereas basic demographic characteristics were collected. Statistical processing was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 28 and Datatab software. The Wilcoxon test was used to compare time metric data within a single group, while dissimilarity was determined in relation to the social schedule (instructional day vs. free day) of the students. Social jetlag was demonstrated in social work students. Through Mann-Whitney U-test, we identified a possible cause of social jetlag in the area of sleep. Extensive analysis of the results identified online strategy tools (Trello, Todoist, Asana, Forest) that can support effective time management and contribute to addressing the issue in social work students.

Nikhil Baid, Hannah Erlebach, Paul Hellegouarch et al.

Foundation models (FMs) have recently opened up new frontiers in the field of artificial life (ALife) by providing powerful tools to automate search through ALife simulations. Previous work aligns ALife simulations with natural language target prompts using vision-language models (VLMs). We build on Automated Search for Artificial Life (ASAL) by introducing ASAL++, a method for open-ended-like search guided by multimodal FMs. We use a second FM to propose new evolutionary targets based on a simulation's visual history. This induces an evolutionary trajectory with increasingly complex targets. We explore two strategies: (1) evolving a simulation to match a single new prompt at each iteration (Evolved Supervised Targets: EST) and (2) evolving a simulation to match the entire sequence of generated prompts (Evolved Temporal Targets: ETT). We test our method empirically in the Lenia substrate using Gemma-3 to propose evolutionary targets, and show that EST promotes greater visual novelty, while ETT fosters more coherent and interpretable evolutionary sequences. Our results suggest that ASAL++ points towards new directions for FM-driven ALife discovery with open-ended characteristics.

Yann Raison du Cleuziou

Using the situation of French Catholicism as a starting point, this article shows how sociologists of Catholicism have continued to refine the methods and categories used to construct the representation of Catholicism and understand the expectations of Catholics. The most recent surveys are based on an in-depth analysis of how Catholics think about “their church,” and identify what is causing the crisis within it. They are of particular interest in understanding why some practicing Catholics, especially younger ones, have shown little interest in the Synod on Synodality scheduled by Pope Francis. In fact, sociological surveys help us understand how the synodal process, through its procedure and legitimization, encourages the participation of certain sensibilities and discourages others. Sociological analysis also enables us to identify resources for overcoming this resistance, developing listening among Catholics and working towards the authentically ecclesial character of synodality. In conclusion, the article argues that the contribution of the social sciences should be taken into account in the development of consultation techniques and ecclesial governance.

Vishal S. Sivasankar, Roseanna N. Zia

The search for what differentiates inanimate matter from living things began in antiquity as a search for a "fundamental life force" embedded deep within living things - a special material unit owned only by life - later transforming to more circumspect search for unique gains in function that transform nonliving matter to that which can reproduce, adapt, and survive. Aristotelian thinking about the matter/life distinction and Vitalistic philosophy's "vital force" persisted well into the Scientific Revolution, only to be debunked by Pasteur and Brown in the 19th century. Acceptance of the atomic reality and understanding of the uniqueness of life's heredity, evolution, and reproduction led to formation of the Central Dogma. With startling speed, technological development then gave rise to structural biology, systems biology, and synthetic biology - and a search to replicate and synthesize that "gain in function" that transforms matter to life. Yet one still cannot build a living cell de novo from its atomic and molecular constituents, and "that which I cannot create, I do not understand". In the last two decades, new recognition of old ideas - spatial organization and compartmentalization - have renewed focus on Brownian and flow physics. In this Review, we explore how experimental and computational advances in the last decade have embraced the deep coupling between physics and cellular biochemistry to shed light on the matter/life nexus. Whole-cell modeling and synthesis are offering promising new insights that may shed light on this nexus in the cell's watery, crowded milieu.

