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In this article, the author attempts to pull together information and opinion relevant to an assessment of the religious significance of psychedelic drugs. The author states that the evidence indicates that these substances are not dangerous if responsibly used, and that they are non-habit-forming. Most researchers agree that a physiological tolerance is built up with regular use. The author discusses some of the results of his brief study on sixteen students who had taken LSD in their college campus. There were a number references to self-objectification, and to gains in insight about oneself. There was great variation in the degree of love experienced; some felt closer to other persons, others felt more separated and isolated. Certain types of inner events are experienced as fearful and hallucinatory by some subjects, and ecstatic, religious and highly beneficial by others. The relation between preparation for the drug session and the nature of the experience is problematical. One clear result of research so far is that set and setting are of considerable importance in determining what happens.

If religion is faith concerning man's fate, how can this faith find expression today? This is a historical question: for all that will follow about shedding received notions and holding tradition in abeyance, this tradition, this received notion of the relevance of history, of man's historicity, cannot be done without in assessing surrender and hence its relevance for religion. There are some expectations, in particular two, that the title of this paper may raise but that are false; they should be dissipated at once. One, there will be no discussion of the social aspects of religion. Nor will there be any comparison between the analysis of surrender and innumerable extant comments on related phenomena, such as religious or mystical experiences. In this late historical phase, when there even is a sense in which we might be past history, or might soon be past history, religion may well appear as the mood embraced in an effort to come to terms with two unanswerable questions-it is the phase in our history in which one knows that these questions are unanswerable.

The article presents information on research papers related to psychoanalysis published in various journals. In his research paper "Play, the mediator between opposites- its concretization in arson," published in a 1971 issue of "British Journal of Medical Psychology," Anneliese Pontius makes a contribution to ideas about the origin of arson. In another research paper "Parting, clinging, individuation," published in a 1972 issue of the journal "Guild of Pastoral Psychology, its author J.W.T. Redfearn treats parting and clinging as the problem of achieving autonomy without a cut from roots which inevitably leads to a lack of solid conviction.

The full time religious professional in a religious collectivity occupies a strategic position in the social system in which he is professionally involved. The multifarious tasks in which he engages are to be seen as due, in part, to the diffuseness of his responsibilities, a diffuseness which is characteristic of leadership roles in any social system. The coordinating and harmonizing facets of any leadership role demand this kind of generalized or diffuse role definition. While this diffuseness is characteristic of any leadership role in any social system, goals or objectives of the social system which sustains the full time professional religious leader are themselves more diffuse and less amenable to rational evaluation than are the goals of most organizations in this society. In its own understanding, the church exists to cure souls, to save souls, and/or to witness to God's saving act in Jesus as the Christ; hence, as conceived internally, its ultimate goal transcends moral, cognitive and emotive goals or objectives, although dimensions of each goal are involved in the objectives of the social system that constitutes the church and in the theological understanding that informs these goals.

The article offers the author's insights concerning personnel management abroad. The author explores the concept of cross-cultural approach of anthropologists and theory of communication developed by Bell Telephone Co. He states that cross-cultural approach has been applied in various fields including sociology, education, and literature. He says that the original papers and books on communication theory are strictly for the people having mathematical bent. Furthermore, the author associates the cross-cultural approach and communication theory in explaining personnel management in terms of their use in the interpretation and communication of beliefs on personnel problems.

This paper questions the assumption that religion, or its functional alternatives, inevitably provides the basis for the cultural integration of all societies. In modern societies the process of differentiation has reached the point at which a normative order based on religious beliefs and values is no longer possible. This development, however, coincides with increases in productive capacity which tend to make less difficult the tasks of motivating enough individuals to work and of providing legitimacy for the social order. As a religious basis to the normative order becomes less necessary, religion will continue to have functions for certain strata and for private individuals, but these functions will be more likely to be expressive than utilitarian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings of a study dealing with some factors associated with religious and political affiliation in a college population. Specifically, relationships between religious affiliation, belief and participation, political orientation and socio-economic status are examined. The influence of religion on secular activity has long been of interest to sociologists. The classical works of sociologist Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Among college populations, the study provides the most comprehensive body of empirical data on students' religious values and their correlates. The article reports that religious belief is widespread but that commitment is rare. Substantial differences are found among major religious groups. Catholic students score highest on a scale of religiousness and Jewish students score lowest with Protestants falling in between. This article also deals with the relationship between parents' religious orientation and the students' religious beliefs.

