Do forgiving God primes strengthen support for state-sanctioned punishment? Laurin et al (2012) found that beliefs in powerful, intervening Gods (both in general and when made salient) reduce people’s endorsement of state-sanctioned punishment. In light of this, we investigated whether the manner in which God intervenes (via forgiveness or punishment) influences people’s endorsement of state-sa...

Reincarnation is a major facet of the eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Many sects have variant views of reincarnation. Here is a general summary of the basic principles. Most hold to a pantheistic view of God. Pantheism comes from the Greek pan meaning “all” and concept of theism meaning “God.” In Pantheism, God is an impersonal force made up of all things; the universe is God and Go...

Reincarnation is a major facet of the eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Many sects have variant views of reincarnation. Here is a general summary of the basic principles. Most hold to a pantheistic view of God. Pantheism comes from the Greek pan meaning “all” and concept of theism meaning “God.” In Pantheism, God is an impersonal force made up of all things; the universe is God and Go...

Philosophers have often misunderstood Kierkegaard’s views on the nature and purposes of God due to a fascination with his earlier, pseudonymous works. We examine many of Kierkegaard’s later works with the aim of setting forth an accurate view on this matter. The portrait of God that emerges is a personal and fiercely loving God with whom humans can and should enter into relationship. Far from a...

The Bible tells that after Methuselah was born, Enoch “walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.” Then when he became 365 years old, Enoch had a unique homegoing to heaven. The Bible says, “Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, because God took him away” (Gen. 5:22). Someone said that God and Enoch were walking and talking together, and God says, “You know, Enoch, it’s c...

Scrupulosity is a moral/religious subtype of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) that remains understudied within the extant literature. Drawing from separate lines of research suggesting that attachment insecurities underlie OCD and that God functions psychologically much like other attachment figures, we examined a purported association between attachment to God and scrupulosity. A large samp...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental sequence in children's judgments of kindness in a situation of intentionality. The Kindness Judgment Interview was conducted by using three different story types in which parameters on intentions and consequences (benefits) were varied. Sixty-three subjects consisting of kindergarteners, first and third graders were individually int...