His Eminence Blase Cardinal Cupich

This article presents the opening keynote address offered by His Eminence Blase Cardinal Cupich at the second convening of "_Laudato Si'_ and the U.S. Catholic Church: A Conference Series on Our Common Home” co-sponsored by Catholic Climate Covenant and Creighton University. Cardinal Cupich observes that following _Laudato Si'_, the U.S. Catholic Church has been largely unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to care for our common home. This is especially rooted in a distorted concept of freedom that idolizes self-interested economic growth and the “myth of progress,” and which requires three conversions: political and economic, educational, and spiritual.

Sara Seager, Janusz J. Petkowski, Christopher E. Carr et al.

For over half a century, scientists have contemplated the potential existence of life within the clouds of Venus. Unknown chemistry leaves open the possibility that certain regions of the Venusian atmosphere are habitable. In situ atmospheric measurements with a suite of modern instruments can determine whether the cloud decks possess the characteristics needed to support life as we know it. The key habitability factors are cloud particle droplet acidity and cloud-layer water content. We envision an instrument suite to measure not only the acidity and water content of the droplets (and their variability) but additionally to confirm the presence of metals and other non-volatile elements required for life's metabolism, verify the existence of organic material, and search for biosignature gases as signs of life. We present an astrobiology-focused mission, science goals, and instruments that can be used on both a large atmospheric probe with a parachute lasting about one hour in the cloud layers (40 to 60 km) or a fixed-altitude balloon operating at about 52 km above the surface. The latter relies on four deployable mini probes to measure habitability conditions in the lower cloud region. The mission doubles as a preparation for sample return by determining whether a subset of cloud particles is non-liquid as well as characterizing the heterogeneity of the cloud particles, thereby informing sample collection and storage methods for a return journey to Earth.

Weston P. Buchanan, Maxim de Jong, Rachana Agrawal et al.

Mounting evidence of chemical disequilibria in the Venusian atmosphere has heightened interest in the search for life within the planet's cloud decks. Balloon systems are currently considered to be the superior class of aerial platform for extended atmospheric sampling within the clouds, providing the highest ratio of science return to risk. Balloon-based aerial platform designs depend heavily on payload mass and target altitudes. We present options for constant- and variable-altitude balloon systems designed to carry out science operations inside the Venusian cloud decks. The Venus Life Finder (VLF) mission study proposes a series of missions that require extended in situ analysis of Venus cloud material. We provide an overview of a representative mission architecture, as well as gondola designs to accommodate a VLF instrument suite. Current architecture asserts a launch date of 30 July 2026, which would place an orbiter and entry vehicle at Venus as early as November 29 of that same year.

Christian A. Smith, A. Adamczyk

Church leaders, youth ministers, and volunteers are likely curious about the extent to which parents find congregations useful in transmitting religious beliefs and behaviors. This chapter explores how parents use religious congregations to transmit religious belief. The chapter discusses why parents tend to feel that they, rather than their congregations, are primarily responsible for passing on religious faith. Many parents select their congregations for fairly practical reasons, they have a lot of confidence in their own understanding of religion, and they want to be involved in all aspects of their child’s life, including religious development. This chapter also unpacks what parents see as the most valuable contributions that congregations provide for their children. These include the congregation’s role in providing religious education, making religion fun for their children, and transmitting cultural traditions.

Lynell Zogbo

While the Hebrew word ָא ֵמן and its transliterated borrowing into Greek ἀμήν in the New Testament epistles generally signal agreement at the end of a prayer, doxology, or blessing, the “Amen (Amen), I say to you” formula in the gospels (with the repeated “amen” only in John) occurs clause-initially and serves to introduce certain direct quotes of our Savior. In the first part of this paper, we seek to confirm Clark’s 2004 and 2007 observations on the discourse and pragmatic functions of the “amen” formula signaling the beginning, end, and high points of a literary unit. We go on to complement these findings by noting that in the Gospel of John, the formula can also announce a coming theme, mark a climax, conclude a larger discourse unit, and occur in clusters, moving from neutral to more conflictual contexts. In the second part of the paper, we consider translations in a number of versions in English and a set of African languages, examining translation strategies which include more literal and more dynamic renderings. We ask if it is better to translate or transliterate the “amen” formula, render it consistently or not, and preserve the repetition of the formula in John’s Gospel. In at least some languages, insistence on the truth of a statement may indeed raise doubts as to its credibility. This study underlines the unending tension in translation between form and meaning, but also brings to light how John’s quotation of this Hebrew and/or Aramaic expression within a Greek text lends authenticity to this gospel. Finally, our observations lead us to ask: Is it time for translators to imitate the gospel writers’ attempts at preserving the flavor of Jesus’s speech in the gospels by opting for transliteration rather than translation?

