Religious Alief

doi:10.1017/epi.2026.10109

Religious Alief

2026-01-01

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Thomas J. Spiegel *

DOI：10.1017/epi.2026.10109

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Abstract

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Traditional philosophy of religion has been put under pressure to reform from different theoretical camps in the last few decades. One of the most salient charges is that the focus on belief as the mark of religion fails to capture a wide variety of religious phenomena and practices, particularly those outside of the Abrahamitic traditions. As a response to this challenge, this article proposes and develops the notion of religious alief as an additional analytical tool to conceptualize religious phenomena that elude characterization in terms of belief. This article first introduces religious aliefs as largely automatic, habitual mental states that influence behavior, feelings, and attitudes, even when a person does not hold an overt or tacit belief in the supernatural content involved. Subsequently, this article argues that religious phenomena such as apotropaic rituals, purification rituals, spontaneous prayer in crisis, jinx (and other folk-religious notions), certain taboos, and the recently coined Somethingism can be explained in terms of religious aliefs.

Keywords:

Alief

religious belief

philosophy of religion

epistemology

cognitive science of religion

non-belief

ritual practice

somethingism

Religious Alief

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