D. Z. Phillips thinks that the religious concept of immortality should necessarily be construed as not involving any idea of the self existing after death. In this paper it will be argued that his attempt to support this view on the basis of a descriptive analysis of the self-renouncing character of faith is inadequate. The notion of the finality of death is not essential to, nor inseparable from, a religious conception in which the nothingness of the self is stressed. That (...) this is so is suggested by the existence of religious notions of the nothingness of the self which are religious, in a sense comparable to that implied by Phillips, only in combination with a view of death as not being a termination of the self. (shrink)

Previous empirical studies concerned with the association between paranormal beliefs and conventional religiosity have produced conflicting evidence. Drawing on Rice's distinction between classic paranormal beliefs and religious paranormal beliefs, the present study proposed a modified form of the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale to produce separate scores for these two forms of paranormal belief, styled ‘religious paranormal beliefs’ and ‘classic paranormal beliefs’. Data provided by a sample of 143 undergraduate students in Northern Ireland and Wales, who completed the Francis Scale (...) of Attitude toward Christianity alongside the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale, demonstrated that conventional religiosity is positively correlated with religious paranormal beliefs, but independent of classic paranormal beliefs. These findings provide a clear framework within which previous conflicting evidence can be interpreted. It is recommended that future research should distinguish clearly between these two forms of paranormal beliefs and that the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Beliefs Scale should be routinely modified to detach the four religious paranormal belief items from the total scale score. (shrink)

Holmes Rolston III attempts to get us to recognise nature as an objectively independent valuational sphere with its own activity of defending value. But in inspiring our '...psychological joining (with) on-going planetary natural history...' what his account ultimately does is assimilate nature to the human. For, on his account, we find value in nature through a recognition that something that goes on in us (namely, defending value) also occurs in the natural world. That, it is argued, is far from the (...) authentically deep form of biocentrism that is implicitly his ideal. The real depth to a biocentric viewpoint is to be found through a route other than the one taken by Rolston. Moreover, it is a route that has nothing to do with advancing the idea of what I call a 'naturogenic' value – a value generated by nature. Rather, it relates to seeing nature as other than the human (as illustrated with reference to Emerson), in a way that is genuinely unsullied by the claims of self – which, in the case of human beings, are the most elemental supports for a species perspective. (shrink)

This paper criticizes some Wittgensteinian philosophers' adoption of Wittgenstein's idea of the view sub specie aeternitatis as independence of the world to seek to illuminate the character of self-renouncing religious belief. The form of absence of self that accompanies the view sub specie aeternitatis is neither inherently self-renouncing nor intrinsic to a self-renouncing response to the world. Extrapolating Wittgenstein's idea in an attempt to clarify the nature of religious belief is of limited use to descriptive philosophers since it oversimplifies the (...) character and forms of self-renunciation found in religious life. (shrink)

This work examines the self-renouncing dimension which Wittgensteinian philosophy subscribes to ethico-religious ideals. Wittensteinian values are explored through a range of literary and cultural illustrations from Wittgenstein's own European milieu. The book also highlights an alternative model of self-renouncing faith, which has methodological implications for how a Wittgensteinian descriptivist approach should be carried out. Wittgensteinian assumptions about the nature of self-renunciation, the religious believer's orientation to the world and the place of the metaphysical in religion are among some of the (...) elements that need to be reappraised. (shrink)

This article builds on the tradition of attitudinal measures of religiosity established by Leslie Francis and colleagues with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity by introducing a new measure to assess the attitudinal disposition of Pagans. A battery of items was completed by 75 members of a Pagan Summer Camp. These items were reduced to produce a 21-item scale that measured aspects of Paganism concerned with: the God/Goddess, worshipping, prayer, and coven. The scale recorded an alpha coefficient of 0.93. (...) Construct validity of the Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism was demonstrated by the clear association with measures of participation in private rituals. (shrink)

Studies concerning the changing landscapes of religiosity and spirituality in the lives of young people in England and Wales draw attention to decline in traditional religiosity and to growth in alternative spiritualities. The present study examined whether such alternative spiritualities occupy the same personality space as traditional religiosity. A sample of 2,950 13- to 16-year-old pupils attending 11 secondary schools in England and Wales completed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity and an index of paranormal belief, alongside the abbreviated-form (...) Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised. The data demonstrated that these two forms of belief were related in different ways to Eysenck's dimensional model of personality space. While attitude toward Christianity occupied the space defined by low psychoticism scores and high lie scale scores, paranormal belief was related to high psychoticism scores and was independent of lie scale scores. These findings support the view that alternative spiritualities may be associated with different personalities. (shrink)

This study seeks to clarify the character of authentic religious belief as an orientation to the world as this is conceived of, in a remarkably similar way, by Wittgenstein and Tolstoy. Rather than outlining piecemeal similarities, the study presents a systematic model which captures the nature of the religious orientation to the world in Wittgenstein. This model comprises three interlinked elements: the Absoluteness-Element, the Perspective-Element and the Independence-Element. Turning to Tolstoy, it unearths a comparable structure in his thought. No attempt (...) is made to trace whatever direct influence Tolstoy may have had on Wittgenstein. But, in demonstrating the depth and nature of the similarity in the way both thinkers share a common model of the authentic religious orientation, it is hoped to inspire a deeper appreciation of the world-view to which Wittgenstein was attached through his cultural milieu and general background. (shrink)

Wittgenstein is widely recognised as a philosopher with a markedly ethical character to his thought. This paper seeks to highlight the dimension of selflessness and renunciation in this ethical character. It also seeks to show that there are distinct differences in Wittgenstein's implicit conception of what an ethical selflessness amounts to in the early and the later periods. The concept of absolute safety enables us to appreciate the connections between the early Wittgenstein and a particular type of nineteenth‐century obsession with (...) a selflessness that combines with a self‐sufficient capacity to stand aloof from anxiety in the face of the human condition involving meaninglessness and death. In the early Wittgenstein that aloofness came close to a solipsistic and, in some ways, self‐affirming apartness from everything other than the self. In contrast, the ethical spirit that permeates Wittgenstein's later thought is imbued with a sense of the immersion of the self ultimately and absolutely ‘in the world’. The sense in which this latter phrase is used is defined further in the paper. (shrink)