The article presents a discussion on the unity of thought and belief. In recent years there have appeared a number of empirical studies on the relation between social belief and cognition. In most of these studies the specific social belief under scrutiny was ethnic prejudice, or the authoritarianism conceived to underlie it. The research program regarding the relations between belief, as measured by the Dogmatism Scale, and thought, as measured by cognitive tasks, is being derived solely from the cognitive model, which attempts to tie together the organization of thought with that of belief. The concepts employed in describing such properties seem to be equally applicable to both lines of inquiry and permit one to flit with relative ease from belief to thought-and back again to belief, so much so that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to delineate where believing ends and thinking begins. The outcome of the cognitive studies discussed in this paper suggests that the model provides a fertile basis for further research relating belief to thought. Thus, the researchers intend to return to Doodleland to test other properties of the thought-belief model.

Empirical studies indicated little evidence for generational differences on the level of beliefs traditionally referred to as attitudes (see Rokeach's typology). At the intermediate level of beliefs, those concerning authority, there appeared more possibility of generational discontinuity, especially in relation to the legitimacy of national institutions. Although very little research has been done on value orientations, studies of political attitudes have indicated higher parent-child agreement on partisan attitudes than on political value orientations. Data from a sample of college students and their parents indicate striking generational differences on another value orientation, a measure of time perspective. It appears that writers who have argued that a counterculture is emerging among the younger generation are concentrating on the value orientation level, while the debunkers of the notion of a generation gap have focused almost entirely upon the level of attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relationship between religious persuasion and fear of death in physically healthy persons and terminally ill patients. No differences in the intensity of fear of death were Fear of Death found between believers and unbelievers. Personal nearness to death also did not reveal any meaningful differences between believers and unbelievers. What did emerge was a pattern generally characteristic of all the populations studied, highpointing an ambivalent acceptance-avoidance approach toward fear of death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research on farm and nonfarm families differences in religious beliefs and practices. Generally, it is believed that farm families hold more traditional religious beliefs and are more active in church and home religious activities than nonfarm families. Social changes have been occurring in rural American society, which may invalidate these propositions. Yet, since religious beliefs and practices are rooted in value systems, which are not subject to major changes in a short time span, it is probable that the traditionally assumed farm-nonfarm differences in religious beliefs and practices still exist. No current research is available, however, to test these hypotheses. Some limited data are offered to test the hypothesis that Protestant farm parents and farm-reared college students adhere to more conservative religious beliefs and engage more actively in religious practices than nonfarm parents and their college students. Data were obtained from 38 farm girls and 30 farm boys and from 73 nonfarm girls and 24 nonfarm boys who were students at Iowa State University.

The nineteenth century began with a partial reaction against the abstract rationalism of the enlightenment and saw a growing awareness of the complex role of religion in the development of human consciousness. Yet at the same time the certainty grew among the secular intellectuals that Christianity, still defended largely by the old arguments and the old formulas, could not be taken seriously in its own terms. There grew up alongside of the continuing use of consequential reductionism, several varieties of what the author calls "symbolic reductionism." From this point of view religion is not entirely fraudulent. Much of nineteenth-century social science developed out of the search for the truth hidden in the falsity of religion, the truth behind symbols. It is the author's contention that implicit in the work of the great symbolic reductionists was another possible position with entirely different implications for the place of religion in culture, a position he will call "symbolic realism." Two secular intellectuals Herbert Fingarette and Norman Brown oppose any kind of symbolic reductionism.

The theoretical schema of the sciences of action developed by the sociologist Talcott Parsons in "The Social System," is fundamentally inimical with the Christian tradition conceived almost as broadly as possible without reducing that tradition to a minority. In this article the ordering of the sciences according to the schema developed by Parsons has been outlined. In addition, the bases of the classification of types of belief systems have been examined, and the fundamental notions on the basis of which the schematism stands or falls will be suggested. Finally, these fundamental notions have been criticized from an alternative perspective related to a different conception of the social studies. The whole schematism that has been reviewed here is inextricably related to the classification of belief systems. Parsons develops a four-fold typology of belief systems and contrasts non-scientific types of belief systems with scientific belief systems. In conclusion, the author of this article turn to an external critique of Parsons. Formulations from an alternative perspective have been contrasted with those of Parsons.