İhsan Timür

Ebû Hanîfe’nin itikadî fikirleri Hanefîliğin temsil edildiği her muhitte aynı düzeyde ve canlılıkta temsil edilmemiştir. Irak, her ne kadar temelde Ebû Hanîfe’nin fıkhî görüşlerinin şekillenip sistemleştirildiği bölge olsa da onun itikadî görüşleri büyük ölçüde Mâverâünnehir bölgesinde geliştirilmiştir. Bununla birlikte Ebû Hanîfe’nin farklı bölgelerdeki takipçileri ona yaslanarak Hanefîliğin kendine has ayırıcı görüşlerine benimseyip savunmuşlardır. Ancak bir kısım bölgelerde bu görüşler temel itikadî kabullerle sınırlı kalırken bazı bölgelerde buna yaslanarak bir sistemleştirme ve geliştirmeye gidilmiş böylece kapsamlı bir kelamî yapı oluşturulmuştur. Mâverâünnehir bölgesindeki takipçileri, Ebû Hanîfe’nin görüşleri etrafında geleneksel bir kelamî yapı kuran Hanefîlerin başında gelmektedir. Süreç içerisinde Mâtürîdîlik olarak anılan bu kelamî yapı, uzun sure sadece doğduğu muhitle sınırlı kalmış, 5/11. yy’dan itibaren ise batıya doğru yayılmıştır. Mâtürîdî Hanefîlerin çevreden merkeze taşınması olarak nitelenebilecek bu yayılım süreci, Hanefîlik tarihi açısından önemli bir kısım sonuçları olmuştur. Zengin bir edebiyata sahip olan Mâtürîdî Hanefîler batıya geldiklerinde yeni muhitlerinde bu kelamî geleneğin dışında kalan ve mezhebin itikadî çerçevesini temel kabullerden ibaret gören küçük ve dağınık Hanefî kitlelerle karşılaşmışlardır. İtikadî açıdan görünürdeki bu farklılık iki Hanefî kesimin etkileşime gireceği yeni bir zemin oluşturmuştur. Sahip oldukları kelamî birikimin de gücüyle Mâtürîdî Hanefîler, yürüttükleri tedris faaliyetlerinin yanı sıra kaleme aldıkları metinler vasıtasıyla Irak ve Şam gibi göç muhitindeki Hanefîleri kendi kelamî geleneklerine dahil etmeye çabalamışlardır. Bölgeye göç etmiş doğulu bir Mâtürîdî Hanefî olan Ahmed b. Muhammed el-Gaznevî (ö. 593/1197’den sonra) de bu çabanın içerisinde yer almış isimlerden biri olarak dikkat çekmektedir. Onun Usûlü’d-dîn ve el-Hâvi’l-kudsî eserleri, bu çabanın açık şekilde metinlere yansıdığı ilk örneklerdir. Gaznevî her iki eserinde, Mâtürîdî kelama direnç gösteren Hanefîler tarafından öne çıkarılan el-Akīdetü’t-Tahâviyye metnini esas alarak Mâtürîdî görüşleri sunmaktadır. O, bu eserlerinde büyük ölçüde el-Akīde’nin ibarelerini ya aynen ya da bir kısım takdim ve tehirlerde bulunarak kullanmakta ve aralarına başta tekvîn sıfatının ezeliliği olmak üzere Mâtürîdîlere özgü görüşleri eklemektedir. Bununla Gaznevî, bir yandan Mâtürîdî olmayan Hanefîlerin bir direnç unsuru olarak kullandıkları el-Akīde metninin Mâtürîdî görüşlerle uyumluluğunu göstererek oluşan direnci kırarken öte yandan metne eklediği ifadelerle söz konusu kesimlere Mâtürîdî görüşleri taşımaktadır. Bu çalışmada temelde bir el-Akīdetü’t-Tahâviyye ve Mâtürîdîlik sentezi olarak nitelenebilecek Gaznevî’nin bu faaliyeti, sözü edilen eserler üzerinden ayrıntılı şekilde ortaya konulmaya çalışılacaktır. Onun söz konusu eserlerinde el-Akīdetü’t-Tahâviyye metnini nasıl kullandığı, ibareleri nasıl ve ne şekilde metnine aldığı ve bunlara Mâtürîdî görüşleri nasıl ekleyerek muhataplarına aktardığı gösterilmeye çalışılacaktır.

