This study argues that a pragmatic conception of religion would enable philosophers to make important contributions to our ability to handle concrete problems involving religion. The term 'philosophical anthropology', referring to different interpretative frameworks, which philosophers draw on to develop conceptions of human phenomena, is introduced. It is argued that the classical pragmatists embraced a philosophical anthropology significantly different from that embraced by most philosophers of religion; accordingly, pragmatism offers an alternative conception of religion. It is suggested that a conception of religion is superior to another if it makes more promising contributions to our ability to handle extra-philosophical problems of religion. A pragmatic philosophical anthropology urges us to view human practices as responses to shared experienced needs. Religious practices develop to resolve tensions in our views of life. The pictures of human flourishing they persent reconstruct our views of life, thereby allowing more significant interaction with the environment, and a more significant life. A modified version of reflective equilibrium is developed to show how we, on a pragmatic conception of religion, are able to supply resources for criticism and reform of religious practices, so the extra-philosophical problems of religion can be handled. Mainstream philosophy of religion attempts to offer such resources by presenting analogy-arguments from religious experience. Those arguments are, however, unconvincing. A comparison of the two conceptions of religion thus results in a recommendation to reconstruct philosophy of religion.

In the latter half of the 20th century interreligious dialogue has become a necessary and important feature in human co-existence. This study discusses the dialogue of religious experience. The essentials in this dialogue are mutual understandings of prayer and contemplation as practiced in differing religious and cultural contexts. The dissertation consists of four parts. The first is a survey of missiological theology on interreligious dialogue, contemplation and inculturation in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council. The second part considers initiatives taken in dialogue in the Benedictine Order from early 1960-ties to mid 1990-ties. Attention is given to "East-West Spiritual Exchange" which has taken place regularly between European participants in "Dialogue Interreligieux Monastique" and Zen Buddhists in Japan. The third section focuses on Japan. Three Japanese Catholic theologians are discussed. In efforts to establish theological and pastoral communication with Zen tradition, moving towards an integration of details emerging from Zen practice to Catholic spirituality, the Japanese theologians theologize in a fashion similar to the Benedictines. The final section analyses initiatives in dialogue of religious experience discussed in the thesis. Key concepts draw attention to distinctive characteristics of specific expressions in dialogue, partly in monastic contexts, partly in Japanese contexts. Because the particular form of dialogue presented is an ongoing process which has only recently commenced, no final results in developments can yet be identified. Suffice it to state that initiatives described are new inputs in Catholic missiological study. Both Benedictine and Japanese theologians have in many ways paved the way for official Catholic theology on interreligious dialogue.

