Survival of the most memorable : Darwin’s textual afterlife through rhetoric in On the Origin of Species

The unassuming Charles Darwin did not invent the theory of evolution. However, one reason why Charles Darwin specifically appears as the figurehead for evolution, and not somebody else, comes from his rhetorical endeavour to create a textual afterlife for himself. Creating a personal afterlife for yourself within your written works is a trait that scholars have observed as a goal within many literary poets, authors, and scholars of the 19th century. Darwin, apparently, also imbued himself into his writings, especially On The Origin of Species, to create his own textual afterlife, one that would survive the other evolutionists of his era. Darwin survived by creating his own textual afterlife through the rhetorical elements of identification with his audiences and transcendence, concepts theorised by the 20th Century rhetorician, Kenneth Burke, strategies that Burke argued were the most fundamental to persuasion. I will show how Darwin survives the other evolutionists by creating his own textual afterlife that would connect to and exist in the collective memory of not only his contemporary Victorians, but also generations of people who would come cross Darwin and his theory of evolution.peer-reviewe

Dante's Afterlife in Argentina

In the 1890s, Bartolomé Mitre (President of Argentina from 1862-1868) published a Spanish translation of the Divine Comedy that was as key to the diffusion of Dante in the Río de la Plata as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s English translation (1867) was in the U.S. This article examines Mitre’s motives for dedicating a decade of his life to the translation, as well as his mission to bring European (and specifically Italian) high culture to his fledgling nation. I have found Mitre’s reading of Dante to have important resonances with the readings of Risorgimento Italians such as Mazzini, who associated Dante with political unity, morality, and high culture. This study also examines Mitre’s role as an advocate of Italian immigration to Argentina

Konsum im Jenseits?

Many contributions to the economics of religion postulate an "afterlife consumption motive." People are assumed to maximize total utility--including afterlife utility. This essay argues that the approach is unsatifactory for several reasons. First, many regularities in religious participation may be explained by ordinary consumption theory without invoking an afterlife; second, there exist religions that do not postulate an afterlife, and there are religions that suppose an afterlife yet do not allow men to influence their fate in the hereafter by good deeds; and third, if afterlife consumption were the foundation for religious demand, we would observe an inflation of promises about afterlife bliss, brought about by competition among the religions. It is proposed to follow David Hume (1775) and see religious demand as originating from the desire of human beings to understand the world and justify their action. This religious motive ("quest for sense") can explain the emergence of ideas about an afterlife and afterlife consumption in monotheistic religions and permits to understand why an inflation of afterlife promises does not occur

Afterlife Beliefs, Attachment, and Continuing Bonds in Predicting Complicated Grief

This study examined the possible moderating effect afterlife beliefs and attachment have on the impact of continuing bonds on complicated grief. Although research has examined the relationship between attachment and complicated grief, and between afterlife beliefs and complicated grief, little is known about how these constructs interact with continuing bonds to affect complicated grief symptomatology. Research questions asked: (a) Does complicated grief symptomology (CGS) severity differ between individuals who hold afterlife beliefs versus those who do not? (b) Does the presence of internalized continuing bonds (ICB) expressions differ between individuals who hold afterlife beliefs versus those who do not? (c) Does attachment insecurity moderate the relationship between ICB and CGS? (d) Does the strength of an individual’s afterlife beliefs moderate the relationship between ICB and CGS? To answer these questions, a cross-sectional design was used. A convenience sample of bereaved university students (n = 175) was collected, and a MANOVA and a hierarchical regression were run. Initial analyses showed that neither CGS nor ICB differed according to afterlife belief. Additionally, neither attachment insecurity nor afterlife beliefs moderated the relationship between ICB and CGS. Post hoc analyses, which used all participants, regardless of their expressed afterlife beliefs, found that CGS still did not differ according to afterlife belief, but ICB did. Specifically, Individuals who reported afterlife beliefs reported significantly more ICB than those that were unsure of their afterlife beliefs. Furthermore, in a hierarchical regression, strength of afterlife beliefs predicted the use of ICB. Post hoc analyses also found that afterlife beliefs moderated the relationship between ICB and CGS, with ICB becoming less predictive of CGS as strength of afterlife belief increased. Additionally, post hoc analyses were run using the ECB subscale of the CBS-R. These analyses found that ECB did not differ according to afterlife beliefs. Furthermore, afterlife beliefs and attachment avoidance individually both moderated the relationship between ECB and CGS, with ECB being less predictive of CGS as strength of each attachment anxiety and afterlife beliefs increased. Lastly it was found that a belief that one would be reunited explained a significant amount of variance in ICB expressions. Overall, the results from this study added to the literature on continuing bonds, afterlife beliefs, attachment, and grief. It also provides some implications for future research and clinical implications that suggest that the impact ICB and ECB have on CGS may be influenced by the strength of afterlife beliefs. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that ICB expressions are related to afterlife beliefs. This study also emphasized the need to measure ICB and ECB as separate constructs and indicated afterlife beliefs may best be measured as a continuous variable

