According to the Intuitive Belief Hypothesis, supernatural belief relies heavily on intuitive thinking—and decreases when analytic thinking is engaged. After pointing out various limitations in prior attempts to support this Intuitive Belief Hypothesis, we test it across three new studies using a variety of paradigms, ranging from a pilgrimage field study to a neurostimulation experiment. In all three studies, we found no relationship between intuitive or analytical thinking and supernatural belief. We conclude that it is premature to explain belief in gods as ‘intuitive’, and that other factors, such as socio-cultural upbringing, are likely to play a greater role in the emergence and maintenance of supernatural belief than cognitive style.
In the past thirty years the camino to Santiago de Compostela has been recreated as an eclectic pilgrimage, open to both religious and atheist travellers. Following previous work on motivational orientations and religion (Farias and Lalljee 2008), we conducted a study examining atheist vs. religious pilgrims' motivations to walk the Santiago way. We assessed pilgrims (N = 360) at various parts of the northern Spanish camino using a questionnaire that measured motivations to go on pilgrimage. In addition, we measured levels of positive and negative affect, physical exertion and emotional problems. Atheists scored significantly lower on Community and Religious types of motivations. However, in several measures no differences were found between groups. We suggest that both atheist and religious pilgrims are exploring forms of horizontal and vertical transcendence characterised by a desire to connect to nature and one's deeper self.
Resumo
A história do Islão e dos muçulmanos no Portugal contemporâneo está indelevelmente marcada pelas dinâmicas coloniais, mas também por processos pós-coloniais. As próprias configurações institucionais do “Islão público” na sociedade portuguesa revelam esta importância e, simultaneamente, criaram as condições para uma hierarquização de determinadas vozes e projectos entre os muçulmanos.
Partindo de três pesquisas sustentadas em trabalho de campo etnográfico sobre a Associação Islâmica e Cultural da Margem Sul, que representa a congregação afecta a uma mesquita de inspiração sufi no concelho de Almada, a Noor Fatima, um projecto caritativo encabeçado por uma mulher muçulmana de origem indo-moçambicana, e o Centro Islâmico do Bangladesh (CIB), envolvido no projecto da construção da nova praça da Mouraria, o objectivo deste artigo é demonstrar, por um lado, que esta hierarquia se sustenta em discursos dominantes sobre o Islão, que sublinham uma clivagem entre “muçulmanos portugueses” e “outros muçulmanos”, e, por outro lado, que existem margens que contestam esses discursos, revelando interessantes (des)articulações entre mobilidades, dinâmicas coloniais e pós-imperiais, políticas de reconhecimento e a produção de alteridades.
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