The nature and etiology of religious certitude: Implications of the EI framework and beliefs, events, and values inventory

Religious certitude is often associated with conflict between individuals and groups, though the nature of this relationship is still not clear. To further clarify these dynamics, the historical psychology of religion is reviewed and contrasted with current perspectives from social psychology and neuroscience, with an eye towards better understanding the variance within religious expressions and their associated relationships with intergroup conflict. It is hypothesized that religious certainty is related to a difficulty in engaging with contradictory religious perspectives, and that the pull towards certainty is tied to an individual’s unique psychological structure, much of which is developed through the interaction of formative variables over the lifespan. Utilizing data (N=2331) collected during the Forum BEVI Project, a multi-institution, multi-year project coordinated by the Forum on Education Abroad and the International Beliefs and Values Institute, statistical analyses consisting of ANOVAs, regression analyses, and structural equation modeling are used to explore these ideas. Results suggest that a propensity to identify with religious certitude is predictive of one’s beliefs in a number of other areas. Further, individuals who report distressing early life events associated with unmet developmental needs may tend towards belief certainty. However, structural equation modeling highlights the complexity of this relationship, suggesting the importance of accounting for individual differences. Finally, analyses indicate that the variance in levels of certainty within religious groups is greater than the variance between these groups. It is therefore concluded that accounting for levels of religious certainty is more helpful than emphasizing particular religious traditions when seeking to understand intergroup conflict. These findings suggest the value of fostering an agnostic theory of knowledge, and a continuum of belief is proposed to illustrate this concept in relation to religious belief. Towards this end, interventions meant to facilitate intergroup dialogue and understanding while respecting individual theological traditions are highlighted

Fuzzy Expert System for Tropical Infectious Disease by Certainty Factor

Communication between doctor and patient play an important role in determining the diagnosis of the illness suffered by the patient. Consultation time constraints led to insufficient information obtained to produce a diagnosis. This limitation is overcome by developing an expert system using fuzzy logic to represent the vagueness of symptoms experienced by patients and the certainty factor represents a relationship between the symptoms and disease. Fuzzy logic method begins with the acquisition of knowledge to produce the facts and rules, implication process, composition and defuzzification. The result of defuzzification used in the calculation of sequential and combined certainty factor which represent the belief percentage of diseases diagnosis that suffered by the patient. The results of the expert diagnosis with expert system for the given cases indicates the system, has the similarity diagnosis with the expert at 93.99%

The analysis of the relationship between epistemological beliefs and TPACK education competence among pre-service teachers

The purpose of the present research is defining TPACK education competence and epistemological beliefs of pre-service teachers, and presenting the relationship between TPACK education competence and epistemological belief. In accordance with this purpose, TPACK education competence scale and Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire were conducted on 342 (222 female-65%, 120 male-35%) pre-service teachers studying senior year at Necmettin Erbakan University, Faculty of Education in 2012-2013 academic-year. According to the findings obtained from the present designed in quantitative method, pre-service teachers’ epistemological belief scores are ranked as learning process-casting doubt on authority/expert knowledge, learning effort, innate/fixed ability, and certainty of knowledge. As for TPACK education competencies, pre-service teachers perceive themselves as advanced level. Another finding is that, gender is not an effective variable in terms of epistemological beliefs and TPACK education competencies among pre-service teachers. For the correlations between TPACK education competencies and epistemological beliefs among pre-service teachers, only learning process and doubt on expert knowledge factors are positively correlated with TPACK competencies at medium level. From this perspective, it can be claimed that TPACK education competencies are higher among pre-service teachers who tend to believe that acquiring knowledge process is important in learning

ON THE RATIONAL SCOPE OF PROBABILISTIC RULE-BASED INFERENCE SYSTEMS

Belief updating schemes in artificial intelligence may be viewed as three dimensional languages, consisting of a syntax (e.g. probabilities or certainty factors), a calculus (e.g. Bayesian or CF combination rules), and a semantics (i.e. cognitive interpretations of competing formalisms). This paper studies the rational scope of those languages on the syntax and calculus grounds. In particular, the paper presents an endomorphism theorem which highlights the limitations imposed by the conditional independence assumptions implicit in the CF calculus. Implications of the theorem to the relationship between the CF and the Bayesian languages and the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence are presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of some implications on rule-based knowledge engineering in uncertain domains.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Natural Philosophy and Theology in Seventeenth-Century England

This thesis explores the disciplinary relationship between natural philosophy (the study of nature or body) and theology (the study of the divine) in seventeenth-century England. Early modern disciplines had two essential functions. First, they set the rules and boundaries of argument – knowledge was therefore legitimised and made intelligible within disciplinary contexts. And second, disciplines structured pedagogy, parcelling knowledge so it could be studied and taught. This dual role meant disciplines were epistemic and social structures. They were composed of various elements, and consequently, they related to one another in a variety of complex ways. As such, the contestability of early modern knowledge was reflected in contestability of disciplines – their content and boundaries. Francis Bacon, Thomas White, Henry More and John Locke are the focus of the four chapters respectively, with Joseph Glanvill, Thomas Hobbes, other Cambridge divines, and a variety of medieval scholastic authors providing context, comparison and reinforcement. These case studies offer a cross-section of seventeenth-century thought and belief; they embody different professional and institutional interests, and represent an array of philosophical, theological and religious positions. Nevertheless, each of them, in different ways, and to different effect, put the relationship between natural philosophy and theology at the heart of their intellectual endeavours. Together, they demonstrate that, in seventeenth-century England, natural philosophy and theology were in flux, and that their disciplinary relationship was complex, entailing degrees of overlap and alienation. Primarily, natural philosophy and theology investigated the nature and constitution of the world, and, together, determined the relationship between its constituent parts – natural and divine. However, they also reflected the scope of man’s cognitive faculties, establishing which bits of the world were knowable, and outlining the grounds for, and appropriate degrees of, certainty and belief. Thus, both disciplines, and their relationship with one another, contributed to broad discussions about, truth, certainty and opinion. This, in turn, established normative guidelines. To some extent, the rightness or wrongness of belief and behaviour was determined by particular definitions of, and relationship between, natural philosophy and theology. Consequently, man’s place in the world – his relationship with nature, God and his fellow man – was triangulated through these disciplines.CHES

Resisting the Lure of Certainty, Seeking the Unity of Truth: A Nineteenth-Century Voice with Twenty-first-Century Resonance

In her essay, the author seeks to bring the vision of nineteenth-century American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce to the attention of those involved in the contemporary debate over the relationship between religion and science. Peirce\'s conception of a \"scientific religion \" and the openness of a scientific integrated with the human experience of the divine as a way of overcoming the equating of truth with rigid certainty is of particular relevance today, when the dangers of fundamentalist biblical interpretation are especially evident

Resisting the Lure of Certainty, Seeking the Unity of Truth: A Nineteenth-Century Voice with Twenty-first-Century Resonance

In her essay, the author seeks to bring the vision of nineteenth-century American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce to the attention of those involved in the contemporary debate over the relationship between religion and science. Peirce\'s conception of a \"scientific religion \" and the openness of a scientific integrated with the human experience of the divine as a way of overcoming the equating of truth with rigid certainty is of particular relevance today, when the dangers of fundamentalist biblical interpretation are especially evident