The aim of this study is to analyze the arguments from design to intelligent design and to present the main philosophical aspects of design arguments. Without examining the conceptual background of design arguments, it is not possible to understand their roles in philosophy, theology and science. To this aim, first the philosophical usage of the argument is explained into three categories: argument from design, argument to design and intelligent design. Next, in order to provide a deeper analysis, William Paley&rsquo / s Natural Theology in its closer relation of the natural sciences and theological discourse are examined. Lastly, through the philosophy and metaphysics of design, the framework of intelligent design is discussed. Consequently, the process of design arguments can be analyzed through the concept of intelligence rather than design in the history of philosophy since it is closely related to the religious and scientific way of understanding of nature. William Paley&rsquo / s argument to design is, thus, a fragile point between the classical and contemporary versions of design arguments.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the activity of the Gulen community in the Central Asian republics through different perspectives with a focus on the activities in the educational realm. My main concern in this thesis is to find out what role Islam and Turkishness plays in the educational activities of the Gulen community in the region. Throughout the thesis first I focus on Fethullah Gulen as the leader of the community followed by an analysis of the community in general &ndash / its origin, framework, goals and educational activity in various parts of the world. Then I examine the educational activity of the community in each of the Central Asian republics. And finally I explore various approaches regarding the community&rsquo / s goals in Central Asia with a focus on the role that Islam and Turkishness play in such activities.

Robert Leighton (1610/11-1684) was a significant Scottish churchman of the seventeenth-century. He has been the subject of religious confessional history-writing which continues to skew our understanding of him. This thesis offers a radical reassessment of the first fifty years of Leighton’s life based upon the available primary evidence. The formative influences of Leighton’s Puritan anti-Episcopal father and his student years at the Town College of Edinburgh are re-evaluated. The possibility that he studied in Huguenot France in the 1630s is posited. Using his relationship with the Earl of Lothian to illuminate his involvement in the Covenanting movement, he is placed in Scotland from 1638. Leighton’s commitment to the Covenant and to Presbyterianism is reconsidered by charting Leighton’s career as minister of Newbattle (1641-1653) and his appointment as Principal of the Town College by the English occupiers in 1653. His decision to become a Restoration bishop in 1661 is reviewed having regard to a new understanding of his journey towards Episcopacy and by careful attention to his own words and actions. This study concludes that our comprehension of the Church of Scotland during the Covenanting, Interregnum and Restoration periods is heightened by re-discovering the real Leighton.

A European consensus on the centrality of education for the guarantee and promotion of religious freedoms has emerged over the last two decades. Initially articulated in the human rights discourse of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and subsequently elaborated through the Council of Europe’s Recommendations, Declarations, Research Projects and Reference Books, this frame of reference forms a normative and legislative basis for states in Europe. Long national traditions of particular approaches to the ‘protected spaces’ of religion and education, however, render the development of common policies and practices amongst states problematic. This thesis examines the impact of the European framework of freedoms of religion and education on states’ education systems. An important contribution to the scholarship of social constructivism and interpretivist studies, the thesis contextualizes the research question within the conceptual framework of Europeanization. The nature and extent of the Europeanization process are approached through the structured comparative study of two cases: France and Greece. The respective educational provisions towards religion classify these countries as two of the hardest critical cases in this area of Europeanization in seemingly opposing ways. The thesis utilizes discourse analysis of the key documents of national education, including an analysis of the crucial findings of field research that investigates the social reality of religious freedoms in the educational settings of the selected cases. The conclusions denote a discrepancy between a degree of ideational convergence in the national discourse and the discernible divergence that characterizes the practical approaches to religious freedoms in the education systems of France and Greece. The limited and differential impact of the European norms reveals the particular national factors that prove resilient to external forces of normative and policy change in the fields of religion and education. By challenging the views on the transformative impact of the European recommendations, the thesis critically raises the question on the reconsideration of the origins, the objectives and the limitations of the complex of religious rights norms in Europe.