Jorge C. Lucero

This paper presents a simple mathematical model for the growth of the Christian population in the Roman Empire during the first to fourth centuries. The model has a subexponential growth rate of order $e^{o(t)}$, where $o$ denotes the "little-o" asymptotic bound, but still superpolynomial, and it fits available Christian population estimates with good accuracy.

L. Woodhead

The scientific study of religion tends to focus on the social aspects of religion at the expense of what, for many its followers, it is really about—God, the gods, and spiritual entities. This chapter puts the latter in the spotlight and traces the changing “theosphere” of alternative spirituality in Britain and America from the 1890s to 2020. It takes the reader on a tour of three sites and phases in the development of modern western spirituality: Chicago in 1893, Kendal in 2000–2002, and Glastonbury in the 2010s. The chapter traces a development from Christian theism through formless mysticism to revivalist polytheism. It attends to the way in which the Christian God gradually diminishes as a point of reference, the theosphere becomes increasingly repopulated, and a practical re-enchantment of life takes place.

Yves Gingras, Kristoff Talin

This research presents the results of a comparative analysis of the links between religious practices and beliefs and levels of scientific knowledge. Based on secondary analyses of survey data in the European Union (Eurobarometers 2005 and 2010) and the United States (Pew Research Center 2018), we show that, regardless of the country, correlations suggest that the more individuals identify with a religion and the more intensely they practice that religion, the less scientifically literate they are, as measured in standard tests. Moreover, scientific representations are also related to individual religious outlook. The more individuals adhere to a religion, the less they have positive attitudes towards science. The conclusion suggests possible interpretations of theses correlations.

Nicolas Chenavier, Christian Hirsch

Persistent homology captures the appearances and disappearances of topological features such as loops and holes when growing disks centered at a Poisson point process. We study extreme values for the life times of features dying in bounded components and with birth resp. death time bounded away from the threshold for continuum percolation. First, we describe the scaling of the minimal life times for general feature dimensions, and of the maximal life times for holes in the Čech complex. Then, we proceed to a more refined analysis and establish Poisson approximation for large life times of holes and for small life times of loops. Finally, we also study the scaling of minimal life times in the Vietoris-Rips setting and point to a surprising difference to the Čech complex.

Pranav Agarwal, Alejandro Betancourt, Vana Panagiotou et al.

Image captioning models have been able to generate grammatically correct and human understandable sentences. However most of the captions convey limited information as the model used is trained on datasets that do not caption all possible objects existing in everyday life. Due to this lack of prior information most of the captions are biased to only a few objects present in the scene, hence limiting their usage in daily life. In this paper, we attempt to show the biased nature of the currently existing image captioning models and present a new image captioning dataset, Egoshots, consisting of 978 real life images with no captions. We further exploit the state of the art pre-trained image captioning and object recognition networks to annotate our images and show the limitations of existing works. Furthermore, in order to evaluate the quality of the generated captions, we propose a new image captioning metric, object based Semantic Fidelity (SF). Existing image captioning metrics can evaluate a caption only in the presence of their corresponding annotations; however, SF allows evaluating captions generated for images without annotations, making it highly useful for real life generated captions.