The article discusses various dimensions of religion. Members of different class strata, have different styles of religious expression: various dimensions of religion appeal quite differently to those variously placed in the class structure. Religion, then, cannot he seen to be of a single piece. It must be conceived of as containing a number of different facets, some of which can be thought of as being almost contradictory to others. This raises a host of questions. To begin with: How do two of these dimensions of religious expression, formal religious activity, such as church attendance, and religious feeling or involvement, relate to one another? Since each relates to a third variable, social class, in the opposite manner, yet both are aspects of religious sociation, the question might legitimately be raised as to how they themselves correlate. The article discusses, by introducing formal non church participation: How does it relate to social class? It further discusses whether it relate in the same direction and to the same degree as church participation.

Evidence is presented that 2 major factor dimensions that jointly account for major proportions of the variance of the social-emotional functioning of young children represent relatively enduring personality predispositions. Kindergarten children (N = 287) were rated by their teachers on classroom functioning and by testers on test-taking behavior; most of the children (N = 271) were rated again by their classroom teacher at the end of the first grade and by testers in the first half of the second grade. The factor dimensions were found to have moderate stability over time and across settings. Longitudinal stability was enhanced substantially when matching factor scores were pooled across settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reinforcement analysis of fertility, emphasizing the principles of applied behavior analysis, shifts attention from response-inferred constructs (beliefs, attitudes, wishes, and preferences) to manipulable environmental variables demonstrated to be functionally related to fertility behavior. The analysis suggests a variety of relevant target behaviors to be strengthened by setting up appropriate reinforcement contingencies (incentive systems). Attention is paid to the practical difficulties that are met in any effort to manipulate important reinforcers for large masses of people. It is concluded that a functional analysis offers both practically useful techniques and a powerful research paradigm; the analysis should facilitate efforts by governments and other social agencies to lower fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years some scholars of religion have observed that religious belief in the United States is so declining rapidly that a post-Christian era seems both inevitable and imminent. Survey data for national samples of Americans suggest, however, that there has been no appreciable decline in levels of religious belief in recent years and that the generational factor does not play as crucial a role as has been thought. Analysis of Gallup data shows that between 1957 and 1968 levels of belief in two basic Christian tenets (belief in an afterlife and belief in the devil) remained about the same. At the same time, however, there was a marked decline in the proportion of Americans expressing uncertainty regarding these beliefs, and an increase in the proportions openly espousing disbelief. It is our contention that past researchers have failed to distinguish between decline in belief and increase in disbelief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operationalized categories for the experience of transcendence were developed from Stace's criteria of introvertive mysticism. From 123 Ss who took Allport's Religious Orientation Scale, 25 extremely extrinsic Ss and 25 extremely intrinsic Ss were identified based upon independent use of the Extrinsic and Intrinsic subscales. These Ss were then asked to volunteer for interviews concerning their most significant personal experience. These completed interviews (20 intrinsic, 21 extrinsic) were then coded on the basis of our operationalized categories for the experience of transcendence. Results indicated that, as predicted, groups of intrinsically oriented Ss reported more experiences codifiable as transcendent than did groups of extrinsically oriented Ss. The importance of these data for the validity of Allport's assumption of experiential aspects of intrinsic religiosity as operationalized in the Allport-Ross Intrinsic Scale is discussed. Also, the importance of the sympathetic study of these paradoxical experiences is briefly emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of current occupational status and intergenerational differences in occupational status upon individual beliefs in doctrinal orthodoxy are examined in light of three hypotheses. A dissociative hypothesis would predict excessively high levels of orthodoxy for mobile persons, suggesting that the consequences of social mobility would work to counteract processes of secularization. An acculturation hypothesis would predict that mobile persons will be intermediate in degree of orthodoxy to persons at their strata of origin and destination, suggesting that in the societal context of an excess of upward over downward mobility, social mobility would generate a net increase in secularization. A cognitive dissonance hypothesis would predict excessively low levels of orthodoxy among mobile persons, suggesting that social mobility reinforces processes of secularization. The data generally best fit a model consistent with the acculturation hypothesis, though sufficient deviations occur to warrant a discussion of the conditions which foster dissociative and dissonance effects as manifested in orthodox religious beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers four formulations of cognitive organization, each of which makes different implicit assumptions about the criteria subjects use to organize their beliefs and attitudes: the subjective probability model; congruity theory; cognitive balance theory; and symbolic psychologic theory. In each case, the existence of the Socratic effect is used as a basis for assessing the general validity of the formulation and the extent of its generality over different types of beliefs. The Socratic effect, or the tendency for cognitions to increase in consistency once they have been made salient to a subject in close temporal proximity, is viewed as a criterion for the validity of alternative theoretical formulations of cognitive organization. Three studies were performed to test the generality of this effect. Beliefs hypothesized to be related in a manner described by four different laws of mathematical probability became more consistent over time; these changes were similar in magnitude regardless of the importance of the issue to which the beliefs pertained, and regardless of whether these beliefs were evaluative or nonevaluative. However, consistency as defined by congruity theory, balance theory, and the principles of symbolic psychologic did not increase once the cognitions involved were made salient. Implications of these findings for cognitive organization processes are discussed.

