Children and Childhood in World Religions
Children and Childhood in World Religions

Author: Don S. Browning

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2009-08-14

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 081354842X

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While children figure prominently in religious traditions, few books have directly explored the complex relationships between children and religion. This is the first book to examine the theme of children in major religions of the world. Each of six chapters, edited by world-class scholars, focuses on one religious tradition and includes an introduction and a selection of primary texts ranging from legal to liturgical and from the ancient to the contemporary. Through both the scholarly introductions and the primary sources, this comprehensive volume addresses a range of topics, from the sanctity of birth to a child's relationship to evil, showing that issues regarding children are central to understanding world religions and raising significant questions about our own conceptions of children today.

Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality
Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality

Author: Karen-Marie Yust

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9780742544635

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Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions provides a forum for prominent religious scholars to examine the state of religious knowledge and theological reflection on spiritual development in childhood and adolescence. Featuring essays from thinkers representing the world's major religious traditions, the book introduces new voices, challenges assumptions, raises new questions, and broadens the base of knowledge and investment in this important domain of life. Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality will set the stage for new waves of scholarship and dialogue within and across traditions, disciplines, and cultures that will enrich understanding and strengthen how the world's religious traditions, and others, understand and cultivate the spiritual lives of children and adolescents around the globe.

Born Believers
Born Believers

Author: Justin L. Barrett

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-03-20

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1439196575

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Infants have a lot to make sense of in the world: Why does the sun shine and night fall; why do some objects move in response to words, while others won’t budge; who is it that looks over them and cares for them? How the developing brain grapples with these and other questions leads children, across cultures, to naturally develop a belief in a divine power of remarkably consistent traits––a god that is a powerful creator, knowing, immortal, and good—explains noted developmental psychologist and anthropologist Justin L. Barrett in this enlightening and provocative book. In short, we are all born believers. Belief begins in the brain. Under the sway of powerful internal and external influences, children understand their environments by imagining at least one creative and intelligent agent, a grand creator and controller that brings order and purpose to the world. Further, these beliefs in unseen super beings help organize children’s intuitions about morality and surprising life events, making life meaningful. Summarizing scientific experiments conducted with children across the globe, Professor Barrett illustrates the ways human beings have come to develop complex belief systems about God’s omniscience, the afterlife, and the immortality of deities. He shows how the science of childhood religiosity reveals, across humanity, a “natural religion,” the organization of those beliefs that humans gravitate to organically, and how it underlies all of the world’s major religions, uniting them under one common source. For believers and nonbelievers alike, Barrett offers a compelling argument for the human instinct for religion, as he guides all parents in how to effectively encourage children in developing a healthy constellation of beliefs about the world around them.

Childhood in World History
Childhood in World History

Author: Peter N. Stearns

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1317201132

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Taking a global look at what the category of childhood has meant from agricultural societies to the present day, Childhood in World History offers a vital overview of this topical field. Through comparative analysis, Peter Stearns facilitates a cross-cultural and transnational understanding of attitudes towards the role of children in society, and how "models" of childhood have developed throughout history. Engaging with issues around children’s role in the family and the involvement of communal, national, educational, and global infrastructures, Stearns unpacks the experience of childhood in the West, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. This expanded and updated third edition includes: updated bibliographies and suggested readings expanded discussions of religion and children’s rights a new chapter on families in developing economies in the early twentieth century broadened discussions of childhood in Japan and in communist countries. With expanded further reading lists, Stearns’s accessible text not only provides an overview of its field but also offers a research guide for more specialized study. Concisely presented but broad in scope, Stearns’s accessible text guides readers through the transformations of the concept of childhood.

Religions of the World for Kids
Religions of the World for Kids

Author: Shalu Sharma

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2014-08-06

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 9781500751067

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This book was written with the sole purpose of explaining the most popular and important religions of the world. However, there is no one superior religion or belief system in this world. All of the religions that have been developed throughout the ages were based on the cultures and values of the people from those time periods. Their ways of thinking then got passed down to future generations of people through the use of holy books and scriptures. You don't necessarily have to believe in any particular God or religion to adapt a belief system similar to the religions of this book. If you have read through the descriptions of each religion then you will understand that most of them have one thing in common. They are all about teaching people how to act better in their lives by treating others fairly and with kindness. Without some kind of religion or belief system, then people would just wander around thinking they could do whatever they wanted without any consequences. You may think that we have police and laws to control people, but where do you think those laws originated from? Many of our modern day laws come from religious beliefs, like do not kill, do not steal and do not abuse others. We also have many politicians and government leaders who are religious and they create their laws based on the religious teachings they were taught as a child. This is how much impact religion has on our lives, whether you are religious yourself or not. The religions mentioned in this book are the oldest and most popular religions of the modern world. Table of contents: What is religion? Types of religion What is God? Christianity Islam Hinduism Buddhism Atheism Sikhism Judaism Bahai Faith Confucianism Jainism Zoroastrianism Shinto Wicca Shamanism Taoism Message from the author

Relax, It's Just God
Relax, It's Just God

Author: Wendy Thomas Russell

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2017-01-16

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1941932010

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Gold-medal winner of a Next Generation Book Award, silver-medal winner of the Independent Publishers Book Award. As featured on the PBS NewsHour “A gem of a book.” — LIBRARY JOURNAL (STARRED REVIEW) A step-by-step guide to raising confident, open-minded kids in an age of religious intolerance. Relax, It's Just God offers parents fresh, practical and honest ways to address issues of God and faith with children while promoting curiosity and kindness, and successfully fending off indoctrination. A rapidly growing demographic cohort in America, secular parents are at the forefront of a major and unprecedented cultural shift. Unable to fall back on what they were taught as children, many of these parents are struggling, or simply failing, to address issues of God, religion and faith with their children in ways that promote honesty, curiosity, kindness and independence. The author sifts through hard data, including the results of a survey of 1,000 nonreligious parents, and delivers gentle but straightforward advice to both non-believers and open-minded believers. With a thoughtful voice infused with humor, Russell seamlessly merges scientific thought, scholarly research and everyday experience with respect for a full range of ways to view the world. "Relax, It's Just God" goes beyond the numbers to assist parents (and grandparents) who may be struggling to find the right time place, tone and language with which to talk about God, spirituality and organized religion. It encourages parents to promote religious literacy and understanding and to support kids as they explore religion on their own -- ensuring that each child makes up his or her own mind about what to believe (or not believe) and extends love and respect to those who may not agree with them. Subjects covered include: • Talking openly about our beliefs without indoctrinating kids • Making religious literacy fun and engaging • Talking about death without the comforts of heaven • Navigating religious differences with extended family members • What to do when kids get threatened with hell