According to Kierkegaard, the knowledge of God begins with the recognition of various truths about oneself. Every individual, just by virtue of being human, has the capacity to develop an intuitive awareness of God. In this thesis, I explore the nature of this knowledge. In chapter one, I introduce a number of ideas important for understanding Kierkegaard's phenomenology of religious belief, including his distinction between objective and subjective reflection, his method (indirect communication), and his psychology. The first chapter concludes with a description of the range or domain of "natural religion." In the next chapter, I analyze the structural or formative elements of natural religion, the awakening of a God -relationship in the extremity of selfknowledge (an individual's awareness of the eternal, infinite, and possible aspects of the human "self"). In the final chapter, I explore two related peculiarities in Kierkegaard's treatment of religious knowledge: his contempt for inductive or probabilistic arguments, and his suggestion that the existence of God can become clear to a person with a different kind of certainty. I argue that although he overstates his polemic against theistic arguments, Kierkegaard is nonetheless correct in his account of the proper ground of belief in God. I conclude by juxtaposing Kierkegaard's views on belief in God with those of twentieth century probabilistic theologians and atheologians, as well as the "Reformed Epistemology" of Alvin Plantinga.

Drawing on the ritual theory of “rebounding violence” as developed by Maurice Bloch, the contemporary anthropologist, the thesis examined some kingship rituals periodically observed in Nepal and highlighted their political implications. The study also made an assessment of the concept of “divine kingship” in orthodox “Hindu” tradition and traced connections between religion and politics. In Nepal, kingship is taken as a symbol of sovereign power and national unity, and the king is often revered in public festivals as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, or as a representative of some other divinities such as Indra, Bhairava and the Buddha. The thesis explored such rituals, demystified the concept of “divine kingship,” and displayed through historical evidences how Nepali rulers have appropriated religious occasions for their own legitimacy.

Criticism of discrete classification systems for mental disorders has led to a focus on identification of mechanisms that cut across symptom clusters, known as transdiagnostic factors. One such proposed factor is negative repetitive thought (NRT), or a perseverative, often uncontrollable, focus on negative information, experiences, or expectations. Worry and rumination are two major constructs thought to compose NRT. No confirmatory factor analyses have investigated whether worry and rumination might compose a general NRT factor, discrete factors, or some combination of the two. The first purpose of the current study was to use confirmatory factor analyses to uncover whether worry and rumination are best characterized as separate or common constructs. In addition to this purpose, the study investigated NRT as a transdiagnostic factor for psychopathology. Finally, it examined incremental associations of NRT with mental illness symptoms, after controlling for negative emotionality, the most well established transdiagnostic risk factor. A bi-factor conceptualization of worry and rumination, in which there was a common NRT factor and specific worry and rumination factors, yielded the best fit to the data across three separate samples. The NRT factor was associated with both internalizing and externalizing psychopathology; however, it demonstrated significant overlap with negative emotionality. Further exploration of this overlap using bi-factor modeling demonstrated that NRT and negative emotionality are likely best thought of as a unidimensional general negative affect construct, and this structure was replicated across samples. Importantly, evidence was found that this tendency to experience negative affect was also a common liability for mental illness symptoms.

This dissertation is about the structure of thought. Following Gottlob Frege, I define a thought as the sort of content relevant to determining whether an assertion is true or false. The historical component of the dissertation involves interpreting Frege’s actual views on the structure of thought. I argue that Frege did not think that a thought has a unique decomposition into its component senses, but rather the same thought can be decomposed into senses in a variety of distinct ways. I extend Frege’s position and use it to develop an account of the hierarchy of senses, the senses expressed by indexicals and demonstratives, and the distinction between logical and non-logical structure. I also discuss various connections with the nature of meta-representation, our capacity for reflective judgment, some aspects of the structure of conscious experience, the way we perceive regions of space and durations of time, and our conscious awareness of our own perceptions and events of thinking.

No description available.

Pachomius as Discovered in the Worlds of 4th Century Christian Egypt, Pachomian Literature and Pachomian Monasticism: A Figure of History or Hagiography?

<p>In this study I look into children’s thought about health and exercise. To full fill my purpose I</p><p>made qualitative interviews with seven six year old kids. Two boys and five girls. I wanted to</p><p>now what they thought about health and movement. Do they think that it is important or is it</p><p>just the adult who thinks that?</p><p>The result shows that the kids know much about our health and why we should be exercise</p><p>more. It shows that they know why it’s important that we exercise so our body feels good. My</p><p>results also shows that they didn’t now what the conception of health mean. Fore them it</p><p>means that you said hello to someone. That was something that surprised me. It was only one</p><p>child that could say that it had something to do whit exercise and how we move us.</p> / <p>I denna studie undersöks barns i sexårsåldern ankar om hälsa och rörelse. Kvalitativaintervjuer genomfördes med totalt sju barn. Två pojkar och fem flickor.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att eleverna i förskoleklassen har stor koll på hälsa ochrörelse. De vet att det är viktigt att röra på sig för att kroppen ska må bra. Mitt resultat visadeockså att de inte visste vad själv begreppet hälsa betydde, utan för dem var det att manhälsade och sa hej till någon. Detta blev jag något förvånad över. Det var bara en som tillslutkom fram till att det kunde ha att göra med att vi rör på oss.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

In this study I look into children’s thought about health and exercise. To full fill my purpose I made qualitative interviews with seven six year old kids. Two boys and five girls. I wanted to now what they thought about health and movement. Do they think that it is important or is it just the adult who thinks that? The result shows that the kids know much about our health and why we should be exercise more. It shows that they know why it’s important that we exercise so our body feels good. My results also shows that they didn’t now what the conception of health mean. Fore them it means that you said hello to someone. That was something that surprised me. It was only one child that could say that it had something to do whit exercise and how we move us. / I denna studie undersöks barns i sexårsåldern ankar om hälsa och rörelse. Kvalitativaintervjuer genomfördes med totalt sju barn. Två pojkar och fem flickor.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att eleverna i förskoleklassen har stor koll på hälsa ochrörelse. De vet att det är viktigt att röra på sig för att kroppen ska må bra. Mitt resultat visadeockså att de inte visste vad själv begreppet hälsa betydde, utan för dem var det att manhälsade och sa hej till någon. Detta blev jag något förvånad över. Det var bara en som tillslutkom fram till att det kunde ha att göra med att vi rör på oss.

No demon has gained as much notoriety, recognition, or infamy in Jewish culture at the she-demon Lilith. Tracing her origins back to similarly-named demonesses in Ancient Sumeria, Babylonia, and Canaan, Lilith developed throughout Jewish history into a fully-realized seductress, succubus, murderer, and tormenter of men, women, and children. A well-known demoness during the ancient, rabbinic, medieval, and, to some extent, modern periods of Judaism, Lilith was associated with multiple ills of the sexual sphere including masturbation (or onanism, so named for the biblical figure Onan who “spilled his seed on the ground”), adultery, nocturnal emissions, impure thoughts, and bastard children. Her personality, focused as it is on these sexual ills, has remained remarkably constant throughout her 4,000 year development, a testament to her notoriety. Lilith did not spring, however, fully formed from the imagination of one group of people or in one particular place. Rather, a conception of the demoness slowly coalesced from a variety of ancient Middle Eastern sources even before she was integrated into the