The problem of order and the age-old debate over conflict and consensus continues to animate modern social theory. The article critically appraises sociologist Edward Shils' relatively uncelebrated contribution in the rescue of the classical consensual view of society from its current state of disrepute by fusing it with tenets derived from conflict framework. Shils' theory of society builds upon the premise that 'Every society, seen macro-sociologically, may be interpreted as a centre and a periphery.' These 'zones' have both a structural and a cultural aspect. Defined in terms of structure, the centre consists of those institutions and roles which exercise authority, while the periphery consists of those strata or sectors of society which are recipients of commands and of beliefs which they do not themselves create or cause to be diffused. Alongside the institutional structure of authority relations, Shils suggests that every society also acquires a central cultural system. Unlike 'orthodox' consensus theorists who see consensus deriving from a natural identity of interest served by a common stake in cooperative activity, Shils explicitly rejects the notion that a fundamental harmony of interest undergirds social order.

Difficulties in applying the concept of belief consistency are discussed. It is suggested that social pressures arising from interaction at times influence individuals to adapt particular beliefs which are inconsistent with other beliefs; consequently, autonomous individuals who are freer from external pressures should have more latitude for ordering their beliefs along a dimension of consistency than non-autonomous, involved individuals. Data from a study of working-class wives are presented to test the hypothesis that belief consistency varies inversely with involvement in social relationships. The findings reported partially support the hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the autobiography of the author, Wilbert E. Moore. An invitation to write an autobiography provides an excuse for retrospective reconstruction that could lead to distortion. In this essay at presentation of the self, or at least the professional self, the author strives valiantly for candor, for no other style would befit one passionately committed to the dispassionate observation and analysis of the regularities and irregularities in the human condition. The author testifies to being committed to a calling, with all that entails by way of attitude and belief as well as the mandates of competence and performance. His career has been almost exclusively academic, and in that career he has been aware of a behavioral norm that is summarized as the pressure to publish or the equally alliterative admonition "publish" or "perish." Sociology as a discipline is accused of being irrelevant, or relevant for the wrong interest and ideologies; of being complacent while the world collapses; of being inattentive to the demands of the young, the disaffected, the disadvantaged. Some of these charges have a grain of truth, but the animus behind them often strikes me as destructive and corrupt. The author's basic view is that the only tolerable adjectival qualifiers attached to the term sociology refer to substantive specialties and never to ideological stances.

The article states that humans are living in a world in which their stockpile of knowledge is growing at an ever-increasing pace. Unfortunately, the intellectual capacities of the human being to whom this knowledge should be useful are changing very little. There is, in fact, no evidence that able men of today excel able men of years gone by. Some insight into the difficulties, which exist in making knowledge useful, is gained from the rather natural division of knowledge into two broad areas: accumulative and non-accumulative.

