democracy and religious authorities

the last in my series of “essential features of democracy” according to various peoples around the world from the world values survey, 2005-2008.

“Many things may be desirable, but not all of them are essential characteristics of democracy. Please tell me for each of the following things how essential you think it is as a characteristic of democracy. Use this scale where 1 means *not at all an essential characteristic of democracy* and 10 means it definitely is *an essential characteristic of democracy*: Religious authorities interpret the laws.“

percentages of people who reponded 10 — an essential characteristic of democracy is that religious authorities interpret the laws:

so, more a greater percentage of (you know what i mean!) mexicans than iranians think that religious authorities should interpret the laws in a democracy.

*facepalm*

previously: dēmos kratos and democracy and civil rights and democracy and the redistribution of wealth and democracy and military takeover and libyans on democracy: meh and what egyptians want

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religious affiliation of international migrants

from pew (pew! pew!): Faith on the Move.

nearly three-quarters of all immigrants in the u.s. today (er, well, 2010) are christians (that’s ’cause we’ve got so many mexicans):

39% of immigrants in the e.u. originating from outside the e.u. are muslim:

one-quarter of all jews in the world today have migrated to a new country (a lot of them to israel):

“Of the seven groups considered in this study, Jews have by far the highest level of migration, in percentage terms. About one-quarter of Jews alive today (25%) have left the country in which they were born and now live somewhere else. The proportions of Christians (5%) and Muslims (4%) who have migrated across borders also exceed the global average of 3%.”

370,000 foreign-born jews live in the united states.

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man created god in his own image…

“Was he happy? Cultural difference in conceptions of Jesus”

“In the present research, we examined (a) whether the conception of Jesus differs between Koreans and Americans, and (b) whether different conceptions of Jesus might account for national differences in self-reported personality and subjective well-being. In Study 1, using a free association task, we found that European Americans spontaneously associated Jesus with predominantly positive words such as ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing,’ but rarely associated Jesus with painful or sacrificial terms. In contrast, Koreans spontaneously associated Jesus with both positive (e.g., ‘love’) and painful and sacrificial words. In Study 2, we used personality and well-being scales to assess perceptions of Jesus, as well as participants’ perceptions of their own personalities and well-being. Consistent with Study 1, American participants rated Jesus to be more agreeable, conscientious, extraverted, open to experiences, and happier than Korean participants. As expected from the previous research, American participants also rated themselves to be more agreeable, conscientious, extraverted, open to experiences, happier, and more satisfied with their lives than did Koreans….

“Although we assumed in this study that conceptions of Jesus would affect one’s self-views, it is possible that self-views could color one’s image of Jesus. Indeed, when we examined the reverse direction of the mediation process, we found that national differences in conceptions of Jesus were predicted by national differences in self-reported personality and happiness. These findings show that the relationship between self-perception and the perception of Jesus is bidirectional. To some extent, people project their own personality and well-being onto the image of Jesus.“

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family feud

update 05/31/12: if you’re looking for info on the hatfield and mccoy feud, see here. (^_^)
_____

sooooo … the whole sunni–shi’a split just started as a family argument, huh?

lemme see if i got this straight:

muhammad, of the banu hashim branch of the quraysh tribe, dies.

his followers — a lot of them who are ALSO members of the quraysh tribe — disagree on who his successor should be.

on the one hand, muhammad’s closest family (wife and kids) and closest followers) want ali, muhammad’s paternal cousin AND son-in-law**, ANOTHER member of the banu hashim, to be the new leader of islam.

muhammad’s enemies, primarly the members of the umayyad family, aka the banu abd-shams, which is a DIFFERENT branch of the quraysh tribe, support abu bakr as the new leader of islam. abu bakr was muhammad’s father-in-law and a member of the banu taym branch of, again, the quaraysh tribe.

the umayyad branch of the family and their allies won, and they and all their fellows became sunnis. muhammad’s closest family and the banu hashim lost out, and they and all their fellows became shi’as.

so, we’ve got a minimum of three branches of ONE tribe (the quaraysh tribe) — the banu hashim on one side vs. the umayyad family and the banu taym — fighting over the succession.

afaics, then, the whole sunni-shi’a split started as one great arab hatfield-and-mccoy battle to secure supremacy over mecca and other territories as well as over any other clan-branches|clans|tribes that had happened to convert to islam at that time. no?

click for LARGER view:

[source]

“Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the world.”

**notice the inbreeding.

previously: cousin marriage conundrum addendum

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the shia crescent…

“…is a geo-political term used to describe a region of the Middle East where the majority population is Shi’a, or where there is a strong Shi’a minority in the population…. The nations where Shi’a Muslims form a dominant majority are Azerbaijan, Iran, Bahrain and Iraq, a plurality in Lebanon and large minorities in Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, UAE, and Syria. The shape of these countries put together does in fact resemble a crescent moon or a half moon.” [source]

here’s a map:

looks to me like this crescent coincides pretty well with the extent of the arab y-chromosome haplotype (the j y-chromosome haplotype). i ‘shopped (in red) the shia crescent onto this map:

and here’s the distribution of the j1 y-chromosome haplotype w/shia crescent:

and here’s the distribution of the j2 y-chromosome haplotype w/shia crescent:

coinkidink? don’t think so.

previously: baharnas and ajams and howalas, oh my! and tribalism makes a comeback!

update 03/03: meng bomin worked a little of his cartographical magic and came up with a couple of neat maps showing how|how much the j2 haplotype corresponds to where the wild shi’as are. here’s what he did:

j2 haplotype map + this muslim distribution map = meng’s map number 1
j2 haplotype map + this mid-east religions map = meng’s map number 2

awesomesauce!

thnx, meng! (^_^)

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religion vs. biology

dennis said the other day:

“The waning of religious and nationalistic beliefs means that biology plays a greater role…. Modern science has disillusioned us of our former beliefs, the only belief remaining being the will to power, which is itself a manifestation of nature, in which every living thing lives at the expense of other living things.”

eh. i gotta disagree. ’cause i think this is a false dichotomy: religion vs. biology.

what is religion (or religious beliefs and practices) except an expression of our biology? (our biologies, in fact — that’s partly why we’ve got different religions.) religion is a manifestation of nature. our nature.

religion is just culture — which is just a product of our biology, afaics.

yup. i’m a reductionist. but, hey — reductionism works.

previously: tribalism makes a comeback!

see also: Twins Study Finds Adult Religiosity Heritable from futurepundit.

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