The Internet and online social networks have greatly facilitated and accelerated information diffusion processes, but at the same time they provide fertile ground for the spread of misinformation, rumors and hoaxes. The goal of this work is to introduce a simple modeling framework to study the diffusion of hoaxes and in particular how the availability of debunking information may contain their ...

In the present study we introduce a novel task for the quantitative assessment of both originality and speed of individual associations. This 'BAG' (Bridge-the-Associative-Gap) task was used to investigate the relationships between creativity and paranormal belief. Twelve strong 'believers' and 12 strong 'skeptics' in paranormal phenomena were selected from a large student population (n > 350)....

It has been hypothesized that illusory agency detection is at the basis of belief in supernatural agents and paranormal beliefs. In the present study a biological motion perception task was used to study illusory agency detection in a group of skeptics and a group of paranormal believers. Participants were required to detect the presence or absence of a human agent in a point-light display. It ...

In 1653, the Patriarch Nikon modified liturgical practices to bring the Russian Orthodox Church in line with those of the Eastern (Greek) Orthodox Church, from which it had split 200 years earlier. The Old Believers (staroveri) rejected these changes and continued to worship using the earlier practices. These actions resulted in their persecution by the Russian Orthodox Church, which forced the...

Previous research suggests that implicit sequence learning (ISL) is superior for believers in the paranormal and individuals with increased cerebral dopamine. Thirty-five healthy participants performed feedback-guided anticipations of four arrow directions. A 100-trial random sequence preceded two 100-trial biased sequences in which visual targets (arrows) on trial t tended to be displaced 90 d...

We provide evidence that religious skeptics, as compared to believers, are both more reflective and effective in logical reasoning tasks. While recent studies have reported a negative association between an analytic cognitive style and religiosity, they focused exclusively on accuracy, making it difficult to specify potential underlying cognitive mechanisms. The present study extends the previo...

How to cite this article: De Villiers, P.G.R., 2011, ‘The future existence of the believers according to 2 Thessalonians’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 67(1), Art. #912, 9 pages. DOI: 10.4102/hts.v67i1.912 This article investigated the presentation of the future existence of the believers in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. It analysed how the eschatological language of...

The neurocognitive processes underlying the formation and maintenance of paranormal beliefs are important for understanding schizotypal ideation. Behavioral studies indicated that both schizotypal and paranormal ideation are based on an overreliance on the right hemisphere, whose coarse rather than focussed semantic processing may favor the emergence of 'loose' and 'uncommon' associations. To e...