This article discusses the concept of internal-external control in the motivational dynamics of Negro youth. As defined, internal control represents a person's belief that rewards follow from, or are contingent upon, his own behavior. Conversely, external control represents the belief that rewards are controlled by forces outside himself and thus may occur independently of his own actions. Measures of this concept are: Internal-External Control scale, Intellectual Achievement Responsibility scale, Children's Picture Test of Internal Control, and the Children's Internal-External Control scale. These measures have proved useful in explaining a variety of behaviors. A major focus in the current poverty literature is on the concept of powerlessness. Powerlessness is defined as the probability held by the individual that his own behavior cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes he seeks. This definition is very similar to the internal-external control. Indeed, the Internal-External Control scale is frequently used to measure the sense of powerlessness.

The article comments on the place of labor in the American tradition and highlights a few examples of labor folklore. The thesis states that labor lacks the necessary class consciousness or even job consciousness to constitute a special movement. The best approach to examine whether a labor song is an item of folklore or an evil plot is to accept a moderate standard and to judge separate pieces as they come to hand. The four forms of labor folklore are tale, dialect, ritual and custom-belief. The importance of labor lore to unionism is for collecting purposes and for an intelligent appraisal of the material's contemporary utilization.

The article focuses on the growth of an indigenous social philosophy in the U.S. From the Mayflower compact to the Atlantic Charter men of a common tongue have spoken and written words of conviction in their day which have piloted their people on a voyage of social and political discovery slowly unfolding a better way of living together. Well into a fourth century historians, biographers and analysts have recorded and interpreted what has been done under the gradual broadening and deepening of the concepts of democracy. That is the wellspring which has now been tapped. Out of this crystal clear reservoir of the very words of the prophets of the U.S., some of their own hour and some of years beyond themselves, Francis W. Coker, Alfred Cowles Professor of Government at Yale University, has drawn the water of a nation's life. Much of it has long since gone over the dam of finite time, although it miraculously retains the freshness of its ripple in the suns of yesterday.

