We examine an understudied connection between religion and sexuality: beliefs about the reality of supernatural evil (Satan, hell, and demons). After controlling for multiple other aspects of religiosity, beliefs about religious evil remain a strong and consistent predictor of attitudes about issues involving sexuality, including abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, extramarital sex, and pornography use. Further, the effects of religious service attendance on attitudes about sexuality are contingent upon beliefs about religious evil. Moral condemnation of non-traditional sexuality is significantly higher among regular religious participants who believe strongly in religious evil compared to actively religious people who disbelieve in religious evil, as well as compared to people who do not attend religious services. Beliefs about religious evil are therefore central to understanding the empirical connections between religion and support for conservative, traditional views of sexual morality.

Like an elephant, while it may be difficult to describe, corruption is generally not difficult to recognize when observed (Tanzi, 1998, p. 564). Many countries have been, or are currently typified by both lethal conflict and massive corruption. Historically, post-conflict development programs have imposed policies of zero corruption, yet they routinely fail. Initial research into “corruption” also identified significant ambiguities and self-contradiction with the definition of corruption, itself. This study used an Existential Phenomenological methodology with 8 participants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan to: 1) redefine and model corruption within a global construct, 2) examine the current doctrine mandating zero tolerance for corruption, and 3) examine the potential for tolerating moderate levels of corruption in favor of reduced lethal violence. Corrupt behavior is alleged by this research to include financial as well as non-financial mechanisms, and is motivated by Human, Institutional and Cultural Factors of Corruption. This research robustly redefines corruption, and develops new theories/models to better explain corrupt behavior. These include the Corruption Hierarchy, the Corruption Pyramid and the Universal Corruption Model. The research was inconclusive with respect to the tolerance of corruption mitigating lethal conflict, but confirmed strong support for policies of zero tolerance. In redefining corruption, many political, social and cultural norms currently exhibited by nation states, including the United States, are corrupt if/when properly classified. I’m desperate about my country. You’ve got to be strong in my country. If you are weak, they will take you. (Jeremy from Iraq).

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Culture and politics are inseparable. How to realize the cultural factors of Chinese traditional politics and its influence and enlightenment on the contemporary era has been one of the most important issues with great concern of the academic community. Starting from Confucianism, this paper uses qualitative analysis and Marxist theory of cultural criticism to provide an in-depth interpretation of traditional Chinese politics. The main content of the paper is divided into three parts. The first part provides a systematic study of the background of the emergence of Confucian political philosophy in the pre-Qin period. Its main content covers the economic, political, and cultural aspects of the Warring States period. The second part analyzes the values of pre-Qin Confucian political philosophy. This part mainly deals with the theories of heavenly and human nature of three Confucian scholars, Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi. The third part interprets traditional Chinese politics in the context of Confucianism by focusing on the blood patriarchal culture, the social-based culture, the ethical culture, and the political culture of the sages, respectively. Through a summary of the characteristics and contradictions of traditional Chinese politics, an objective understanding of the emergence, development,...

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The purpose of this study was to determine whether the individual's bases for moral behavior and his major field of study are related to his moral judgement. Previous studies have indicated that the effect of certain moral education programs was either negligible or detrimental to the accomplishment of their objectives. Because of the emphasis by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints upon fundamental principles as determinants of moral behavior, it seems appropriate to examine the effects of these concepts upon the individual.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the effects that Montessori and public school environments have on the moral cognition of children and to assess the differences using modified moral dilemma stories. Through the analysis of these children's responses on moral dilemma stories this thesis reveals that there are stark and statistically significant differences in the children's responses on two of the three stories. The Montessori children scored higher on the morality level and the answers reflected altruism over authority on story one and story three. Through these results the researcher surmised that school environment can have an impact on moral cognition of children and that further research needs to be done in this field.