Peter Berger (1929) is an American sociologist best known for his collaboration with Thomas Luckman in writing The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That book argues that human reality, and knowledge of it, is a social construct, emerging from the individual or group’s interaction with larger social structures (institutions). Social structures, once widely adopted, lose their history as social constructions (objectivation), and come over time, by the people who live within them, to be deemed natural realities independent of human construction (reification). Berger predicted, in his later book, The Sacred Canopy, near-term all-encompassing secularization of religion, which prediction has proved false, especially in the third world (as Berger himself has acknowledged in his later work, Desecularization).

神圣的帷幕 : 宗教社会学理论之要素 = The sacred canopy elements of a sociological theory of religion

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us

Church-based health promotion (CBHP) interventions can reach broad populations and have great potential for reducing health disparities. From a socioecological perspective, churches and other religious organizations can influence members' behaviors at multiple levels of change. Formative research is essential to determine appropriate strategies and messages for diverse groups and denominations. A collaborative partnership approach utilizing principles of community-based participatory research, and involving churches in program design and delivery, is essential for recruitment, participation, and sustainability. For African Americans, health interventions that incorporate spiritual and cultural contextualization have been effective. Evidence indicates that CBHP programs have produced significant impacts on a variety of health behaviors. Key elements of CBHP are described with illustrations from the authors' research projects.

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.28.021406.144016

Church-Based Health Promotion Interventions: Evidence and Lessons Learned

Online games have exploded in popularity, but for many researchers access to players has been difficult. The study reported here is the first to collect a combination of survey and behavioral data with the cooperation of a major virtual world operator. In the current study, 7,000 players of the massively multiplayer online game (MMO) EverQuest 2 were surveyed about their offline characteristics, their motivations and their physical and mental health. These self-report data were then combined with data on participants’ actual in-game play behaviors, as collected by the game operator. Most of the results defy common stereotypes in surprising and interesting ways and have implications for communication theory and for future investigations of games.

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Who plays, how much, and why? Debunking the stereotypical gamer profile

Despite the declining salience of divisions among religious groups, the boundary between believers and nonbelievers in America remains strong. This article examines the limits of Americans' acceptance of atheists. Using new national survey data, it shows atheists are less likely to be accepted, publicly and privately, than any others from a long list of ethnic, religious, and other minority groups. This distrust of atheists is driven by religious predictors, social location, and broader value orientations. It is rooted in moral and symbolic, rather than ethnic or material, grounds. We demonstrate that increasing acceptance of religious diversity does not extend to the nonreligious, and present a theoretical framework for understanding the role of religious belief in providing a moral basis for cultural membership and solidarity in an otherwise highly diverse society.

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Atheists As ''Other'': Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American

Highlights  College-age Americans are divided among not two but three distinct worldviews: Religious, Secular, and Spiritual. o Each of the three worldviews is attached to a distinct outlook on theological, philosophical, scientific, public-policy, and political issues.  Gender gaps are noticeable within the Secular (with more males) and Spiritual (with more females) groups, while the Religious group attracts males and females more evenly.  Each of the group has a distinct religious identification make-up: o The Religious group is overwhelmingly Christian of various denominations. o The Secular group overwhelmingly distance themselves from religion; 70% profess no religion (Nones) and 11% refuse to answer. o The Spiritual group is varied in its religious make-up: one-third are Nones and 17% identify with Eastern religions, Judaism, and New Religious Movements.  Many college-age students seem to have a worldview different from the one in which they were raised: o The Religious group attended religious services regularly (91% monthly or more often) in childhood. o The Secular group is almost evenly divided; 49% were raised in actively religious homes, and 51% attended infrequently in their early years. o The Spiritual group seems to lie midway between the Secular and Religious populations; two-thirds were raised in religious homes.  Patterns of belief in God are remarkably different in the three worldviews: o The Religious group mirrors the general American adult population with 70% firm believers and only 2% saying they don't believe in God or don't know where there is a God and don't believe there is any way to find out. o At the other spectrum are Secular students, of whom 77% either don't believe in God or don't know if there is a God. 2 o Spiritual students exhibit an array of preferences: 27% believe in a higher power (but not in a personal God); 24% are firm believers; 21% believe in God (while having doubts); 12% don't know if God exists and only 5% don't believe in God.  Opinions on scientific and philosophical issues differ widely. When asked separately, " Do you believe in miracles? " and " Do you believe in reason/rationalism? " o A strong majority of Religious students believes in miracles and a smaller majority believes in reason and rationalism. o The Secular are as committed to reason (83%) as the Religious are to belief in miracles (84%). Only 13% of Seculars believe in miracles. o The …

American Religious Identification Survey

The present study examines perceived discrimination faced by religious ‘nones’. After distinguishing between atheists, agnostics, and ‘nones’ who are deists or theists, we use nationally representative data from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) to study the contexts in which these various types of religious ‘nones’ have reported experiencing discrimination. The strongest predictor of such discrimination was not theological atheism or agnosticism but self-identifying as an atheist or agnostic when asked what one's religion is. Context-specific predictors of discrimination are age, region of the country, rural versus urban location, parents’ religious identifications, educational attainment, ethnicity and race. Results are consistent with the view that people who hold more pronounced views are more likely to report discrimination.

On the Receiving End: Discrimination toward the Non-Religious in the United States

Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar with Ryan Cragun and Juhem Navarro-Rivera The 1990s was the decade when the "secular boom" occurred -"secular boom" occurred --- each year 1.3 each year 1.3 million more adult Americans joined the ranks of the Nones. Since 2001 the annual increase has halved to 660,000 a year. (Fig.3.1) (Fig.3.1) Whereas Nones are presently 15% of the total adult U.S. population, 22% of total adult U.S. population, 22% of Americans aged 18-Americans aged 18 ---29 years self29 years self29 years self----identify as identify as Nones. (Fig.1.2) Nones. (Fig.1.2) In terms of Belonging (self-In terms of Belonging (self---identification) 1 identification) 1 in 6 Americans is presently of No Religion, while in terms of Belief and Behavior the ratio is higher around 1 in 4. (Fig. 1.17) ratio is higher around 1 in 4. (Fig. 1.17) Regarding belief in the divine, most Nones are neither atheists nor theists but rather agnostics and deists (59%) and perhaps best described as skeptics. (Fig.1.17) best described as skeptics. (Fig.1.17) The most significant difference between the religious and non-religious and non ---religious populations is a religious populations is a gender gap. (Fig. 1.17) gender gap. (Fig. 1.17)

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American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population

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American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2008)

Les A.A. demontrent que la religion est associee a l'acquisition d'une education secondaire par les femmes blanches aux Etats-Unis. Elle a des effets directs et indirects sur la reussite scolaire. Les traditions religieuses ne mettent pas toutes l'accent sur l'importance de la famille, du mariage et de l'education des enfants avec la meme intensite. En retour, ceci determine le niveau d'education auquel se situent les femmes. Les A.A. montrent egalement qu'il existe une relation entre la religion et l'education des femmes blanches au-dela d'autres facteurs socio-demographiques. Les differences de niveau d'education sont plus accentuees parmi les femmes plus âgees

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1386522

Ariela Keysar

Papers

American Religious Identification Survey

On the Receiving End: Discrimination toward the Non-Religious in the United States

American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population

American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2008)

The impact of religious identification on differences in educational attainment among American women in 1990