Results of qualitative biographical research on Christian fundamentalist converts and de-converts, and on occultist adolescents are presented and documented using case studies. Research focused on life themes and on biographical processes and transformations. Contrastive comparison of the cases resulted in typologies of Christian fundamentalist biographies and of "ways of dis-enchantment". Thes...

john hick’s pluralism hypothesis is an endeavor from and within christian tradition to explain the relation of christianity with other world religions. his basically claim is that all religions epistemologically have the same value and do well in leading their followers to the ultimate salvation. for justifying his claim, hick has to defend his hypothesis at two levels: first he has to defend t...

The spiritual but not religious (SBNR) are a growing population in secularizing societies. Yet, we know little about the underlying psychology of this group or their belief profile. Based on an individual difference approach, we address this knowledge gap by comparing SBNR with religious and non-religious participants. In a sample of Americans (n=1013), we find that the SBNR differ from non-rel...

Through a field survey on the religious beliefs among villagers of the Jingpo Nationality in Dengga Village, Nongdao Town, Ruili in Yunnan, the author of this article believes under the times background of constructing a harmonious contemporary society, as a religious belief and religious culture, Christianity has to be positively led to suit with the socialism society and play a positive role ...

religious knowledge is consists of doctrines that could be attain with amethodological cognition and inquiry concerning religious sources. but theprerequisite of this kind of knowledge is some principles that from whichscholarly studies on religion is begin and leads to conclusion. allamehtabatabaei, in his efforts to achieve a regular and accurate cognition ofreligion according to his special ...

eorge Eliot’s legacy for modernism is worth considering on multiple grounds but especially in the context of religious belief and its influence on social morality. The comments of two early twentieth-century writers are suggestive of the mixed nature of her legacy. On the one hand, novelist Virginia Woolf (among the most strident critics of Victorian culture) famously said of Middle-march (1872...

Recent articles by Erich Goode (2000) and Glenn Sparks (2001) discussed the relationship between religious and paranormal beliefs. Goode proposes that they share a common foundation of belief in phenomena that are outside conventional science. Sparks is less certain of a relationship between traditional religion and paranormal beliefs. However, both writers agree that there are multiple dimensi...

Some of the world’s violent conflicts are mainly economic, territorial or tribal. But many seem to come, at least in part, from conflicts between the belief systems of different groups. How far do these differences have to be accepted as a brute fact, and how far is it possible to transcend them? How far is fruitful dialogue possible between members of conflicting national or religious groups w...