COVID-19 and two sides of the coin of religiosity

• Published in: Hervormde teologiese studies Vol. 78; no. 4; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: V. Kolganov, Sergei, Vadivel, Balachandran, Treve, Mark, Kalandarova, Dono, V. Fedorova, Natalia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pretoria AOSIS 19-08-2022; African Online Scientific Information Systems (Pty) Ltd t/a AOSIS; AOSIS (Pty) Ltd; University of Pretoria
• Subjects: Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Disease transmission; divine religions; Epidemics; Iran; Life; Loneliness; Mental health; Pandemics; Peace; Religion; Religion and science; Religiosity; Russia; Science; Iran; Russia; COVID-19; divine religions; religiosity; science; religion
• ISSN: 0259-9422; 2072-8050; 2072-8050
• DOI: 10.4102/hts.v78i4.7681

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first appeared in China in late 2019 and since then it has become a pandemic. Various countries, in accordance with their cultures, have adopted different approaches to deal with the spread of this disease. The dimensions of this disease and its global spread are such that it will certainly have enormous effects on various aspects of human life for many years. One of these issues is examining the approach of religious countries in dealing with this crisis. The issue of science and religion is one of the main issues in the philosophy of religion. A historical event that human society is struggling with today is the COVID-19 crisis. The issues of religion and science were intertwined during the COVID-19 outbreak, contrary to what some thought. This shows that the opposition between religion and science is not real but aims to attack religion without a valid reason. Given the importance of the subject, this article addresses two aspects of people’s exposure to religion during the COVID-19 period. On the one hand, the researchers’ field observations indicate that group of citizens has turned towards religious teachings since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. On the other hand, another group of citizens have distanced themselves from religiosity, raising the duality of science and religion.Contribution This article describes the dual attitude of citizens towards religiosity due to the occurrence of COVID-19, which has not been previously considered in research.