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Nearly one third of all Americans believe religion to be the most important part of their life. Nearly two thirds of Americans believe religion to be an important part of their life. The majority of Americans (94%) claim to have a belief in a supreme deity or God. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between spirituality and religion and selected risk taking behaviors in college underclassmen. Presently in the published literature, there are no studies that examined the relationship between levels of spirituality and religion and their interaction with select risk-taking behaviors, while delineating these variables to the college underclassmen. The risk-taking behaviors that were of interest to the researcher in this study were episodic and heavy drinking and sexual behaviors. This research effort employed a non-experimental, descriptive study design. The study population consisted of college underclassmen enrolled in an introductory wellness course in a teaching-intensive institution in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Results indicated a significant interaction between religion and all of the sexual risk behaviors under analysis. Results also indicated a significant interaction between spirituality and three of the four sexual risk behaviors under analysis. A significant interaction was found between frequency of church attendance and all of the sexual risk behaviors under analysis. Finally, when cross tabulated with all measures of spirituality and religion, risk behaviors related to alcohol usage reported statistically insignificant on all data indices. / Ph. D.

Religion (and misunderstanding of religion) plays a large role in the current state of global social unrest. In parcitular, tension between practitioners of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity seems to be unavoidably high. Not only that, but populations declaring themselves as followers of these three organized religions are expected to increase significantly over the next 50 years. This thesis aims to address the underlying tensions between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity through the use of architecture. It is an experimentation with architectural forms, spaces, and elements that can be seen as potentially relatable and understandable to all three religions. At the same time, the thesis also searches for the sublime (as tends to be the case with religious architecture). It is an experimentation with ineffable space, space that communicates deeply with human emotion and aspiration. The design is meant to provide a 'window to the sacred.' In this way, contemporary religious architecture can act as a catalyst for education and unification in the hopes of the banishment of ignorance and hatred and the prosperity of peace and understanding. / Master of Architecture

There is an identified need for spirituality to be taught in mental health therapy programs. Spirituality is about the connectedness we feel and the relationships we establish with self, others, and the universe. This study examined the relationship of spiritual well being, loneliness, and relationship satisfaction to life contentment. Each of the eighty-one respondents enrolled at VPI completed the "Spiritual Well being Scale" and "Abbreviated Loneliness Scale" (Paloutzian & Ellison, ] 982), "Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale" (Schumm, 1983), and the "Hudson Generalized Contentment Scale" (Hudson, 1982). Using these measures as well as the demographic variables age, income, and children a path model was developed. Correlation and regression analysis determined that age, income, children, spiritual well being, loneliness and relationship satisfaction were significant predictors of life contentment. / Master of Science

This is study is grounded in an Africological cultural analysis of the imposition of western culture, its fixation on gun violence and its role in the dislocation of African American minds to perpetrate violent tendencies. I also want to do a synopsis of the current conditions in Philadelphia including current trends in gun violence, areas of concern in the city, and preventive measures that are in the works. I will incorporate afrocentric theories of cultural reorientation to suggest a restoration of an African identity and sanity through African humanity. Gun violence is the result of a misorientation of Black consciousness and the value of manhood. The narrative of white supremacy is to normalize the pathology of genocidal behavior and pathologize Africans’ response to the inherent trauma. Cheikh Ante Diop has been foundational in the works of the leading scholars of Afrocentricity. His work simply states that there are two cradles of civilization, the Southern cradle, represented by Africa, and the Northern cradle, represented by Europe. In their cultural analysis Molefi Kete Asante, Nah Dove, Ama Mazama, and Marimba Ani recognize culture as the return to an African framework for human development. The other tool of my research includes the psycho-analysis of scholars such as Wade Nobles, Amos Wilson, Na’im Akbar, and Francis Crest Welsing. Arab and European colonization and enslavement sought to destroy African values, self-images and self-concepts. The long and continuing history of the Maafa in the form of enslavement, racial terrorism, debt peonage, Jim Crow and state sanctioned violence has caused a distortion in the behavior of African Americans who have been dislocated from African origins and engage in anti-black criminal behavior. The violent black criminal associates with white criminal behavior and tries to emulate it on a smaller scale. The code of the street and street culture is a result of the violet climate that Philadelphia has exhibited throughout its history, that has become common practice in African American communities. Self-hatred and self-alienation are a feature of dislocation, which calls for a culturally restorative therapeutic process. House of Umoja’s history of curbing gun violence utilizing African-centered principles have met with success in the past and is being utilized to work in future intervention models. Cultural socialization involves messages and practices that coincide with a racial identity and starts with the family. Aside from being a provider in a family, the mother is the primary family member for socializing the child. The need for a violence intervention that includes Afrocentricity is paramount to cultural reorientation and spiritual renewal. From a cultural paradigm racial identity divides human beings in to categories based on melanin content with a hierarchy of lighter skin on the top and darker skin on the bottom and everyone else in between. This work hopes to advance that culture defines humanity, and that a cultural orientation can direct organizations to produce more culture oriented ideas and processes that reconnects humanity to historically African values and beliefs before subjugation. Africology as a discipline seeks to reclaim classical African culture to educate future generations and for organizations to practice culture enriching activities. White nationalism has projected a false image of their superiority and African inferiority. This has impacted African families which is often the central model for the community. / African American Studies

2023 / The constructs of forgiveness and spirituality/religion (S/R) have long been associated with recovery from trauma exposure, but how they relate to potential mechanistic variables of health, socioeconomic status (SES), and social engagement is less understood. To examine this issue, self-report data were collected from 254 monozygotic twin pairs with a mean age of 53 who were discordant for combat-related trauma exposure in Vietnam. Participants with missing data on relevant variables were removed, leaving 360 individuals in the sample comprised of 157 twin pairs and 46 unmatched twins.Regression models were created in 4 stages. Stage 1 examined hypothesized direct effects of combat exposure on multiple components of health, SES, and social engagement. Stage 2 examined the hypothesized impact of combat exposure on forgiveness variables and S/R-related variables. Stage 3 examined the hypothesized relationship between forgiveness variables and S/R variables and multiple components of health, SES, and social engagement. Stage 4 examined the impact of forgiveness separately among combat-exposed and non-combat-exposed participants to test for a differential pattern of association across these groups. Each stage of the study revealed statistically significant associations (p=<.05), with variable support for the hypotheses in stages 1-3. In Stage 1, combat exposure was significantly related only to mental health. In Stage 2, combat exposure was related to forgiveness, but not to S/R. In Stage 3, forgiveness of self was a unique and influential predictor as it was associated with all health-related variables as well as relationship satisfaction. Forgiveness of others and S/R variables were highly correlated, potentially masking unique effects of each variable when they were included together in the regression model. Nevertheless, S/R variables were significantly associated with mental health, physical functioning, and engagement in family relationships. As hypothesized, Stage 4 revealed differing patterns of significant associations among the two groups, such that forgiveness of self was related to social engagement among combat-exposed but not among non-combat-exposed participants. The results of this study provide insight into the complex relationship between the constructs of trauma, forgiveness, and spirituality. This study also highlights the relevance of these constructs to the development of clinical interventions given their impact on key aspects of well-being.

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