The greying church: the impact of life expectancy on religiosity

Purpose: In recent years, there has been an expanding literature on the socio-economic determinants of religiosity. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this stream of the literature by studying the impact of life expectancy on religiosity through a theoretical decision-making framework, and by separately examining the decision of young and old individuals with respect to religious participation. Design/methodology/approach: The paper analyses religiosity through a cost-benefit framework, where decisions at each point in time depend on expected social and spiritual benefits attached to religious adherence (both contemporaneously, as well as in the afterlife), the probability of entering heaven in the afterlife, as well as the costs of formal religion in terms of time allocated to religious activities. It provides the theoretical underpinnings for the negative correlation between life expectancy and religious attendance previously observed in empirical analysis. Findings: The analysis reveals how increases in life expectancy encourage postponement of religious involvement, particularly in religion doctrines that do not necessarily link salvation (or afterlife benefits more broadly) to the timing of religiosity. This demonstrates that religious establishments should anticipate to attract older members, particularly in countries which have high life expectancy or expect significant increases in life expectancy, although current socio-economic benefits can counterbalance the negative impact of life expectancy on religiosity and hence encourage religious involvement. Originality/value: The paper contributes to the literature on the economics of religion by exploring the mediating role of life expectancy in explaining cross-country differences in religious expression, a channel that has so far received little attention in the literature. Its innovation lies in distinguishing decision making over different time intervals and evaluating the role of benefits and costs through the life cycle and in the afterlife. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Religious identity and perceptions of afterlife gleaned from a funerary monument to a young girl from (late) Roman Melite

Possibly late during the Roman occupation of Malta, a young deceased girl had a funerary monument set up in her memory by her loving mother. Analysis of both epigraphic content and iconographic elements on this monument would show that the mother; at least, is likely to have been originally a public slave but later achieved manumission, a status which remained to be enjoyed by herself and by her daughter. Moreover, they seem to have adhered to the then commonly held beliefs regarding the nature of death and afterlife. Yet, identifying their beliefs on the nature of death and afterlife did not prove sufficient to determine their religious identity as such beliefs were evidently shared by different religious groups.peer-reviewe

Non-cognitivism and the Problem of Moral-based Epistemic Reasons: A Sympathetic Reply to Cian Dorr

According to Cian Dorr, non-cognitivism has the implausible implication that arguments like the following are cases of wishful thinking: If lying is wrong, then the souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife; lying is wrong; therefore, the souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife. Dorr further claims that if non-cognitivism implies that the above argument and similar arguments are cases of wishful thinking, then non-cognitivism remains implausible even if one solves the so-called Frege-Geach problem. Dorr’s claims have faced a number of objections, but I believe that Dorr is on to something. So, after summarizing Dorr’s argument and briefly describing three flaws in what Dorr claims, I shall present a distinct objection to non-cognitivism and use the preceding to show what Dorr’s argument gets right and what it gets wrong