Four theories purporting to explain patterns of prejudice among church members were tested separately and simultaneously using matched samples of Presbyterian and Methodist church members in the North and the South. Status concern and dogmatism were the strongest determinants of prejudice in both North and South. Religious variables such as orthodoxy and ethicalism proved to be weaker and associated only with anti-black prejudice, not anti-Semitism. Allport's chewy of intrinsic-extrinsic religiosity and prejudice was not supported; it is argued that past research findings on intrinsic-extrinsic religiosity can be interpreted in terms of status concern and dogmatism. The strongest determinants of prejudice among church members appear to be personality factors rather than religious beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that mutually inconsistent religious beliefs do not necessarily product cognitive conflict in their adherents. Examples gathered from research undertaken in Thailand are presented showing that there are various ways people use to cope with a logical contradiction between one master religious principle to which they subscribe and certain other specific beliefs and practices to which they also subscribe. It is suggested that for Thai Buddhists, and perhaps for most people everywhere, the test of the compatibility of religious beliefs and practices is not whether they are logically consistent but whether they are felt to cohere, that is, whether they are felt to be true. Several hypotheses are developed to account for how people manage to acquire and sustain the conviction that the various elements of their religion are true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the Weberian use of the term 'secularization" as a point of departure, the author has questioned the identification of the term with the abandonment of religious beliefs per se. He distinguishes between two kinds of abandonment, namely eradication and effacement. These two concepts refer to distinct phenomena growing out of very different social conditions and circumstances. Eradication is an abandonment of religious rituals, symbols, or beliefs that reflects a loss of faith in underlying religious values, whereas effacement is an abandonment that does not reflect such a loss. Three cases of symbolic change which occurred in a Djerban synagogue in Israel are discussed and the analysis is extended through a comparison with a Lele ritual. The three Djerban examples in the Israeli environment and the Lele ritual were found to be instances of effacement, In all four cases the very act of abandonment of the religious symbols, which was due to the fact that the particular symbols in question no longer conform with the experiential situation of the actors, actually led to a reaffirmation of the symbol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social transfers of scarce values are accomplished by exchange, by coercion, and by giving. Religiously sanctioned sharing (alms-giving, donations, bequests, or "charity") appears to exist in most and perhaps all societies. Encouragement, injunctions, and imperatives concerning giving are very frequent in religious systems, and acts of benevolence often are invested with profound religious significance and value. But "giving" is also a widespread social pattern in contexts which can hardly be called religious. Accordingly, we begin with two central questions: (1) Why and bow do social units (individuals or collectivities) transfer scarce and valuable rights? (2) of those transfers which we classify as giving, what is the pan played in the total pattern by religious beliefs, nines and symbols, and how is giving linked to the basic character of the environing society? A selective sketch of these complex problems is given here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If one adopts a definition of religion that emphasizes its function, as in coping with chaos or in expressing ultimate concern (rather than the forms which serve such functions in one system or another), the more crucial measurement question becomes "How is a person religious?" rather than "How religious is he?" Following the analogy of structural linguistics or of natural history, an exploratory effort was made, with open-ended, non-doctrinal questions to tap the natural expression of ultimate concern among a college sample. Students did indicate overwhelmingly their inclinations to pursue basic, permanent questions. Those most expressing such concerns were most likely to belong to groups formed to address such concerns. (Editor's abstract.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis is tested that in special conditions religious beliefs can function as a stablizing force on personal and social systems. The sample was drawn from an urban hospital population, using criteria that produced a largely low-income sample of mothers. The data show that under the conditions of heightened psycho-situational stress and limited resources for adaptation, mothers who located causality of illness in God, in contrast to those who viewed illness as naturalistically determined, were more likely to report a marginal rather than a difficult or a smooth adaptation to family disruptions during illness. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those who study religion scientifically have tended to ignore a category of religious phenomenon which appears to be of significance and an understanding of which provides a more complete understanding of religious behavior. That category is the religious "nones." This article (1) calls attention to this neglect; (2) discusses some of the implications of the use of the "none" label; (3) explores some evidence of the relationship between nonaffiliation and a) other religious variables such as beliefs, religious experience, and participation in religious meetings and rituals and b) other social behavior; and (4) explores some methodological and theoretical considerations arising from this analysis. On the basis of this evidence, it is suggested that the religious "none" or independent is a phenomenon worthy of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have identified several dimensions reflecting the concepts used by religious people in describing God. Semantic Differential research has also found adjectival factors which apply to numerous concepts, including that of God. The present study sought to identify replicable factors in the conceptualization of the deity from both areas of previous research. Adjectives of possible applicability to the concept of "God" were included in a hierarchical factor analysis. A general factor of the Traditional Christian concept appeared along with factors previously identified (Deisticness, Eternality, Evaluation, Kindliness, Omni-ness, and Wrathfulness) as well as several new dimensions (e.g., Irrelevancy and Potently Passive). The internal consistency of each scale resulting from the factor analysis was determined in another sample of subjects and indicated that most of the factors could be easily measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the construct validity of the Religious scale of the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values (SV R scale). The SV and a slightly modified form of the Aspects of Religious Belief Questionnaire (ARBQ) (Allport, Gillespie, & Young, 1948) were administered to 378 freshmen students, 60% of whom were male. Items from the SV R scale and from the ARBQ were intercorrelated and the resulting matrix reduced to five factors which accounted for 92% of the SV R score variance. In partial disagreement with the SV manual, results suggest that the Pt scale indicates an activist who approaches religion intellectually and rationally, generally endorses traditional forms of Christian institutions, and seeks to apply religious principles in daffy life. The interpretation of each factor and its relation to Allport's "extrinsicintrinsic" dimension of religion is discussed. Reinterpretations of representative studies and implications of these revisions for studies in areas outlined by the SV manual are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The null-hypothesis that "religion" is unidimensional was tested on a local sample of Methodists. Relevant literature was examined for possible dimensions. Eleven were found or constructed and questionnaire items covering many aspects of individual belief and congregational involvement were selected as possible indicators. Factor and cluster analyses were used. Sixteen factors and twelve clusters of some interest were obtained. Agreements between the analyses led to the conclusions that: 1. For these data, the unidimensional view should be rejected; 2. Nine dimensions can be presented for further study, several of which awe similar to some previously proposed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on controversies associated with the revival of religion in the U.S. based on a comparative cross-century study of religions in a northern vermont town. For more than a decade, scholars have been discussing vigorously whether there has been a revival of religion in the U.S. but unfortunately, the empirical evidence has not been convincing enough to resolve the controversy in any definite direction. It is argued that basic longterm changes in formal religious affiliation and practice and the current high level of religious belief and practice and observance, existed in the past, have not occurred. It is observed on the political parameter that the decline in the last 120 years in the relative abilities of men who have chosen the ministry as a profession; the fact that whereas other fields such as literature, journalism, and education have grown so tremendously, religion has only held its ground; and that this ground has been relatively independent of determination by the laws of supply and demand.