<p>Carl Gustav von Brinkman was born in Nacka, Sweden 1764 but in his eleventh year he was sent away by his father to the Herrnhuter school in Niesky to become a missionary. Brinkman developed other plans. The experience of the school as a place that censured his thoughts and hindered his development, took an early start and grew stronger. He tried to convince his teachers in the congregation that they should allow him to attend the university in Halle, but they wanted his father to decide. His father then threatened to exclude him from the family if he went to Halle. Carl Gustav did so anyway and started his mental journey from a pietistic piety to enlightenment belief. Under the influence of a variety of contemporary philosophical ideas, he developed a belief based on the moral good and made God the head principle for this virtue. When Brinkman had reached this far in his development he then cut loose God from his thinking, and he then believed in the moral good without God as a reference to this system. He was now, using Friedrich Schleiermachers expression, a kind of secularised ’cultured despiser’.</p><p>The complete title of Schleiermachers astonishing work was On Religion; speeches to its cultured despisers. This book was an apologetic one, and its audience was the intelligentsia in Europe who had left the Christendom behind and developed other systems for their thinking. Brinkman were the ideal receiver of the message that Schleiermacher brought. They knew each other from the time in Halle and they both attended the Herrnhuter school in Niesky. Schleiermacher had also fought with his father and with the congregation to be allowed to leave for the university. They were both central members of the vivid saloon life in Berlin were artist, actors, philosophers and others from the intelligentsia were guests. When the book was published Brinkman just returned to Berlin from France and Sweden – were he did not feel comfortable and constantly missed the Berlin saloons and his friends – and everything that he loved in life were suddenly surrounding him again. He was very receptive to a new way of thinking and he allowed himself to be influenced by the book of his friend.</p><p>He now turned Christian again, but with a worldview different from the pietistic one and the one based upon enlightenment theology, but also from the strictly secularised ideology. He now saw religion as feeling; a feeling of absolute dependence on other people, on the world, on Universe and in the end of God. The dependence of the apologetic work of Schleiermacher was obvious in Brinkman’s book Filosophische Ansichten but some of the formulations were original and mirrored Brinkman’s own way of seeing things. This essay ends with some analyses of those formulations. It will also discus the fact that Brinkman’s book never were translated into Swedish and what that meant for the spreading of Schleiermachers theories to Sweden, and what that in turn led to considering the differences in thinking and piety between Sweden and Germany. The central issue in this essay however, is to try to describe Brinkman’s way of thinking and how that way of thinking developed over time and in relation to his context; the enlightenment and the romantic era in Germany and Sweden.</p><p>The words “Where are thou” are from Genesis 3:9. They are spoken from God and directed to Adam, who is hiding in the bush ashamed after he and Eva had been eating the apple and as a result of that, he now was aware of his nakedness.</p> / <p>Den rörelse som vi uppsatsen kan följa, är en rörelse som är unik för Carl Gustav von Brinkman, men den är också i mångt och mycket en rörelse eller utveckling som många i skarven mellan upplysningstid och romantik gjorde. Denna rörelse kan beskrivas som en rörelse mot frihet men bort ifrån den kristna tron. Moral eller dygd var tidens största ideal och inom upplysningsteologin var Gud dess grundprincip, men inom vissa frihetligt sinnade kretsar föll till slut även Gud bort. I samtiden kristalliserades två tydliga grupperingar; de som lutade sig mot de kristna doktrinerna eller det pietistiska fromhetslivet utgjorde det ena, och de som lutade sig mot den naturliga religionen – som var något av den minsta gemensamma nämnaren för alla religioner i hela världen – eller ingen alls, utgjorde den andra. När sedan Schleiermacher fick sin samtid att se människan och utifrån henne börja omformulera de centrala kristna dogmerna, så räddades den kristna tron på så sätt att den blev en levande tro ute i ”världen”(som motsättning till inom en församling sluten). Den kristna tron blev ett diskussionsämne för de intellektuella och inte en enskildhet för invigda och från ”världen” avskärmade.</p><p>Carl Gustav von Brinkman speglar denna utveckling med sitt liv. Det faktum att mycket av hans upplevelser är de samma som Schleiermachers gör honom också intressant att följa och Brinkman är inte på långa vägar färdiganalyserad som bärare och/eller gestaltare av tidens idéer.</p><p>Det som är en av denna uppsats slutsatser är dock att Carl Gustav von Brinkman hade en utveckling som inleddes med en uppväxt inom den herrnhutiska församlingen och att hans utvecklingsbana sedan beskrev en rörelse ifrån det pietistiska mot det upplysningsteologiska vars idé om dygden och dess grundprincip i Gud inlemmades i Brinkmans tankar bara för att kort senare resultera i en syn på dygden där Gud inte längre var dess grundprincip. Utifrån denna position tog han sedan till sig Friedrich Schleiermachers tankar om religion som känsla för självets medvetande om sig självt i en ömsesidig relation med andra, naturen, kosmos och – i slutändan - Gud. Det är vid denna punkt som uppsatsen lämnar honom och konstaterar att Brinkman nått en position där han kan bejaka naturvetenskapligt tänkande och samtidigt vara kristen. Han kan utifrån sin nya position vara kritisk gentemot traditionen eller Bibeln och ändå påstå sig ha en kristen livsförståelse. Han kan röra sig ute i världen och ända bevara sin identitet som kristen. Den kristna livsförståelsen begränsar honom inte utan öppnar upp för nya världar i t.ex. hermeneutikens namn där allt kan analyseras, tolkas och förstås.</p>

<p>Den här uppsatsen behandlar Holmes Rolston IIIs bok ”Environmental Ethics” och den teori som författaren där för fram angående naturens värde. Syftet är att klargöra hur naturen är värdefull enligt Rolston samt att kritiskt granska de argument som förs fram.</p><p>Uppsatsen har tre delar. En introduktion som i korthet presenterar teorier om etisk naturalism, antropocentrisk etik, det naturalistiska misstaget, intrinsikala värden samt distinktionen mellan kultur och natur. Detta syftar till att placera den kommande diskussionen i en tydlig kontext.</p><p>Efter introduktionen följer del ett, som behandlar Rolstons teori. Där tas upp Rolstons syn på naturhistoria, värdeteori samt hur han menar att naturen är moraliskt normativ.</p><p>Den sista delen tar upp kritik mot Rolstons teori. Där ifrågasätts Rolstons syn på objektiva värden, liksom synen på naturen som moraliskt normativ. Slutsatsen är att Rolstons teori har många problematiska punkter och att han bör betraktas i första hand som en visionär.</p>