Carsten Sønderskov Jørgensen, Christoffer Karoff, V. Senthamizh Pavai et al.

Between 1761 and 1776, Christian Horrebow made regular observations of sunspots from Rundetaarn in Copenhagen. Based on these observations he writes in 1775 that "it appears that after the course of a certain number of years, the appearance of the Sun repeats itself with respect to the number and size of the spots". Thus, Horrebow hypothesized the idea of a cyclic Sun several decades before Heinrich Schwabe discovered the solar cycle and estimated its period. This proves the ability of Horrebow as a sunspot observer. In this article, we present a general overview of the work of Christian Horrebow, including a brief biography and a complete bibliography. We also present a translation from Danish to English of his writings on sunspots in the Dansk Historisk Almanak. These writings include tables of daily sunspot measurements of which we discuss the completeness.

Justice Zeni Zari Panggabean

This article has some purposes; they are: first, a description of the about theoretical study of a theological practice approach; secondly, explained an implication theological practice approach to the Christian religion education foundation; and thirdly, described a religion studies foundation of Christians in theological practice approach. The method used in this article is an analysis-descriptive of literature available related to the problem that discussed. This research concluded that a practical approach theological in education foundation the Christian religion came into existence from the application of the truth in the life of that can be used with confidence as cornerstones biblical, and search for clues definitive from general principles offered by theology.AbstrakTulisan ini memiliki beberapa tujuan, yaitu: pertama, mendeskripsikan kajian teoretis pendekatan praksis teologis; kedua, menjelaskan implikasi praksis-teologis fondasi pendidikan Agama Kristen. Metode yang digunakan adalah analisis deskriptif terhadap kajian pustaka yang berkaitan dengan tema fondasi Pendidikan Agama Kristen. Penelitian ini memiliki kesimpulan bahwa pendekatan praktis teologis dalam fondasi pendidikan agama Kristen terwujud dari penerapan kebenaran ke dalam kehidupan yang bisa digunakan dengan percaya diri sebagai fondasi Alkitabiah, dan mencari petunjuk definitif dari prinsip-prinsip umum yang ditawarkan oleh teologi.

V. S. Airapetian, W. C. Danchi, C. F. Dong et al.

The search of life in the Universe is a fundamental problem of astrobiology and a major priority for NASA. A key area of major progress since the NASA Astrobiology Strategy 2015 (NAS15) has been a shift from the exoplanet discovery phase to a phase of characterization and modeling of the physics and chemistry of exoplanetary atmospheres, and the development of observational strategies for the search for life in the Universe by combining expertise from four NASA science disciplines including heliophysics, astrophysics, planetary science and Earth science. The NASA Nexus for Exoplanetary System Science (NExSS) has provided an efficient environment for such interdisciplinary studies. Solar flares, coronal mass ejections and solar energetic particles produce disturbances in interplanetary space collectively referred to as space weather, which interacts with the Earth upper atmosphere and causes dramatic impact on space and ground-based technological systems. Exoplanets within close in habitable zones around M dwarfs and other active stars are exposed to extreme ionizing radiation fluxes, thus making exoplanetary space weather (ESW) effects a crucial factor of habitability. In this paper, we describe the recent developments and provide recommendations in this interdisciplinary effort with the focus on the impacts of ESW on habitability, and the prospects for future progress in searching for signs of life in the Universe as the outcome of the NExSS workshop held in Nov 29 - Dec 2, 2016, New Orleans, LA. This is one of five Life Beyond the Solar System white papers submitted by NExSS to the National Academy of Sciences in support of the Astrobiology Science Strategy for the Search for Life in the Universe.