This article focuses on some mythological and psychological behaviours and beliefs regarding certain religious claims in the U.S. and Great Britain. A number of contemporary philosophers, based on their studies and researches, have been puzzled by the apparently non-falsifiable status of religious claims because they think that, although it is a sociological fact that many people think they are making ordinary factual claims in their God-talk, it is a logical fact that such talk does not behave like ordinary factual discourse. A series of questions have been arised in the article to clarify the fact and their logics. These questions are: Do religious beliefs have factual significance?; Do they obey the rules for propositions?; Or is their content inexpressible in propositional form?; If religious beliefs do not obey the rules of propositions, then do they obey other rules and hence have a meaning or structure uniquely their own?. Responses to these questions have led to a kind of religious scepticism.

Religious belief constitutes a predominantly cognitive activity, acquired and sustained by social influences and expressed in a number of ways, including religious practices. Religious beliefs are categories by which people can explain, interpret and cope with the natural world, while religious practices give tangible expression to these beliefs. Religious beliefs are acquired and maintained within a social context which supports and moulds them. The affective concomitants of religious beliefs are probably not specific to religion, being more subtle and variable than those usually postulated. Affective factors influence the way in which an individual expresses any belief. This interpretation is based on the primary finding that there is a single factor to which a variety of religious variables are related and that this factor is functionally independent of personality measures and of attitudes to the social world. The religious belief factor is independent of general response set, opinion strength and certainty about matters of fact and opinion. There appears however to be close similarity between this religious belief factor and the factor of religionism that has commonly been extracted from studies of the structure of social attitudes.

Every society involves many systems of beliefs, symbols and practices, some of which differentiate subpopulations and some of which integrate these subgroups into one society. The society, if it is to remain a society, must express its unity of subpopulations through a commonly held symbol system. The integration of a society is, however, never complete, tension and conflict are constant possibilities and actualities between different subpopulations as well as between different areas of activities. Such tension and conflict between symbol systems have a greater probability of occurring in a relatively differentiated society than in a relatively homogenous society. One area of conflict is that between religious and nonreligious systems. Such conflict is often grounded in the differences of appeal, the one appealing to an absolute, transcendental authority which tends to be sacred and the other appealing to tradition, social relations, expediency, etc. The tension and conflict involving religious systems occur not only between religious and nonreligious systems but also between one religious system and another.

To study psychological belonging to a group is to investigate the meaning, patterns, and causes of the "word" by which a person ratifies a community relation by truthfully saying "we." Murray Ross, a sociologist, in his investigation of religious belief of the members of the Y.M.C.A., noted that only three out of hundred respondents individually questioned had exercised a function or assumed an active responsibility in the life of the church, to which they felt more like clients. The author in this article emphasizes on three particular circumstances of the psychological viewpoint: the ambiguity of signs of belonging, the psychic over-determination of motives and attitudes of belonging, and the deep-seated ambivalence of the human psychism in regard to all belonging. The descriptions are chosen as to illustrate belonging or refusal to belong to a Church. The author hopes that some instruments of scientific evaluation will soon be developed so that the ideas of ambivalence and identification can pass from the theoretical and clinical level to that of statistically elaborated observations.

Supernaturalism has attracted even philosophers and scientists, who generally believe, infect claims that these things are not true at all. In the article, the author argues, on the contrary, that to be really a theist is an impossibility. According to theic concept, to say that something is a goddess, a deity, an angel, a devil, a hell, a purgatory, or a heaven is not necessarily to say that it is nonnatural. In fact, the natural uses may be better than the supernatural uses, if the super- natural is not a logically impeccable concept, or at any rate insofar as the super- naturalist employs theic words thinking they are object words. The positive function of the super- natural is to provide a guarantee that one's hopes and wishes will be eventually fulfilled. The supernatural indoctrinators do not so describe their job. They speak of "religious instruction." But this is a euphemism, as becomes evident as soon as it is realized that this kind of "teaching" proceeds by means of falsehoods at an age when the mind of the "victim" is not fully developed.