This thesis presents the study of four aspects of high energy astronomy.The first part of my thesis is dedicated to an aspect of instrument development for imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, namely the Level 2 trigger system of the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.). My work on the project focused on the algorithm development and the Monte Carlo simulations of the trigger system and overall instrument (Moudden, Barnacka, Glicenstein et al. 2011a; Moudden, Venault, Barnacka et al. 2011b). The hardware implementation of the system is described andits expected performances are then evaluated. The H.E.S.S. array has been used to observe the blazar PKS 1510-089.The second part of my thesis deals with the data analysis and modeling of broad-band emission of this particular blazar. In part II of my thesis, I am presenting the analysis of the H.E.S.S. data: the light curve and spectrum of PKS 1510-089, together with the FERMI data and a collection of multi-wavelength data obtained with various instruments. I am presenting the model of PKS 1510-089 observations carried out during a flare recorded by H.E.S.S.. The model is based on a single zone internal shock scenario.The third part of my thesis deals with blazars observed by the FERMI-LAT, but from the point of view of other phenomena: a strong gravitational lensing. This part of my thesis shows the first evidence for gravitational lensing phenomena in high energy gamma-rays. This evidence comes from the observation of a gravitational lens system induced echo in the light curve of the distant blazar PKS 1830-211. Traditionalmethods for the estimation of time delays in gravitational lensing systems rely on the cross-correlation of the light curves from individual images. In my thesis, I used 300 MeV-30 GeV photons detected by the Fermi-LAT instrument. The FERMI-LAT instrument cannot separate the images of known lenses. The observed light curve is thus the superposition of individual image light curves. The FERMI-LAT instrument has the advantage of providing long, evenly spaced, time series with very low photonnoise. This allows to use directly Fourier transform methods. A time delay between the two compact images of PKS 1830-211 has been searchedfor both by the autocorrelation method and a new method: the "double power spectrum". The double power spectrum shows a 4.2 σ evidence for a time delay of 27.1±0.6 days (Barnacka et al. 2011), consistent with the results from Lovell et al. (1998) and Wiklind & Combes (2001).The last part of my thesis concentrates on another lensing phenomena called "femtolensing". The search for femtolensing effects has been used to derive limits on the primordial black holes abundance. The abundance of primordial black holes is currently significantly constrained in a wide range of masses. The weakest limits are established for the small mass objects, where the small intensity of the associated physical phenomenon provides a challenge for current experiments. I have usedgamma-ray bursts with known redshifts detected by the FERMI Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) to search for the femtolensing effects caused by compact objects. The lack of femtolensing detection in the GBM data provides new evidence that primordial black holes in the mass range 5 × 10^17 - 10^20 g do not constitute a major fraction of dark matter (Barnacka et al. 2012). My Ph.D. studies have been carried out jointly between the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw in Poland and the IRFU institute of the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives(CEA) Saclay in France.

This thesis investigates the impact of the Christian clergy on daily life in Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh and eight centuries AD. Noting from the outset an interpretative impasse in historical sources, the archaeological record is explored for what it may reveal concerning those areas and peoples most hidden from historical scholarship. Noting problems with techniques that assume clear distinctions between Christian and pagan ritual - in particular funerary ritual - the anthropology of religious phenomena and religious conversion is introduced to support and expand that critique, but also to focus attention on the sophistication of the problem to be addressed. It is argued that the social sciences are ill-equipped to investigate religious phenomena and that a more subtle, if more complicated, approach is required. Considering the coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England as an encounter between missionaries and their audience, we are encouraged to investigate the subtle tensions implicit in that relationship. The relationship is thus recast in terms of access to literacy, since this is a distinguishing factor of the clergy in England in the seventh and eighth centuries. Literacy, modelled as a set of discursive practices embedded in and re-produced through social relationships, is investigated from the perspective of the archaeology of surveillance. Two cases from Hampshire - Micheldever and Saxon Southampton (or Hamwic) - support the view that literacy can be used as a means of investigating the missionary encounter. It is proposed that, by the first half of the eighth century, the populations of these two areas were drawn into an intricate engagement with the clergy, facilitated by the bureaucratic and discursive deployment of literacy practices. Though necessarily more complicated than approaches that depend on the archaeology of the cemeteries to investigate the relationship between the clergy and the laity, this insight does at least do justice to the complexity of the issue being discussed.

