What does religion mean to the individual? How are people religious and what do their beliefs, practices and identities mean to them? The individual's place within studies of religion has tended to be overlooked recently in favour of macro analyses. Religion and the Individual draws together authors from around the world to explore belief, practice and identity. Using original case studies and other work firmly placed in the empirical, contributors discuss what religious belief means to the individual. They examine how people embody what religion means to them through practice, considering the different meanings that people attach to religion and the social expressions of their personal understandings and the ways in which religion shapes how people see themselves in relation to others. This work is cross-cultural, with contributions from Asia, Europe and North America.

Through a careful analysis of the primary texts, Jacobs conducts a thorough survey of some of the most important instances where the individual is discussed in the Jewish religious tradition.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Religion and the Individual: Belief, Practice, and Identity" that was published in Religions

country India Hindu religion individual castes /S.C/S.T / O.B.C weaker sections immediate - poverty solution, increase huge business, industry, tender, social empowerment, human right very-very big role join individual castes sufficient number lawyer (LL.B/LL.M) and medicine graduate /postgraduate degree( M.B.B.S /MD)/profession

Rise and demise of nations are man-made and can be humanly controlled. These are neither naturally determined nor divinely fated. This book captures the root-process presiding over the problems, challenges, and the opportunities nations of the world face today. America has a three-dimensional problem. Its “process controls” have equated its “purpose controls.” Internally, it has developed “integration energy traps.” Externally, it has created a dangerously “interest-based” world order. America must move to the “next level” of human collectivity; or an Armageddon might hit us all within the next few decades. The Muslims’ “idea of State” is too “invalid”, “antiquated” and perilously “anti-liberty” to allow large political systems to evolve in the Islamic world. It has been incessantly sinking back into anarchy. The “Arab Spring” is continuation of medieval, chaotic and “identity-based” shift of power, devoid of “value” and “political mass”. With the given trends, the world must be ready for more Talibans, Bin Ladens, and Al-Qaedas, possibly equipped with weapons of mass destruction. India and China have big “N-factor”. But at controls level, unsustainability afflicts China and an age-old “identity clamp” is failing India. Both nations will see reversals in near future. China must realize that “economic future” is a component of “political future”; not the other way round. India must understand that democracy divorced from political creativity leads back to tyranny and anarchy. The basis of the entire debate is “Integration Energy Theory” which explains the reality of human togetherness in a timeless and non-spatial manner.

Written in lively prose this second edition introduces students to the major themes, problems and goals of the sociological study of religions.

Uncovers what the sociology of religion would look like had it emerged in a Confucian, Muslim, or Native American culture rather than in a Christian one Sociology has long used Western Christianity as a model for all religious life. As a result, the field has tended to highlight aspects of religion that Christians find important, such as religious beliefs and formal organizations, while paying less attention to other elements. Rather than simply criticizing such limitations, James V. Spickard imagines what the sociology of religion would look like had it arisen in three non-Western societies. What aspects of religion would scholars see more clearly if they had been raised in Confucian China? What could they learn about religion from Ibn Khaldun, the famed 14th century Arab scholar? What would they better understand, had they been born Navajo, whose traditional religion certainly does not revolve around beliefs and organizations? Through these thought experiments, Spickard shows how non-Western ideas understand some aspects of religions—even of Western religions—better than does standard sociology. The volume shows how non-Western frameworks can shed new light on several different dimensions of religious life, including the question of who maintains religious communities, the relationships between religion and ethnicity as sources of social ties, and the role of embodied experience in religious rituals. These approaches reveal central aspects of contemporary religions that the dominant way of doing sociology fails to notice. Each approach also provides investigators with new theoretical resources to guide them deeper into their subjects. The volume makes a compelling case for adopting a global perspective in the social sciences.

In recent years, there have been a number of concerns about the recognition of religious laws and the existence of religious courts and tribunals. There has also been the growing literature on legal pluralism which seeks to understand how more than one legal system can and should exist within one social space. However, whilst a number of important theoretical works concerning legal pluralism in the context of cultural rights have been published, little has been published specifically on religion. Religion and Legal Pluralism explores the extent to which religious laws are already recognised by the state and the extent to which religious legal systems, such as Sharia law, should be accommodated.