This article presents a reply to comments of college teachers Horace L. Friess and Gibson Winter, on views of the author on religion, expressed in the October 1962 issue of the "Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion."According to the author, Winter presents a sound criticism when he questions the use of the word "supreme" in the affirmation that one characteristic of religion is the belief-attitude that. certain "aspects of life are of supreme importance. The word is badly chosen. The author wrote thinking of it as plural rather than as singular, intending it to modify a number of "aspects of life." However, to some readers, the word has the meaning of the "highest in a rank order"; according to this usage, only one aspect of life could be considered to be religious, at any rate at any one time. Accordingly, the author wishes to leave out of the definition, the words of "supreme," and to change the word "Importance" to "important." The author agrees that Friess is correct that his article dismisses the functional approach, because it does not tell people what religion is.

Religious attitudes appear in various forms and may be observed as faith, church attendance or as participation and leadership in church organizations. Education in secular subjects, even when supervised by sectarian groups, very often undermines traditional religious belief. A sense of religion is negatively correlated with the possession of mental abilities. Religious knowledge and scholastic achievements evidently have a common basis in the mental abilities of the subjects. The participants in religious organizations perform consistently better on scholastic tests than the non-participants and those who participate intensively perform better than those who are casual participants. Students who score high on scholastic tests are also likely to score high on religious knowledge and to participate intensively in religious organizations. The church orientation of the environment does not function as a reinforcement of the scholastic aptitudes, but as an independent factor, with the more church-oriented background accounting for higher achievement on the Religion Test.

The article presents an investigation of the prevalence of belief in certain popular science misconceptions among a group of in-service teachers in the common schools for African Americans in Georgia in 1952. One hundred popular science misconceptions were used in the study. They were those that had been compiled by Cyril H. Hancock and judged by a group of 53 experienced teachers to be the most important ones, of a list of 292 misconceptions, in terms of their potentialities for affecting the behavior of a person subservient to them. As a result of the statistical techniques that Hancock used in his study, the 100 science misconceptions were arranged in descending order of importance as shown by the composite evaluation of the 53 science teachers.

The article presents a study which refers to the elimination of superstitious beliefs prevailing among children. In the study three minor phases were considered. The study had problems like survey of only the most commonly heard superstitions, relative difficulty of removal of distinct superstitions, and a collection of local superstitions. The students of junior high school studying general science were the target group of the investigations. The procedure of the investigation involved a pre-test of 198 superstitions from four general science classes. A teaching unit named "How Knowledge Grows," referring to scientific thinking and superstitious beliefs was made known to children . All the selected classes were divided into five groups with six members in each group. It was concluded that girls tend to believe superstitions pretty faster than boys and weather connected misconception can be removed by direct teaching.

The article focuses on the scientific investigations regarding the various aspects of superstitions and other unfounded beliefs. The researches presented several experiments on ways of correcting superstitions and other unfounded beliefs. The author points out that there have significant differences in the erroneous beliefs of the respondents. Significantly, several notions of unfounded beliefs are revealed in the experiments on common popular beliefs of children. Furthermore, the origin and nature of influence of many common superstitions and other unfounded beliefs were examined.

The article focuses on bad faith and ethical risk sensitivity. The empirical study of bad faith is of interest, not only because of its high prevalence, but also because of the rather ambiguous role which social sanctions can be expected to play in a form of conduct that apparently violates the standards of personal integrity as much as the ethical or legal standards of society Previous research has shown that a person's generalized sensitivity to social censure, termed his ethical risk sensitivity, was the only determinent in a series of predictive judgments about unethical conduct which was significantly associated with the unethical behavior of the judges. The purpose of the present study is to relate ethical risk sensitivity to behavior simulating bad faith. Ss are induced to practice deception by secretly violating the instructions of an experiment, thereby invalidating its results However, cognition of the deception is greatly reduced because of its apparent appropriateness and because no external incentives are administered, thus eliminating clear expectancies of gain or censure. Following the experiment Ss are asked to state whether they had violated any experimental instructions. Risk sensitivity is measured either before or after the behavior.