Psychological health and attitude toward Christianity: a study among pupils attending Catholic schools in the Netherlands

This study examines the wider relevance of recent research conducted in England, Northern Ireland and Hong Kong concerning the association between religion and psychological health among young people, by administering translations of the same measures to a sample of 980 pupils attending Catholic secondary schools in the Netherlands. These pupils completed the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data confirmed the key finding from previous research that a more positive attitude toward Christianity is associated with lower scores recorded on the psychoticism scale. The implications of these findings are discussed for religious educators

The utility of practical theology: mapping the domain, goals, strategies and criteria of practical theological research

Historically practical theology entered the theological encyclopaedia as a discipline of ‘crises’ in the praxis which ministers, congregations and churches experienced in making the Christian tradition relevant in the life of individuals, communities or in society as a whole. Among scholars in practical theology there is a deep consensus that practical theology starts with practical concerns and contributes to practice, but what is the utility of practical theology? This article want to ‘deconstruct’ the consensus that all practical theology is by default practical. If practical theology wants to construct knowledge about the improvement of practice, some strategies are preferable compared to other strategies. The question of utility refers to the methodological criteria of empirical research regarding (a) the object of research or the problem to be solved, (b) the needs of the stakeholders as to the research and its results and, (c) the type of knowledge to be produced. If utility is the target of practical theological research, then the question is which research strategies meet these methodological criteria better than other criteria. Some research strategies are strong on reaching certain goals, but are weak regarding other goals. It is only in the complexity of the type of knowledge, research strategy and methodological criteria that the focus on practice orientation can be decided

Integration of animal husbandry and nature conservation on grassland farms

A farming model for peat grassland has been designed as an instrument in physical planning, integrating equally nature conservation and animal husbandry by combining the conditions for existence of both. It includes a subdivision of the farm in production grassland and nature grassland, such as marsh marigold Caltha palustris hayfield and blue grassland. Each type of grassland ha a suitable combination of groundwater level, P- and N-controlled animal and plant production, and a regime of mowing and grazing depending on its function for flora, (avi)fauna and animal husbandry

Religion and Conflict Attribution

Religion in a pluralistic society can play a dual role with regard to conflict. It can promote either violence or peace. Religion and Conflict Attribution examines the causes of interreligious conflict as perceived by Christian, Muslim and Hindu college students in Tamil Nadu, India

Evaluation of the harmonic method for predicting Belgian coastal tides

This written contribution should be considered as an extended abstract of a paper that will be published elsewhere. Preliminary results are presented of an evaluation of a particular model approach to predict the ocean tides at the Belgian coast

Probability distributions of the work in the 2D-Ising model

Probability distributions of the magnetic work are computed for the 2D Ising model by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The system is first prepared at equilibrium for three temperatures below, at and above the critical point. A magnetic field is then applied and grown linearly at different rates. Probability distributions of the work are stored and free energy differences computed using the Jarzynski equality. Consistency is checked and the dynamics of the system is analyzed. Free energies and dissipated works are reproduced with simple models. The critical exponent $\delta$ is estimated in an usual manner.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Comments are welcom

Religion and Conflict Attribution

Religion in a pluralistic society can play a dual role with regard to conflict. It can promote either violence or peace. Religion and Conflict Attribution examines the causes of interreligious conflict as perceived by Christian, Muslim and Hindu college students in Tamil Nadu, India