Journal of Religious Studies
Year:2017 | Volume:10 | Issue:20|Papers Count:8

Atonement has been considered as one of the basic teachings of Paul, which is elaborated mostly in Galatians and Romans. This fundamental teaching gradually took an integrated shape and became an essential part of Anselm and Aquina’s thoughts. In the modern period, changes in theological views and considering Paul as the interpreter and second founder of Christianity has made the contemporary thinkers to reconsider the issue. In fact, after the formation of historical criticism and demythologizing, atonement as a fundamental teaching was reconsidered by Christian thinkers. The present study tries to deal with the views of contemporary theologians with historical critical approach, such as Thomas Micheal, Philip Queen and Micheal Golder. Beside these theologians, the views of some contemporary Muslim thinkers such ascAllāmeh Tabāãabā’Ê and Rashid Reza, who have direct refrence to Christian texts, is also considered.

The name "Elam" recurs in the Bible in various places. It is first mentioned as the name of one of Noa’s descendants, and after that we come across Elam or Elam’s house repeatedly. Beside Elam, which is a personal name, Kedorlaumer is also mentioned in Genesis, Jubilees and Jasher. This Elamite king was a powerful ruler who dominated his opponents and took them under his command. Besides the name Elam, either as a person or as a land or independent political entity, Susa and Elimaite are also mentioned in the Bible and the apocrypha. On the whole, it sees that Elam and the Elamites have played a very important role in the history of the people who wrote different books of the Bible, although there are also prophecies about their destruction and annihilation.

There are Four distinct intellectual waves affected the formation of psychology and psychological study of religion: Psychoanalytic theory (from 1900), Behavioral psychology (appeared about 1920), Humanistic psychology (appeared in 1940s) and transpersonal psychology (appeared about 1960 onwards). From that time onwards, appeared fifth wave can be considered as the elective and synthesis approaches. In this essay the position of religion is discussed from the viewpoint of classical psychologists during the early modern period, especially that of Freud and Jung and the negative belief of behaviorists about religion and also modern psychological theories in late modernity, like William James, Rollo May, Viktor Frankl and Erich Fromm and in the following, humanistic and psychological perspectives of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow will be assessed critically. In this inquiry, it will be concluded that despite Freud and most of former psychologists' perspectives and according to Maslow's theory, human is inherently religious oriented and spiritual life is a part of his life.

The theory of in its prevalent sense refers to the transmission of soul (continuation of soul’s life) from one body to another one (man, animal, plant or inanimate objects) after death. Because of its close relation to the event of death and its later stages, this theory has been the subject of scrutiny by thinkers all around the world. Due to its cognitive claim, this teaching has also been considerd from theological, legal, philosophical and mystical stand points and has been rejected in almost all of them. The mystical world view is an important platform to scrutinize this theory, for it employs the intuition as a means for deeper analysis of this theory. The present paper is going to consider the mystical views of the reknown Iranian mystic, Shaykh MaÈmåd ShabistarÊ (678-740 AH) on this subject.

It seems that the attitude of man towards nature, the physical world and the environment is the root of present environmental crisis. Considering the comprehensive presence of religion in all aspects of past traditional societies lives, it is obvious that to understand the relationship of man and nature, therefore to determine his attitude in each religious tradition, one has to reconsider the teachings which are commonly found in religious texts and shape the spiritual paradims. The present paper tries to look for such teachings considering the importance of the prosperity of land and emphasis on protection and preservation of water, plants and animals in the Gathas of Zaratostra, newAvesta, and other important Zoroastrian texts such as DÊnkard, Minouye Kherad, and Shāyast nāshāyast. It also tries to analyse the relationship of man and nature through the laws and regulations in these texts which can affect the environment directly or indirectly, and to give a wholistic view of the attitude of the Mazdeans towards nature. Furthermore, this paper is going to consider the views of religious man, and general affects of the function of faithfuls on environment through a new look on these texts and Zororastrian cosmology.

In 1955 Geoffrey Gorer condemned the new western society to avoid acknowledging the reality of the death. For him in the new western society death is thought of as a forbidden thing, namely something that should to be hidden and laid aside from the public opinion. The new man by feigning ignorance of the death and dying, try to make it far from him or her. Medical centers and burial institutions support this attitude and attempt to show that in human’s life the death does not enjoy of any essential reality. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was one of the thinkers that believe that this attitude should to be change and that the denial of death is placed by its acceptance. Kubler-Ross begun her work by the bookOn Death and Dying (1969). In her book, by appealing to empirical observations, she claims that terminally ill patients when are faced with the reality of their impending death, through a mechanism of five stages can arrive at the acceptance of their death. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and eventually the acceptance. This theory or model from the time of its appearance was the subject of many critiques such as not making use of previous researches done on the topic of death and dying, ambiguity in the five stages, limitations of method of gathering information, not to pay attentions to individual differences and also to the impact of environment on the person. However, Kubler-Ross' theory played a crucial role in the field of thanatological studies and debates so that nowadays she is known as the greatest cotemporary thanatologist.

Sad al-Dīn Ḥammuyyī, the well-known mystics of the 7th/13th century, was from a Shāfi' ī family who have had a long history (about 400 years) in Egypt and Syria. Sad al-Dīn belonged to the Kābravi Order and was one of the prominent disciples of Shaikh Nadjm al-Dīn Kubrā. He was one of the first Sufis who explicitly confirmed the absolute sainthood of Shiite Imāms. He wrote several books and treatises contained mysterious sayings, mathematical figures and shapes and full of mystical terms, these materials are sometimes hard to understand. Most parts of his writings are unpublished and still preserve in manuscript form in the libraries and it is one of the serious obstacles to survey his mystical thoughts. In this article we review some of his main treatises such as Ma ḥ bub al- aulīā, fī Ulum al- Ḥ aqāyiq va al-Daqāyiq, Lata if al-Taw ḥ īd fī Gharā ib al-Tafrīd and al-Mi ṣ ba ḥ fī al-Ta ṣ awwuf. Moreover we survey the words of his distinguished dispel, Azīz al-Dīn Nasafī. We try to describe his teachings on ontology especially his ideas about the theories of oneness of Being, basicality of Being and modulation of existence. We also compare some of his teachings with his contemporary mystic, Muḥī al-Dīn Ibn al-Arabī.