This thesis is about the work and organisation of local religious congregations in England. It focuses on the congregation of two religions- Christianity and Judaism; that is, on 'churches' and 'synagogues'. In Chapter One, the study is positioned within the academic field of social policy and administration. Chapters Two, Three and Four review literature on the historical and societal context within which churches and synagogues operate, the role of religious functionaries and organisational features of congregations. Four organisational themes cutting across denominational and religious boundaries are identified: purposes and goals; roles and role relationships; organisational change; and denominational institutions. Chapter Five develops an approach for an empirical study and gives an account of fieldwork in an inner-city Roman Catholic church; a black-led Pentecostal church in an industrial town; an Anglican church on a housing estate; and a suburban Reform synagogue. Organisational features of the four case congregations are presented in Chapter Six. In the following four chapters the organisational issues which arise in the Congregations are described and analysed. Chapter Seven presents the perceived Issues in congregations around setting and implementing goals. Chapter Eight looks at clerical roles and Chapter Nine at the roles of lay employees and volunteers. Chapter Ten discusses organisational change, the links between congregations and their denominational institutions, and organisational structures. Finally, in Chapter Eleven, the study findings are drawn together and re-examined in the light of the earlier literature. The way in which the case studies elucidate and develop knowledge about the work and organisation of congregations is discussed. It is suggested that further progress towards the development of theory on congregation organisation could be made by conceptualising congregations as voluntary organisations.

Zsfassung in dt. Sprache. - Würzburg, Univ., Diss., 2008

Würzburg, Univ., Diss., 2009. / Zsfassung in dt. Sprache.

This thesis charts the stakeholder communities, physical environment and daily life of two little studied Qādiriyya Sufi shrines associated with Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (1077 – 1165 AD), a 12th century Ḥanbalī Muslim theologian and the posthumous founder of one of the oldest Sufi orders in Islam. The first shrine is based in Baghdad and houses his burial chamber; and the second shrine, on the outskirts of the city of ‘Aqra in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, is that of his son Shaikh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (died 1206 AD). The latter was also known for lecturing in Ḥanbalī theology in the region, and venerated for this as well as his association with Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir. Driven by the research question “What shapes the identity orientations of these two Qādiriyya Sufi shrines in modern times?” the findings presented here are the result of field research carried out between November 2009 and February 2014. This field research revealed a complex context in which the two shrines existed and interacted, influenced by both Sufi and non-Sufi stakeholders who identified with and accessed these shrines to satisfy a variety of spiritual and practical needs, which in turn influenced the way each considered and viewed the two shrines from a number of orientations. These overlapping orientations include the Qādirī Sufi entity and the resting place of its patron saint; the orthodox Sunnī mosque with its muftī-imams, who are employed by the Iraqi government; the local Shīʿa community’s neighbourhood saint’s shrine and its destination for spiritual and practical aid; and the local provider of welfare to the poor of the city (soup kitchen, funeral parlour and electricity-generation amongst other services). The research findings also revealed a continuously changing and adapting Qādirī Sufi scene not immune from the national and regional socio-religio-political environments in which the two shrines exist: a non-Sufi national political class vying to influence and manipulate these shrines for their own purposes; and powerful national sectarian factions jostling to do the same. The mixture of stakeholders using and associating with the two shrines were found to be influential shapers of these entities, both physically and spiritually. Through encountering and interacting with each other, most stakeholders contributed to maintaining and rejuvenating the two shrines, but some also sought to adapt and change them driven by their particular orientation’s perspective.