<p>Kap.1 är inledning,syfte,metod etc.</p><p>Kap.2 i den här uppsatsen behandlar syrisk-ortodoxa kyrkans grundande i Antiokia år 37 där Apostlarna för första gången kallade sig för Kristna /Apg.11:19-20)uppsatsen behandlar också det språk (Arameiska/ syriska)som används inom alla syrisk-ortodoxa kyrkorna runtom i världen,den tar upp kyrkans teologi och dogmer kortfattad,kyrkomötena i Nicea år 325,Konstantinopel 381,och Efesos 431 där beslutades om grunderna för den kristna teologin och tron, och det fjärde iCalcedon</p><p>år 451 som delade den kristna kyrkan till två,väst som accepterade två naturer för Kristus,(gudomlig och mänsklig) och de orientaliska kyrkorna som accepterade två förenade naturer i en enhet, för Kristus.</p><p>Kap.3 handlar om Syrisk-ortodoxa kyrkans institutioner och stiftelser i medlemmarnas ursprungsländer och i emigrationsländer,bl.a Sverige.</p><p>Kap.4 handlar kort om medlemmarnas civila och organisationer.</p>

<p>Denna uppsats studerar Sodom och Gomorraberättelsen både med avseende på tillkomsthistoria och undersöker även hur den har förmedlats vidare i den judiska tolkningstraditionen. Den centrala frågeställning är huruvida denna denna berättelse handlar om sexuell synd eller ej. Har den alltid används för fördömandet av homosexuella? Det tydliga svaret som undersökningen visar är nej! Uppsatsen behandlar också Leviticus text rörande homosexuella relationer samt ger tolkningsförslag till denna.</p>

<p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om katarerna ska räknas som heretiker, vilket har varit fallet från medeltiden och framåt eller om de egentligen borde räknas som urkristna vilket de själva ansåg och varför forskningen är motstridig i denna fråga.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>The purpose of this paper is to examine how the religious education is implemented in junior and grammar school. As a base for my examination I used two private schools and two municipal schools. My main goal was to get a better view of the content of the education, the treatment of the students and the conditions for the students to get a greater understanding and respect for others’ religious beliefs and opinions through education. To reach this goal I did interviews and field studies which means that the paper has a qualitative approach.</p><p>The examination showed clearly that the private schools spend a lot more education time on their respective religions while the municipal schools have a more comprehensive education. Regarding the treatment of the students I could not find any differences since all of the</p><p>schools gave the students space to express their opinions and thoughts. However there are clear differences when it comes to understand others’ opinions and respect other people’s religious views, since the students in the private schools only meet students with the same religion and views; they do not meet other students who do not share their thoughts.</p>

<p>The purpose of this essay has been to identify a couple of different factors that matter when a teacher chooses method and raw material for teaching his students. The person interviewed is a man, whose lesson I also observed. The result shows that there are several factors of great importance for his choice. My conclusion of this is that this teacher’s choice depends on the school as institution with all the people that operate there, the composition of the students and the school’s curriculum, but this teacher’s pedagogical basic view also has a great importance for his teaching.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>The purpose with this essay is to present a picture of the changes in religious education in Sweden, and to make comparisons between Denmark’s and the USA’s model about teaching in religion. I have consequently described the historical development, with the beginning of the establishement of the public school, inte the year of 1842. 1919, a new document about the religious education was released, wich result in some major changes. This was in a time were the debate about religion and the Lutheran State Church of Sweden authority was an issue. The result was, among others, the abolition of the catechism as an educational material and the teaching of religion was given a considerable reduced amount of hours and the teaching was now supposed to be non-confessional. Then, in the 1960:s even more changes was about, and the teaching of religion was now supposed to share the teacher and the hours with three other subjects. This was in a time when christianity and religion over all had come in to question. Objectivity was the leading word in this new curriculum.</p><p>In the USA there is no curriculum for teaching religion in the public school, a desicion characterized with the ideology of the religious neutral state. In Denmark there is religious teaching, with a strong emphasis on christianity.</p>